Friday, November 25, 2005

...im fine thank you, and you?...

Its time to say abit more about teaching in japan, which i feel must be one of the easiest jobs possible (prehaps only second to being a movie extra).

At the moment im teaching 2 days a week, which gives me more than enough money to survive here. I normally get paid around 2700yen an hour (about $33) and japan isnt that expensive, so im not having to do that many hours. I think overall ive saved abit since getting here, but the currencies dropped so overall i think ill come home with the same amount I brought with me.

So heres abit about english teaching in japan.

Teaching in Japan

All junior high school students in japan are taught the following exchange:

"Hello, how are you?"
"Im fine thank you, and you?"

Nothing overly wrong with it, except that everyone here seems to believe this is the only proper way to start a conversation in english.

First result of this is regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, japanese people are always "fine" (Ive had a student litterally in tears, who around sobbing, was able to tell me she was "fine").

Second result, its very easy to confuse people by asking them something other than "How are you?" at the start of a conversation. ie

"Hello, im luke, whats your name?"
"ahhh....ummm....Im fine thank you and you?"

Ive had this conversation atleast 20 times and have given up being creative. It would be wrong to say that all people follow this pattern without exception, there are those who seemingly slept through junior highschool english class:

"Hello, how are you?"
"Hello, my name is hiroshi"#big smile#
"My name is Luke, and how are you?"
"eeeee?" #smile disapears#

Its normally about this point that some bright students decides enough is enough, and adds:

"He is fine thank you and you?"

I spent several lessons today trying to convince by students they dont need to be perpetually fine, but im sure come next week theyll be fine again.

Luke

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello how are you?
mum

Anonymous said...
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