2007 January 29 Monday.
My first gig of the day started off at 13:00 with the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. Today, almost everyone showed up for the class which was good. However, I found out that the total number of members in the group had dropped from 14 to 8 people. This is nothing to be alarmed about, it is simply a common wave pattern of this type of community circle, that I am a part of. When there were 14 or more members in the group, I voluntarily extended the class time from 60 minutes to 90 minutes, with no demand for any extra pay. Now that the number of members is back down to 8 people, 60 minutes may be enough time for everyone to say what they want to say. However, I will leave the class time at 90 minutes so that nobody will ever feel rushed during their presentations. This particular class is very unstructured in the sense that I do not actually teach a lesson, centered around a certain topic of conversation, or a certain point of English grammar. The purpose of this class is to allow the students themselves, to have complete freedom in talking about whatever it is that they want to talk about. If they aren't sure about a certain vocabulary item or a certain phrase or common expression, I will answer their questions and guide them towards a more easily understandable way of expressing themselves. For those students of English who want to attend a lecture where the teacher does all of the talking, this is not the class for you. I can certainly do it that way if necessary, but this class has been going on for more than ten years, and some of the original members are still with the group. I feel that we have reached a higher level of communication throughout the years, and it would be a shame, NO, a waste, to take it back down to the "false beginner level." There are many other places that offer that kind of passive lesson style. This group is unique in that every member actively prepares a topic of conversation on their own before class, and then tell everyone about it and discuss it with the other members of the group. I act mostly as a moderator, although I do make my own presentations from time to time. This is the real deal, folks. Actively using Spoken English as a TOOL for real communication. It doesn't get any better than this. Sometimes the students don't have enough time to actually prepare for the class beforehand, and they have to talk about something, off of the top of their heads (impromptu). This is also a valuable language skill, in and of itself. Not only that, if any of the members of this Kagura Kominkan English Circle are totally out of ideas about what to talk about on any given day, you'all can always read this blog anytime you choose. It might stimulate your thinking enough to come up with some type of, off-the-wall and unexpected topic of discussion. No really, I am happy to listen to anything ya'll wanna talk about,.... so,.... Please use this blog. I write it for all of you. Even for the people who read it that I have never met. This exact same message is clearly written in BIG RED LETTERS at the top of this page. Please look again, just to make sure for yourself. Yeah, it's THE REAL DEAL.
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