Lesson 2 (Sophia)

November 6, 2010
After I had my first lesson with Kayoko, she has been extremely busy and couldn't teach me. Luckily I found another classmate, Sophia, who is also a Japanese teacher, to teach me. In this meeting with Sophia sensai (teacher), we sat at a tea house for almost 3 hours. We covered 4 major grammar rules in Japanese, and three lessons: numbers and counting, asking how much an object is, and self-introduction (school, grade, nationality).

Delayed Start
It has been another three weeks and half passed since my first Japanese lesson, because my Japanese teacher declared that she was too busy to teach me. Finally I found another classmate who is also Japanese, and is pursuing the career of a Japanese language teacher willing to teach me. I promised to treat her lunch and we agreed to have one class after lunch. Similar to last time, this delay made me very guilty of not being productive and very eager to learn.

Materials
The material was a problem for me this time. I did not expect this when we planed to have our lesson at a tea house. Last time Kayoko prepared materials for me when I got there, and she used her printer to photocopy more handouts for me when needed. However, this time there is no photocopy machine near the tea house and we only have one reference book that Sophia brought.

Thinking as a language teacher
Compare to the first lesson with Kayoko, I did not do this as much as last time. Some possible reasons were: (1). The tea house was very noisy, and I used up all my mental resource in concentrating; (2). I am more tensed, because I am not as close to Sophia as I am to Kayoko; (3). The lessons were more difficult, especially the grammar part, and again used up all my mental resources.

Teacher’s attitude
Sophia made me feel anxious, worry that she does not want to do this with me because she spent a lot of time looking at her cell phone and sometimes texting.
Sophia also did not ask me to practice like Kayoko did. Kayoko basically taught me like one of her high school students, hence she asked me to practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and would even quiz me sometimes. However, Sophia’s mindset was like tutoring someone who wants to learn Japanese, and she would answer any questions I had, correct my mistakes, but would not ask me to drill and practice.

Feedback
Kayoko was impressed with my ability to learn Japanese, but Sophia was not. She did not give much compliment either. She did mention that we covered in one lesson what she would normally take multiple lessons to cover. I felt contented to hear her say that. On the other hand, the lack of feedback in general was like a negative feedback to me.

Learning Strategy
My strategy was actually “not trying to remember” the rules this time. My expectation of myself was just “know” these grammar rules exist, and not “memorize” them at all.

This allows me to be free from frustration and disappointment, and also gives me familiarity the next time I encounter these grammar rules again. In other words, since my goal is to “not learn them this time but next time,” I already achieve my goal this time, and the next time I encounter any of them, it will be like a bonus, “I’ve seen this before!” and makes it easier to learn.

What I want to do next
I started to feel overwhelmed by the grammar. Japanese became more challenging than I thought it would be. I did not want to learn grammar at all, but it was unavoidable. At the end I asked Sophia some vocabulary for colors. I plan to use them along with “how much is this?” the next time I go to the Japanese pottery place.