E.S.S.
E.S.S. stands for English Speaking Society. Most high schools have E.S.S. and so does mine. In addition, we have Teachers’ E.S.S.: I founded it with an ALT and several teachers have joined us. We are talking about our hobbies, family and so on. After that, we study necessary conversation: booking a hotel, buying tickets, customs, telling symptons. In order to make the class interesting, we’ll eat out and exercize together. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
Comments
Tomoko Niwa :: October 21, 2003
Oh!! I want to join you, Wakako! There is no such teachers’ club like yours at my school. Recently I had to get used to a life that doesn’t allow me to use English outside of classes. This is the reason why I’m starting to join Tawawa.
Wakako — tell us a bit about ESS in general. I understand it’s a fairly traditional and well-established national organisation with regional chapters and local branches — yet I couldn’t instantly find any information about it on the Web.
I was invited twice to serve as a judge at ESS speech contests here at Mie University, and the winners, I think, were allowed to go on to a regional speech contest, whose winners in turn qualified for the big national event, or something along those lines. The whole proceedings struck me as very formal and exam-like: I’d imagine that young people would prefer to do something more fun and less regimented in their spare time, no?
Daijirou-san is a very avid ESS member and he is in charge of a particular type of exercise they do on a weekly basis: he composes these exercises and I hear they’re very good.
I keep pulling his leg about them, though, because they’re exercises. I mean, OK, Japan is relatively isolated culturally and geographically, and in most places you don’t run into native speakers of English on a daily basis. But then here’s the Internet: why practice communication in English when you can have real communication in English; why do conversation exercises when you can have real conversations?
If there’s an ESS group out there that would like to set up a weblog or a bulletin board, I could give them a hand on condition that they will use it in English.
Tomoko — drop me a line and I’ll fix you up with a Tawawa user account so you can post your own entries to this weblog and to Zemi Note.
ESS is a club. Students interested in English gather and do some activities with English teachers and an ALT. They learn not only English but also culture. Students here enjoy Halloween, Christmas, and so on. In some schools, eager students make speeches for contests as you say.
As for ESS in Mie Univ, I didn’t join them, so ask Daijiro-san.
Well, Teachers’ ESS is just for fun. There are some teachers who have difficulties in traveling abroad. So, an ALT and I are teaching English conversation. But don’t worry. It is not like a class. We are enjoying it :-)
Tomoko, if your school has an ALT, you can make T’s ESS.
Tomoko Niwa :: October 22, 2003
Hi, Wakako.
About ALT at our school.
There are two ALTs here. However, they also work at some schools near here and I am not sure when they are in our school… Whenever I catch sight of them, I have a lot of work to do. So, I have never spoken to them till now. In addition to no chance, they can speak Japanese well, I think.
Now I am satisfied with reading and talking comments here. I can enjoy:)
Hi, Rudy.
Thank you for your advice.
Hey, Tomoko, you should speak to the ALTs. I’m sure they want to be spoken to! And then talk about T’s ESS. It is good for you to practice English. It doesn’t matter how well they speak Japanese :)
Yeah, not talking to the ALTs because they’re fluent in Japanese sounds like a funny idea.
The point of bringing Assistant Language Teachers to Japan, after all, isn’t only to benefit the students; they also come here to benefit the teachers, many of whom haven’t been exposed to a great deal of real-life, everyday spoken English.
A couple of months ago, I had a conversation with Hidetaka-san about this. He complained about the fact that the ALT at the school where he’s teaching always spoke Japanese with the older teachers because they were too lazy to use English and possibly tried to avoid embarrassment if their students should overhear them and find out that they’re less fluent in the language than they ought to be. Hidetaka-san, however, insists that the ALT speak English to him because that’s part of an ALT’s job.
Ayumi Sawa :: October 26, 2003
Reading these comments, I am interested in the ESS. But I can’t afford to belong to the ESS club in Mie Univ.
Wakako-senpai, can I ask you a question?
First, when do you hold club meetings? As Tomoko-senpai says, teachers are busy.
Well, English teachers here at this school speak English very well, but I know there are many who try to avoid speaking English as possible as they can.
Ayumi, we hold club meeting on Monday. Our working time is from 8:35 to 17:15. So, form 17:20 we usually have a meeting for an hour. But you have to know that we can make the situation where we speak English other than in ESS. For example, in my high school the cultural festival is coming and we teachers are going to dance. I asked the ALT to join us. Then teachers try to communicate with her in English and by gestures and also the ALT tries to understand them. We have to involve ALTs. Many ALTs often complain that they don’t have enough work and are dull in a teacher’s room. Work with ALTs. Enjoy with ALTs. That’s all I want to say :)
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In highschool in Toronto beginner French is mandatory, I was neutral to the idea at first but the boring/montonous classes gradually made me despise learning it. If we had cool clubs/teachers back then, I may of actually learnt something .. :)
Sounds like a great idea!