Teachers

Something that every person who has gone to school or has learned something from another human being has had a teacher. It's a very simple concept for us to grasp. We also understand the idea of a good teacher and a bad teacher. Of course, this sort of statement is based solely on perspective.

I am currently a sophomore at my university and, of course, in my short 20 years of life, I have dealt with teachers I have found amazing and teachers that I wished would disappear from my life altogether. However, when I feel this way, I sometimes get the vibe that most people agree with my opinion.. This is usually because we find the same things irritating.

However, today, I realized that the students in my Japanese class and I do NOT have the same view. We have a wonderful せんせい. He explains things well and wants his students to succeed. If you aren't doing well, he will try to find ways to make you learn the material. Personally, he is one of my favorite teachers and I appreciate all the work he puts in for my class.

Although all of these things are true, in my perspective, he is a very busy man. Therefore, he usually tries to find help. Starting with my first year Japanese class, we had a new system for teaching. We gained a student teacher currently aiming for her Master's in TESOL, I believe. In order for him to have more time to fit things in his busy schedule, he had her teach us in one of our two classes during the first semester.

To be honest, I love her. She is funny, smart, and makes you really work for the answer. She doesn't just give it to you. She also tries to get you to use more difficult structures. I really did appreciate her.

I, apparently, do not have the same views on her. Recently, I register for my classes. I want to add Japanese as my third major, but せんせい told me that I do not have to make a decision now, so I am just taking the Japanese courses for the moment. When I received my schedule, I saw that our TA, I guess you could say, is teaching us.

I was so excited. For second semester, we have only had せんせい as our instructor, which is great, don't get me wrong, but I missed her. I thought "this should be great! I'll get to see her more often and hopefully my Japanese will improve because of ways of teaching".

Today, I learned that... not everyone else in my class likes her. Two girls in my class seemed really disappointed. They said things like "I hope I can get over her teaching style" or "I hope she will teach better since she teaches the second year students now".

I wanted to say "she's better than our other TA". I KNOW, however, for a fact that everyone likes our second TA. Our second TA is actually American. She has been the only American, to my knowledge, that has been allowed to teach せんせい's class. She has only taught my class a few times though, and recently, I haven't seen her much.

Unlike most of my classmates... I didn't like it when she would teach us. I can't really explain it, but she.. rubs me the wrong way. I don't like her method of teaching, her voice is like nails on a chalk board, and I feel like she plays favorites (one of her best friends is a student).

I guess I was just... disappointed in these girl's opinion. Our Japanese TA tries really hard to teach us. I also think, that because she is younger, we can learn some more casual words in her class. I know that not everyone in the Japanese program is friends with Japanese people... so maybe it would be a good opportunity.

Maybe I am just biased, but I hope this all works out for the better...

TL;DR

• I think my Japanese TA is awesome, but some people think she sucks
• I think my American TA is awful, but most think she's awesome
• Maybe my opinions don't actually match everyone else's, but they are mine
• I hope next year goes well....