Oh God...what would you do if some of your colleagues are unable or unwilling to communicate with you, but you have to work as a team??!
I've been teaching second graders this week. There are 8 classes, broken down into 2 groups each, which means I have a total of 16 lessons, team teaching with 4 different teachers. Two elder man, a young lady, and an elder woman. The young lady and one of the elder guys are new to the school, just like me, and even though they don't have much team teaching experience, we can work together quite well. The other elder guy is the head teacher of the 2nd grade English teachers with lots of experience, the elder lady has been in this school for about 1 or 2 years, and she completely does nothing in the class. Goes to the back, sits down, and keeps staring as if she's Queen Elisabeth II or something...
My week started with her lesson. She walked in late, and when I asked her why the students have no textbook (the Japanese English teachers are responsible to notify the students what we need for the English lesson) she just stared at me, and said: -But Antonio never used a textbook!
GOD, I GOT SO PISSED! How dare she think I'm the same as that Antonio guy, just because both of us are foreigners?!?!? Whatever....I kindly told her, that it was written in my lesson plan, that I handed to her last week, and I did my best to type it in Japanese. Guess what she said!!
"Oh, sorry, I haven't read this."
This was too much. Not only she just assumes that I'm the same person as the last NET, but she doesn't even bother to read my lesson plan. I guess it was the second time she didn't read it, because she did exactly the same (doing nothing) when we were teaching together the first time in April.
Okay, I thought - enough is enough. I went to the elder guy (the head teacher) and told him that with some teachers it's difficult to team-teach. He is the only one who is doing things in the class the way I would expect a Japanese teacher to do, so I asked him to give a demonstration lesson to all the other teachers sometime (especially this lady). He chose this elder lady's lesson to come in, and I said okay, but he should talk to this lady too, in advance, to make sure she's not offended. He said he would talk to her, then he came in, with the other teachers and did the demo lesson.
Well...it seems she got offended anyway. A few days later, when we had a teachers meeting, she just kept on talking about why the kind of team teaching I want is not good, and how I mistook the level of the students etc...We have a meeting every week, but until now she never said a word, now all of a sudden I become the target, just because I want her to participate in my lesson, unlike the foreigners she was used to, who don't want the Japanese teachers to do anything in their lessons. My, oh my.... I thought...whatever. Little did I know that it was just the beginning of her little vendetta.
It happened on Friday, and started as a normal lesson. Let's call this lady Miss Fushimishi. I was doing the lesson as usual, teaching conjunctions. At some part I needed a bit of explanation in Japanese, because the students didn't seem to get what I was trying to explain in very very easy English for long long minutes. So I said: "Let's hear a little explanation in Japanese from Miss Fushimishi". I tried to say the sentence slowly, so that she would recognize that I'm talking to her (because usually she tries to avoid looking at me, which means communication by eye-contact is pretty much impossible).l By the time I came to the Miss part of my sentence, she still wasn't looking at me, so I raised my voice a bit, when I said Fushimishi. She looked at me angrily, come to the board and said: "Don't call me Fushimishi! I'm much older than you. You are very rude!!"
I was bewildered. I totally had no idea why she got so pissed, but a few minutes later came the enlightenment that maybe she couldn't hear the beginning of what I said, including the Miss in front of her name. Geeez....I've been in Japan for 5 years, does she really think I don't know it's rude just to call someone's name without putting Mr or Miss in front of it, or -san after it. And apparently she thinks I would do that in front of the class. What a troublesome person, I thought, but I decided to tell her after the lesson, that I did call her "Miss" and I would apologize for whatever I did to piss her off, a little sacrifice for better lessons in the future.
I decided to go on with the lesson to the next example, starting with the word "unless". She was on her way to the back of the room where she usually sits, when I read out the example. Without even turning back to look at me, she corrected my intonation. I was so surprised I happened to say "What?!" Then she turned back. looked at me and said: "Because you always pronounce it (this) but it should be pronounced as (that)".
I couldn't believe she corrected my English in front of the students. It's an unwritten rule amongst teachers that you don't do that. It can do great harm to the image of the teacher. Yes, I do have a Central European accent, I never claimed I don't. Nor did I ever claim I'm a native teacher of the English language, but I'm proud of my accent. Even the Australian teacher said that he thinks it's charming :). This lady, however, is obsessed with America and American English.
I don't know if she was just seeking revenge for what she thought I did to her, or if she is one of those English teachers who hate foreigners. Unfortunately there are people like that here. Two groups to be precise. One is the group of Japanese English teachers whose pride is hurt by the presence of a foreigner (any foreigner), so they hate all of us. (I have to add here that there are a bunch of idiots among native speakers who are rude, and deserve no respect.) The second group consists of those Japanese (English teachers or anyone else) who only hate foreigners who are not native speakers of English. They believe that Native English teachers are beneficial for this country, but any other nationalities, including other Asians, Europeans, South Americans or Africans, are useless, and therefore shouldn't be here. To put it simply, they are racist.
I have met quite a few of each group, giving me unpleasant experiences. However, I have to state that most Japanese people I have met so far, are very friendly and open-minded indeed. They love to talk to people from any countries, and want to learn about their cultures. The two groups I mentioned above are just a minority. Thank God!
Well...I guess there are stupid people everywhere in the world, right? I wonder if you guys have any such experience with troublesome co-workers. Let me know if you have and also tell me how you solved the problem.
In my case I apologized to her and told her she misunderstood what I said. She said, "I see, I didn't hear you said Miss." But she never apologized to me...oh well.
That time I was too pissed to talk to her more, but on Monday I'm going to tell her that if she has any problem with my accent or anything about my English, she should talk to me about it outside the classroom. I won't tell her this, but if she continues ruining my image in the class I'm going to make fun of her Japanese accent too, and I will correct all of her mistakes, in front of her students.
If she wants war, I don't care. But then, she should be prepared to lose!
Sorry guys for this long post, but I really needed to share it with somebody.
Thanks for reading.
