Live from Japan!

On Friday the atmosphere around school was a little different than usual. The students were a bit more uptight, especially the 3rd year students. The teachers were a little quieter. As a foreigner, I often have a difficult time understanding what is going on around me. Usually I can catch the “vibe” or the general mood, but it is rare that I understand the cause of that mood and Friday was no exception.

On Friday the teacher that sits next to me in the staff room had a giant bag of Kit Kat candy bars on her desk. After lunch she handed me one. I was surprised to find out that the reasons why she had the huge bag of candy bars also explained the different atmosphere around school.

In the Japanese syllabry consonants are always pronounced with an accompanying vowel. The only exception is the letter “n.” This is why Japanese pronounciation of English words often sounds strange. They attempt to pronounce the English word using the closest pronounciation with the Japanese syllabry (this is called katakana english).

My favorite example of this is when I tried to order fried potato (french fries) at a restaurant one day. I said, “Fried potato hitotsu” (one order of fried potato) and the waiter looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language, which I was but I thought it was his language. So, I repeated myself. Still nothing. Finally, I said fried potato using katakana english which sounds more like furaido potato. Instantly he understood and he scurried off to the kitchen to fetch me my fried potato. Great!

Sorry, that was a bit of a side track. Back to the story. Anyways, Kit Kat is pronounced like “Kito Kato” in katakana English. Translated into Japanese this means Certain Victory. The teacher next to me had bought kit kats for each one of her students as a way of wishing them certain victory on their upcoming exam.

Saturday was the national university entrance exam for all high school students interested in attending university in the coming year. And this test, especially for my very serious academic students, is a really huge deal. This test is the first step that will determine their future academic course – no pressure, really!!

Entering university is a bit different here. High school grades and performance matter very little compared to the score on the entrance exams. To enter university a student must take two (or more) exams. The first exam, the one everyone took on Saturday, is the national exam. Everyone must take this particular exam if they want to enter university. This first, national exam, determines which universities the students are eligible to apply to.

Each university has a minimum required score on the national exam to apply. Many of my students have universities in mind that they want to attend. Their performance on Saturday will make attending those universities a possibility or an impossibility depending. Once students receive their scores from the national exam they will decide which universities they can apply to, and out of those universities which ones they would like to attend. Once they have made that decision they will take another entrance exam at each possible university.

The entrance exams for each individual university can vary quite a bit. Some are relatively straightforward, some include english language sections, interviews, etc. Needless to say it is a long, stressful process for the student. So difficult and stressful, in fact, that the third year students at my school get off the entire month of March from classes to study and prepare and take the university exams.

This doesn’t mean they won’t be around school. In fact, many of them will come each day to study with friends and teachers. It just means that their time is freed up to focus and concentrate on the exams that will, inevitably, change the course of their future, for good or for bad.

So, I hope the third year students at Gifu Kita achieved their victory on Saturday. However, I also wish them luck as they continue the process. In some ways I think it is nice that the university entrance procedure in Japan is so difficult, it insures a certain level of academic rigor at the university level. On the other hand, I feel that it is overly rigid and stressful, it doesn’t take into account the different learning styles and individual qualities that each student may offer a particular university, even if they don’t perform well on paper and pencil tests.