Lately, I've been preparing a handful of junior high students for the English event of the year, the annual All-Amakusa English Recitation Contest. Not sure if that's the official title, but it's an apt description. The contest is slated for next week, so I thought it a good idea to give some background on what it's all about before it drives me mad.
The contest is designed to encourage students to learn natural speed and pronunciation of English. To be honest, I don't care in the slightest what my kids sound like as long as I can understand them. The delight many experience from hearing "Engrish" quickly fades when you're around it all the time and have some idea why it exists. I don't like having to correct minor discrepancies in how my kids say certain words, their intonation, or the speed at which they talk. It's also really frustrating when you correct something, the student gets it right, but then they go back to how they were saying it earlier the next time they practice. To sum up, it's really hard to change the way people are used to talking, but that's what this is all about.
To add to my annoyance, it's become clear that American English is the focus here. Not that I have much room to protest this myself, seeing as I am from America, but I imagine it's tough for the ALTs from England, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, and the myriad of other English speaking countries JET draws from. Pretty messed up that we ignore that whole international aspect of illustrating English is slightly different all around the world by insisting that there is only one right way to speak it. As a bit of poetic justice, however, our contest will be judged by our New Zealand couple. Also, Emma's American accent was awesomely entertaining. Just try to wrap your head around listening to Japanese kids speaking American English faked by a girl from England. It was bizarre to say the least.
All complaining aside, I would be lying if I said that what my kid's care about isn't important to me. And while some of my students seem content with participating and are only in it for the experience and maybe a day out of school, it has become apparent that my second grade team is taking this pretty seriously. Not to say we aren't having fun with it, but they are the only group, to my knowledge, who have asked what happens if they place and have said they want to win. They have been putting in an amazing effort in spite of being busy with so much other work. I think they sound amazing, of course, but I don't want to get my hopes up. Generally speaking Ushibuka and Hondo, the two densely populated areas of Amakusa, have come out on top in this competition. Not only do kids from these areas have better access to the English cram schools, but there also noticeably larger, think of 3A schools in Texas going up against 1A schools. There are more kids, which translates to a better chance of having the rare child who genuinely cares about English and wants to try hard. All the same, I still have hope that my kids can do it. Wish us luck!
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