Teaching

What I teach and how I teach have been the subject of some speculation. Generally it goes like this: I shoot the breeze for the first 2/3 of the class and then we work from the book for the last 1/3 (it is, after all, a conversation school). There are some classes where this format is impossible, for example, in those classes where the students just don't want to talk, the student (I'm thinking of one) is strung tighter than wound up Japanese fish guts, or I'm just plain tired.

All told I teach about 60 students in lessons both private and group, the latter ranging from two to seven people. Many of my students are a ton of fun, and the misunderstandings are always a riot. Today, one of my beginner-ish students told me that she bought some books on WWII (in Japanese, of course), so we were talking about them and somehow made our way to US immigration policy. I spent about five minutes talking and illustrating (I use the white board excessively) to her about the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act and the sad state of Cuban immigration practices. Then she tried explaining something about American soldiers, but unable to find the right word, she said "American octopus." Good times.

The same student told me a few weeks ago that she will soon be vacationing in Hawaii. "Where in Hawaii will you be going?" I asked.

"Oahu. Most Japanese go to Oahu," she said, explaining that there are many Japanese-speaking people who live there so it's easy to visit. Wondering if that would be her only vacation spot, I asked, "Maui?"

"No, I'm single," she said. Give it two seconds if it didn't hit you (it took me a few to figure out at the time). "Married," she thought I said.

Problems arise with a disparate phonemic register. The Japanese don't have a "see" sound, so they use "shi" as the closest approximation when they speak and when they listen. Problems arise when they think you are talking about a "pussy-person."

One of my students is practicing for the interview portion of the TOEFL exam, which she will likely take sometime late next year. For part of the interview portion, the applicant is given a minute to answer a question like, "Tell me who you most admire and why." Today I introduced a new question: "If you could live at any time in history, when and where would it be and why?" I gave her three minutes and was standing by to answer any questions she might have had (she's not ready for the real deal yet), but she seemed to be ok. After three minutes, I asked her to start. She began, "I would choose the future." A few seconds after my head hit the desk and I repeated the question, she understood.

In one of my group lessons, we read novels. The novel they read before I started teaching was Passage to India. Not a good idea to try teaching Passage to India to those who are learning English, let alone those who are studying it. I chose Italo Calvino's Marcovaldo with very positive results. I am now, in fact, the foremost expert on Italo Calvino for... I'd say about 1500 miles. Japanese professorship, here I come!

I've taught about Lost and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. I've taught about the tooth fairy and politics. I've spent time discussing the relationships in Beverly Hills 90210 (older American shows, as well as current ones, are popular here, and they're *obsessed* with 24) and I've taught the fundamentals of Judaism. Basically I teach whatever the heck I feel like. If you have suggested topics, I'm all for them. If there's anything you want to learn, I can find that out too. (E.g., when Japanese lose their lower teeth, they throw them on the roof; when they lose their upper teeth, they bury them or throw them at the ground or chuck them under the house -- answers varied).

It's a different world from where I come from. No comments expounding on cultural relativism please.