Little America

Yesterday I went to an elementary school at an American military facility in Okinawa. I helped chaperone a cultural exchange visit between my Tuesday school (about 60 students in grades 1-6) and the American school (about 1,000 students). We prepared for many Tuesdays in a row, reviewing self-introductions and questions they could ask the American kids. The 5th and 6th graders could successfully ask and answer the following questions:

What's your name?

How are you?

How old are you?

What's your hobby?

Do you like _____?

What _____ do you like? (animal, vegetable, sport...)

Do you have a ______?

We made sure to explain to the 1st and 2nd graders that even though we play Rock, Scissors, Paper after introducing ourselves in class, they shouldn't do it at the American school. It might confuse the other kids. It's part of the game we play in class... not English introductions. Apparently they were surprised about this.

We even gave my students English names so that they could practice listening to foreign names. And so they would hopefully recognize and be able to pronounce the American kids' names. A good idea, but my students thought the foreign names were hysterically funny.

I was assigned to escort the six 6th graders throughout the day. As we started to walk into the school, the students started saying "scary scary scary" in Japanese over and over again. Most of them had a deer in headlights sort of look on their faces. Until yesterday, I might have been the only non-Japanese person some of them had ever met. Or even seen up close.

We visited four 6th grade classes. In the first class, we made airplanes out of paper, straws, and paper towel rolls. This was related to a science/physics lesson. They were competing to see who could make a plane that would fly the farthest. In the next class, the American kids tried to ask my students questions in Japanese. But the questions they had written down were grammatically incorrect and confusing... and their pronunciation was terrible. So I had to repeat the Japanese question so my students could understand. In the next class, the students played computer games, tic tac toe, and kickball together. And then finally we attended a math class on fractions, decimals, and mixed numbers.

Throughout the day, I was expected to translate. I was paired with the Japanese 6th grade teacher, who speaks more English than most elementary school teachers do. But I suppose his English and my Japanese are about the same level. Which is quite poor. So the American teachers would talk for a few minutes, giving instructions to the students. And then ask me to translate. So I would tell the Japanese teacher: "One more minute. Then lunch. Over there. Let's go!" And he would explain these ideas much more fluently to his students. I'm not so sure that I spoke any English to my students all day long. And they had probably never heard me speak Japanese before. Usually when I visit their school, teachers have to translate so that the students can understand me.

It was a great experience for my students, who were shocked at all the different skin and hair colors they saw. And who were shocked at how tall American students are. (My students certainly looked a few years younger than the American students.) It was a good opportunity for them to be exposed to English, even if I never heard any of them ask the questions we had practiced in class. And I particularly enjoyed that they learned that not all countries have toilet slippers!