Job Discussion Forums

[crankyjiji]

The longer I`m here, the more I`m reminded of the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau`s aphorism that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation".

My students are company workers who need to use English with their overseas customers. It`s a 120 hour course over 3 months in the early evenings.

They look and are exhausted. I do my best to make the classes enjoyable, but sometimes I`d rather send them home to sleep. But of course, if they weren`t in English class they would be back at their desks. Sometimes they stay until midnight or later. One guy comes in on Saturdays too. We joke about "karoshi" (death from overwork).

It`s one of those myths of Japan. "Japanese people are hardworking." Not really. These guys just spend lots of time at work at less than 100 percent efficiency because they are distracted by sleepiness and hunger.
They ought to go home are a reasonable hour, get a good night`s sleep, and come back to work refreshed and ready to concentrate.

Sadly, none of them would ever cast off their cultural/company albatrosses and tell everyone in the office "I have put in a hard day`s work today and now it is time for me to go home to my family and recharge myself for tomorrow. Goodnight!"

[Quibby84]

I know exactly what you mean....it is super sad but I have no clue what to do about it. I always tell them to go home or to work less but they dont listen to me....sad...

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

There's NOTHING a foreigner can do about it. Cram-free education was a failure because it's goal was to instil a 'zest for living/ life' in the students and Japanese teachers don't know what that means.

And so they will cram cram cram...have grammar test after grammar test after grammar test and then when they discover that Japanese kids are lagging behind other countries including -GASP!- Korea, then they will just increase the number of tests and grammar drills. There MUST be a way to learn English without using English, there MUST be! How do others do it? Oh, they USE English and get better? Ano, Ano thinking of our culture we Japanese cannot do that.

So we DRILL!!!! We DRILL!!! WE DRILL!!!!!

They have an education system built upon never having student think, but nstead passively memorize whatever the teacher says. Then they get out into the workforce, having not been taught to think, and so they can't. So then the head of the company does what the last guy did, and everybody else does what everybody else did and does and that means nobody recognizes that there is a problem somewhere, or if they do, there is nothing they can do about it, becuase if they speak up they'll get canned.

So parents are too exhausted to actually parent, and so they have kids busy not thinking but doing someting almost every second of the day. And whatever time the kids do spend at home will almost invarably be filled with video games or manga books, ensuring that the situation gets worse and worse.

After all "stay on target...stay on target..." worked great for Porkins. Oh WAIT!!!!

[cornishmuppet]

I explained to a co-worker the other day that the reason I go home at bang on 4pm everyday (as well as arriving at bang on 8.15pm) is because I'm British and that's part of my culture. She was equally impressed when I said I'd adopted a little bit of Japanese culture in that if I actually have something important to do (rarely) I'm prepared to stay late and finish it rather than leave it to the following morning, but otherwise, its clock chimes 4, out the door.

I also had a student who used to come to an evening class at seven straight from work, then go back there straight after, every time. I was impressed by his dedication, but couldn't help wondering what he did with his time. Probably nothing except push paper about until his boss left.

Personally, I can't help feeling a little sad for all the office workers who live a work-only lifestyle. But, really, its a cultural thing and its each to his/her own. If it makes them happy to work stupid hours for no extra pay, than fair play to them. Unfortunately, I doubt it does, its just they're caught up in this cultural net so to speak and have no way of getting out.

[southofreality]

Who am I to pity them?

I'm sure they don't pity me or others from my home country for some of the things they find to be dissatisfying about our culture and/or society.

[Mothy]

[TK4Lakers]

[alexcase]

I'm still hoping there's something you can do a bit more constructive than pitying students like that, but can't claim to have cracked the secret yet. Here are a few ideas I am working on for the knackered salaryman student classes:

- As well as the fun stuff mentioned, try to keep the mental load low for at least some of the activities. Stuff like testing each other on their verb tables can go down a treat, and while it isn't a huge step towards teaching them to really speak English, it can't hurt
- Loads and loads of revision, not just from previous lessons but also recycling the homework you just marked or testing something from the beginning of the lesson one more time
- Topics which are a complete escape from their lives, e.g. fantasy homes, celebrity gossip, travel, any cultural stuff about whatever they would consider an exotic country to be
- Even more than normal ESP classes, you need to show them that the English lessons are making their working life easier in some way in the near future. This usually means telephoning and emailing, but again with lots of games

I recently had a class who rebelled when the manager tried to make them come to their English classes at the beginning rather than whenever they had finished the work. The class is no more (and will be sadly missed, by me- I hope by them too!), but I say good on em for showing a bit of spunk. Half of them had had their gains in TOEIC score wiped out by getting a promotion and so being too busy to not need to do overtime the day before the exam.

[ohahakehte]

[alexcase]

It could be worse, Japan's Turkish residents recently had to put up with a rose tinted NHK special on the PKK freedom fighters missing their girls back home. Once you do click that it is an escapism thing, though, you can have some sympathy for your students not wanting too much truth. Can you imagine if the teacher of an adult education Thai language class back home spent the whole time talking about police corruption, dirty beaches and how many Thais secretly hate foreigners what their reaction would be?

[cornishmuppet]

[SeasonedVet]

GambateBingBangBOOM wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

Personally I agree with the OP here

[SeasonedVet]

Sorry for another post but I forgot to add:
You ask school teachers in japan this question "How are you today" the answer will var but alot of the time you might hear "I am so tired today" and then they go into the explanation as to why. How long they had to stay at work. But the thing is they say it as if it is a Trophy. They don't seem really bothered about it. They sound proud.

As a salaryman the same thing. he might give the same answer, but there is a hint of PRIDE in his voice.

Being tired and being seen as a hard worker contributing to the greater good and to the group is seen as a GOOD tTHING and something to be proud of.

Leaving work on the bell or exactly on the hour is NOT.

I have actually seen High School teachers during the Summer Holidays leaving work just a little after half day like 3:00 or 4:00 pm and ALTHOUGH they have the permission of the Vice Principal ( cause nothing is happening anyway and other teachers have been leaving one by one) and ALTHOUGH they know it's ok to go and that they CAN go,they STILL Kinda Slink out or Steal Away with head bowed or body in a bowed position and try their best not to let anybody know they are leaving when everybody ALREADY knows they are leaving. . That mindset and work ethic is Deep. Alot of us from cultures with quite different work ethics would take a while to either understand it or get accustomed to it.

[southofreality]