Listening Exams......

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
This week is testing week. My poor students have 4 days full of nothing but exams (about 3 a day). They are able to leave school after they complete their exams, which also means I can leave early too! I have to prepare a listening exam for 2 different grade levels. Over the course of a few months, I teach them random things (for example 2nd year Junior High learned about how to order food in a restaurant, Halloween vocabulary and homonyms; 1st year Junior high learned about time, hard and soft 'th' sound, wh- questions and prepositions) and then I have to test their comprehension. So it is my job to make a listening exam. Once I have created the exams, the 2 teachers I work with review it, to make sure it is easy enough for the students, and then we have to record it onto a tape for the day of the actual exam (with the Japanese teacher so they can translate what they have to do). All in all, it takes about 4 days to prepare for an exam....it's grueling. Once the exams have been taken, then it's pure OVERWHELMINGNESS (if that's even a word). I have to grade about 400 exams! It usually spills over into my weekend, since they have to be graded by the next class session - and I have a class on Mondays, so I'll be layin' low again!

Today, was the longest day I've ever had trying to record a listening exam. Keiko (Nakamura Sensei, whom I teach 1st year junior high communication class with, and she teaches 2nd year JH English grammar everyday), is one of the busiest people I know. She had to make an exam for the grammar class and the communication class. It is a LOT of work, and most of the time she is in a daze due to lack of sleep, or should I say lack of time in the day! I had to wait for her to finish her other work before we could record the exam. Time kept passing by and teachers kept going home early, since most of the students were able to leave between 11am and 12pm. Once we finally got into the room where we usually record, we found 2 students (a high school boy and girl) sleeping together on the floor (and yes....I mean REALLY sleeping). Since I work in a private school, these students hardly have time to breathe....let alone sleep. Many of them tell me that they are lucky if they get to bed by 1am! THen many of them are up at 5:30am to start their 2 hour plus, trek to school. Needless to say, they were embarrassed. Apparently they belonged to the debate club and fell asleep while practicing. So, they just went into the next room and continued to sleep before they had to leave for cram school (which is basically like night school for extra learning.....it's all about the university entrance exam in this country)! We started recording and were almost done when I noticed that the tape started screeching. First we thought it was the recorder.....but it still kept happening....then, the unimagineable....it was the TAPE! We were 5 minutes shy of finishing a 40-minute exam when we realized we would have to re-record the whole thing. It was terrible. What was even worse was, we had a part of the exam where we had to use a bell to stand in for a blank: . We had already given it back to the teacher we borrowed it from. When I went to ask for it again, guess what......she was GONE!! Along with almost all of the other teachers (of about 30 teachers in my room, there were about 5 still left). Then, we began to panic. We spent a good 20 minutes searching for another way to make the noise and came up with a sound on my own cell phone! It worked beautifully! FINALLY.....after a 2 and a half hour recording session, our exam was done....but our jobs were far from over.

Now that the tape was made, we still had to make 4 copies of it so that all 5 classes can take the exam at the same time! THEN, we had to make copies of the exams and answer sheets for all of the classes (as with EVERYTHING else in this country, there were many steps involved). It was already 5:30pm once we started the copying. Keiko insisted that I go home, but I felt terrible leaving her there to copy all of the tapes by herself....but she won in the end. I left at 6:30pm and headed home.

While I was on the bus, one of my students (which by the way was able to leave school at 11:00am mind you) was just leaving. She is one of the students who loves to talk to me, so we were chatting about very general things....how many brothers and sisters do you have? Which Sesame Street character do you like? (they are OBSESSED with ALL cartoony characters in this country), it's cold, i'm hungry, i don't like studying, etc. She is also the student, Junko is her name, that gave me a gift for Halloween. It was an Elmo sweat rag (as I call it, really it is a face washcloth), and some candy. She asked me if I liked it, and to her surprise, I pulled the rag out of my bag and showed her that I actually use it! She was very pleased! Our conversation came to an end when we reached my bus stop. We said our good-byes and I walked home. On the way home I always pass an English school started by the only other foreigner I've ever seen near my apartment, named Ralph. He is a REALLY TALL, black guy. He's 42, on his 4th marriage (which he said will definitely last this time since she was Japanee...not a nice thing to say) and he once asked me to help him out with lessons at his school. However, as soon as he found out I couldn't speak English, he took back his offer....jerk! Anyhoo...he always waves when he sees me or starts small talk if he's outside. Tonight, he started a conversation about....surprise surprise....the weather and how cold it was. Let me just say this....YES JAPAN....IT IS WINTER TIME AND IT'S GONNA BE COLD!! He told me the strangest thing. He started by saying hey, I've been meaning to tell you something, thinking it would be something profound, I stopped walking and turned toward him. He said, with a very straight face. "You should get a leather coat, it will keep you warm." I stood there trying to comprehend what he just said, I thought I might have misunderstood, but no, he continued with, "leather is very warm". Of all the kooky things to say, that won the prize for the day. I just decided to ignore it and continued on my way. Once I got home, I was too tired to even make dinner....so I had cereal, turned on the TV and within 30minutes, was passed out on my comfy chair while watching "Man on Fire". Guess I was pretty tired!! I had to wake up eventually, because it is NOT comfortable falling asleep on that chair....PLUS, had to call M-O-M and wish her a Happy Birthday!

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I'm actually gonna play hooky from school. I have to head to Osaka to get my visa for China...that's a long story, so I'll save it for tomorrow.