ON MY BEHALF

Man, they weren't BS'ing about the whole speech deal. We walked into the meeting room and there was a table for Aaron and I to sit at, which was facing the multpile tables full of the 40-some-odd teachers and principals from both my junior high and elementary schools. All of them were facing us like it was a college lecture of some sort. Gee, for a culture that breeds aversion to singling-out individuals, they sure do know how to put folks on the spot!

Admittedly, I caught a case of the pre-performance shivers when I sat down at the table. On second thought, that may have been due to the fact that we have NO HEAT at school. Have I mentioned that before?

Anyway, the vice-principals from both schools gave some opening words, then it was light cameras, action for me and my cohort. Aaron did a great job on the translation end. He most definitely has a notable level of fluency. We had a system where I would speak just a few sentences at a time, state a key idea, then he would translate. I also slowed down my normal rate of speech and amped my voice a bit, so the handful of English-speaking teachers could try to follow along. This made things easier on my translator. I also monitored my vocab for his sake.

I was worried beforehand that I wouldn't have enough substantial specific things to talk aout, but to my pleasant relief, it turned out that I had a fair amount of opinions and ideas to share about the state of English education on the local and national level, even. Before the meeting, Aaron and I briefly discussed what I would talk about, and that got to jogging my brain for ideas. I think the crowd appreciated what I had to say. Afterwards, there were some questions from a few teachers in the audience. While most inquisitors stayed on course, asking questions directly to the topic of English education for the Japanese students, my elementary school coordinator and assistant vice-principal, Asano-sensei, ventured down her own little off-trail of curiosity: She was more interested in Aaron and I's respective Japanese ability. She seemed enthralled by the fact that we could speak Japanese at all, not to mention Aaron's fluency. She asked us how we learned the language, and if we studied currently. She made light of the fact that Aaron and I are roommates, information she'd discovered somehow, some time ago, which most others weren't aware of. She then went on to ask "Do you speak Japanese to each other at home?"

Aaron and I just looked at each other, thinking the same thing:

"What kinda dumb-behind question is that? Do you think we're so fanatic as to abandon our native tongue when communicating with each other in the privacy of our home?"

We answered with a polite "No," and moved on.

All in all, it went over pretty well. The principals and the teachers who were still paying attention by the end of the meeting offered "Good job"'s and "Thank you for your work"'s, typical business sayings in Japanese. Afterwards, Aaron said he had a headache from all the language conversion.