Disclaimer: These posts are not meant to be about all teachers and forms of teaching English in Japan. The stories and events reported in there are specific to my experience and the company I work for. They should not be interpreted as being relevant to all forms of teaching in Japan. This is what has happened to me and while I don’t think that it’s the same for everyone, some research and talking with other people has shown that there are good and bad things in all companies and all situations. They’re just my story.

It’s been about 5 months now since I packed up my day job in publishing and decided to become an English teacher on the other side of the world. 2 months were spent training and getting ready and I’m now in my 3rd month of teaching English in Tokyo, as what is commonly known over here as an ‘ekaiwa sensei’ (aka English conversation school teacher).

Part of the reason for doing this was the challenge of doing something entirely new that I’d never done before. After nearly ten years in London, life was becoming a little too dull at times - London has a nasty habit of sucking you in and making it incredibly difficult to get out. No matter how much money you seem to be making, there’s never enough to really get out clean and without any hassles. Ok I was never that good at saving but still - anyone who’s lived there for any length of time will know that life in London is most definitely not cheap.

Don’t get me wrong, life in London was great and if it wasn’t for me moving there when I was 18 I don’t think I’d be here today or I definitely wouldn’t have done 90% of the stuff I have or met the people I did. But no matter how good some of it was, or most of it, the bad always ended outweighting the good for me.

So the idea of packing it all in (albeit at a cost) and doing something new and different on the other side of the world was a challenge I needed. And I’m not regreting it (yet!). And after a few months of working there are some things which have already proved this to be the kind of challenge I think I needed. I’ll start by looking at the good things… I’ll leave the bad and the ugly for later.

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Popularity: 2%

written by Laurent

I’ve been teaching English in Japan for just over 2 months now, and in that time I’ve heard a good few random things from my students which have either freaked me out a little or downright left me wondering ‘what the hell’.
For example:

- ‘I’ve been playing Majong with some of my co-workers, and I’ve been losing. I owe them 40,000 Yen… no sorry 400,000 Yen is what I mean.’

400,000 Yen is about 2,000 pounds. So what do you say when your student starts the lesson by telling you how he’s been losing money gambling (which is illegal in Japan) and then follows this promptly with…

- ‘The people I play with have said I have 2 months to pay them, but I don’t think they’re serious.’

At which point I actually just didn’t know what to say. Following this the guy didn’t show up for a month, leading me to think that something bad might have actually happened. Turns out he was in hospital, but he didn’t really say what for… :|

A more common comment I’ve been hearing recently is:

- ‘I feel really ill, I’m not too well.’ (followed by bouts of cold, runny nose and wearing of sick mask)

Which automatically prompts me to think - what the hell are you doing in this classroom, on your time off or more like your day off when you could be at home looking after yourself?

This one is a favourite of mine - following a question during a grammar game of whether or not my student liked learning English, he answered:

- ‘No I don’t really.’

So why exactly are you in the classroom on a saturday when you could be at home spending time with your family?

During one of my recent lessons I asked a female student if she ever had a broken heart (the lesson was about past perfect - don’t ask as to the question, it was in the book). Her answer was:

- ‘All the time’

Ouch!

Kids often provide some amusing comments too…

- ‘Hello Baby!’ (when greeting me)

being one of them :-?

There’s more, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head so I’ll leave it for another day.

Popularity: 1%

written by Laurent