"Wakarimas ka, Collins-San?"

I've started my first year of college, which means I have also started my epic and amazing first quarter of Japanese. It's a scary class, with 45 minutes of recitation (not resuscitation) class each day, and 45 minutes of lecture every Thursday and Tuesday. Among the other incredible changes to how I learn a language, in our daily recitation class (also called ACT class), there is no English allowed. Once roll call starts being called ("Adams-San!" "Hei!" "Brown-San!" "Hei!"), the only English that comes out is when explaining the surroundings of whatever scenario we are discussing. Even then, it's all in simple phrases such as when the Sensei points to a picture of a building on a power point and saying "Tookyo University, new exchange student" but even then, the words are dutifully performed with a Japanese accent, rendering them almost unintelligible if one is not paying attention.
We have six different Senseis (teachers) that cycle in and out of the classroom. Three of which are Japanese (Kuwai-Sensei, Fuse-Sensei, Tsuchiya-Sensei), and three American (Mason-Sensei, Christenson-Sensei, Curtin-Sensei). After a few weeks of class (five weeks? Has it really been five weeks?), their individual affect on the class has become incredibly apparent, and incredibly unique from one another. The three prime examples that I have are Kuwai-Sensei, Tsuchiya-Sensei, and Christenson-Sensei.
Kuwai-Sensei is an older Japanese lady. She seems genuinely excited about the class, her fragile frame bursting with energy as she asks us whether we want to eat, drink, or play a game (in Japanese, of course). However, the air in the room when she walks in is tensed with nerves. As happy as she is, Kuwai-Sensei strikes fear into the hears of everyone in the classroom. Her snap decisions to point to... you! "Kiree zya nai desu ne?" will end in a few seconds of stammering before she swirls to another person, your score for the day having dropped at least 20% in those five seconds of nerves. When Kuwai-Sensei is in the classroom, there is silence by everyone except those whom she is addressing, and when she makes a joke, people genuinely want to laugh, but even the giggles are infused with the nerves of hoping she doesn't hone in on the one who is laughing to ask the next question. At the end of class, when Kuwai-Sensei exclaims "otsukare samadesita!" everyone lets out a sigh of relief that it's over.
Tsuchiya-Sensei is a young Japanese man, in his late twenties if I would guess, with a wedding ring on his finger. He's excited to do his job as a teacher, excited and happy to interact with us and invent new ways to convey the material. When he walked into the classroom this week, he turned to the class and informed us "I had a powah-point for class, but I thought this would be more fun" and proceeded to spend the class drawing horribly inaccurate pictures on the board with crazy gestures and using his own cell phone for conversations with us (Sidner-San! Odenwa desu!). On days when we're taught by Tsuchiya-Sensei, our class is lively, holding side conversations that are surprisingly relevant to whatever he is saying. No one is ever afraid to answer his question because he rarely brings around his clipboard (forever the symbol of being graded) while he's conversing with us. Those are the classes we always look forward to the most.
Christenson-Sensei (I'm really not quite sure if that is how his name is spelled) is quiet. When he walks into the classroom, people don't always notice at first. Maybe though, it's not even that he's quiet. Everyone can certainly hear him when he starts roll call, but we all feel as though we have to be quiet ourselves, to catch every word he's saying. When Christenson-Sensei is teaching, anyone could hear a pin drop - in the class next door. No one talks unless specifically spoken to, copying his minimalistic airs. He speaks with emotion, as any good teacher does, but even his emotion is exuded quietly. We don't have nearly as much of a fear of grading with him, because his normal style is to take the clipboard and go around the room once, asking us our CCs (core conversations, basic vocabulary), and seemingly grading us on that one encounter, which by then we will all have practiced quite a bit. I'm fairly sure at this point that he grades us at other times and we simply don't notice, but it takes the pressure off, none the less. His classes do seem a bit more drawn out, however, because we are rarely passing the time talking. Still, a longer class is preferable to a more stressful class.
Honestly, I love class with any of my teachers. Even Kuwai-Sensei has earned the nickname (unknowingly) in one class "Kawaii Kuwai," meaning cute Kuwai, because even as scary as she is, she's still adorable. This has been, so far, an amazing year.