A Day in the Life

Aside from teaching English, part of my job as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) is to represent my country and to share its culture. I spend a lot of time in and out of the classroom preparing and implementing lessons that aim to enhance the students’ English abilities and enthusiasms, while also encouraging them to consider different ways of life in countries such as Canada. The students only make up part of my audience however, as teachers are often eager to practice English and learn about Canada. Hence, a significant amount of my work happens outside of the classroom where I speak with students and teachers about where I come from. These conversations will vary from topics about the proper use of the word “same” (have you ever noticed that, despite being an adjective, it is near impossible to use the word ‘same’ without the article “the” preceding it? Try explaining that as a professional native speaker of the English language); the prevalence of Japanese food in Vancouver, why people in Quebec speak French; what a Maritime accent sounds like; controversies in Alberta oil extraction methods; how long it takes to drive from Vancouver to Seattle, Alaska, Calgary, and Toronto; education in Canada; barbecues; and North American pizza (how I miss it). The other side of this is that I am also expected to learn about Japanese culture to take with me when I leave – hence this blog.

Today, one of the main teachers that I work with was away supervising a school tournament, so I wasn’t expected to teach some classes that I usually teach at Keisei koko. I ended up picking up another class in the afternoon, but my morning was pretty much free. Another teacher picked up on this, had heard that I play a little guitar, and invited me to his office for some cultural exchange.

His English is not as good as most of the English teachers that I am more accustomed to speaking with, but it was a bit refreshing to have to strain my Japanese abilities in order to communicate. The man is a Physical Education teacher, but he has also been playing guitar for 20 years. He also plays ukulele and paints in his spare time. In fact, he is in the midst of recreating a portion of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus for the school’s cultural festival.

We ended up spending the first two periods of the day swapping his guitar back and forth between us – me playing my standard, and growing ever-sloppier, “Blackbird,” “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and a bit of “Fade to Black,” him performing some great acoustic renditions of “Yesterday,” “A Day in the Life,” “Let it Be,” and some Japanese tunes. Like many Japanese people, he’s a big fan of the Beatles (in fact, when I was buying some soccer boots the other day, I asked the salesman how he learned English so well – his response: he likes listening to the Beatles). He also played a few songs on his Ukulele while I played accompanying chords on the guitar. One song we played was about a flower – although I’m not sure what kind.

When we parted, he gave me a copy of “Yesterday” to practice at home and I left him a small Canadian pin as a thank-you. The photo above is of the sheet music he gave me. I realize that in the spirit of the song, maybe I should have written this post tomorrow – but we all must make compromises. The other is a photo I uploaded from my phone (for the first time). I think that I took this photo while he was playing “A Day in the Life.”