Comments on: School bites (teacher)

By: Laurent

Laurent — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:44:50 +0000

so hold on let me get this straight… you’ve written all this but im not quite sure why…
First, I’m not British, I mean my name is Laurent ffs.
Second, This was posted over a year ago, so why exactly do you care that much about making a point now?
Third, i never took it ‘seriously’ i just commented on what I thought a was a pretty poor marketing campaign and the animation that comes with it, which btw i made quite clear i had never heard of until then.
Did you actually even read any of what’s in the post, or even better the comments before yours?
Glad you entertained yourself for five minutes though.

PS: Hint, Laurent is not a damned Brit name but more like a cheese eating surrender monkey name.

By: American English in Japan Baby!!

American English in Japan Baby!! — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:28:28 +0000

BTW don’t bother to correct my grammar.Seeing as your a British teacher teaching English…I know you want too

By: American English in japan Baby!!

American English in japan Baby!! — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:26:23 +0000

Yeah. leave it up to a damned Brit to thumb is nose up at any other country trying to speak english. As an American who watches WORLD OF GOLDEN EGGS, who understands Japanese, and lives in Okinawa. WORLD OF GOLDEN EGGS is pretty close when it tries to translate. then account for the fact that it’s actually all just a stupid joke, and that the show itself makes fun of LANGUAGE in general: french, okinawan, american english, chinese, and japanese so far. The show dosent take itself seriously, and its unfortunate that you took it serious. The studio who makes that show actually has more talent than that, as far as art direction. BTW when the show “teaches” english. it’s sarcastic and over-the-top. Hence: Nori Nori english.

By: Patirck

Patirck — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:09:36 +0000

Hey – I’m an AET in Hokkaido and I laughed quite a bit when I saw this. Yes it’s from WOGE….but the funny part is they also have a English instruction DVD that they sell by itself…it teaches you to say things like, “I want beefy ham arms.”

The comedians who make this speak very bad Japanese…so they teach you bad English too…I think it’s pretty awesome to see the Japanese making fun of Engrish (not Japanese-English) – the commercialization of a language is never a good idea.

By: Andy H

Andy H — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:20:40 +0000

How was BTC?

Looking forward to the update

By: Laurent

Laurent — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:48:37 +0000

oh yeah I’m fully aware of the fact that they show them solely because it gives off an impression of Englishness or whatever to impress people. But i just find the choice of Little Britain highly comic. We’re lucky we don’t get really get explicit rap songs where I work, though I do work in Ebisu on sundays which is a more central school, so they sometimes play the BBC’s online radio, which leads to some funny moments. Generally though most schools seem to either opt for cheesy 80s pop songs, cover CDs or Japanese/English talk shows. meh.

I hear you on the hobbyist (sp?) nature of a lot of Japanese people though, it’s something I’m finding hard to deal with at times in the classroom, just cos it makes you want to bang your head against the wall (or maybe that’s just me).

By: Fushimi

Fushimi — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:19:17 +0000

Re. Little Britain being shown in reception – do the places where you work never have English radio shows with expletive-filled rap songs on? It’s nothing to do with whether the students can comprehend the English, it’s solely a way of making the atmosphere seem more impressive to prospective students.

It’s like having a David Beckham branded football school – you’d chose it over a no-name school but 99.9% of the people who go there will never be a professional football player, even if they get 10 minutes training with Becks himself. Just like how 99.9% of people who go to English schools will never gain a working command of the language.

The same way that people play sports with no intention of becoming a pro, or study flower arranging for a year cos they’re curious about it, Japanese people mess around with English for a bit. And if you did flower arranging, wouldn’t you want the opportunity to see some ace flower bender in action, even if you didn’t understand anything that was going on?

By: Dske

Dske — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:51:42 +0000

Hey Laurent I didnt know about ur blog until today, I found it while at work. It’s important for them that the characters used for the poster is totally NOT-japanese looking, as long as they’ve got that down they dont care. When I first went to Sydney years ago, they made us sing stuff like Michael Jackson and heaps of billboard chart songs e.g. those human-nature looking dudes(ones that sampled EWF’s lets groove tonight straight up) with all seriousness just so that we can learn English.

By: Laurent

Laurent — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:34:56 +0000

ha ha yeah i did think it struck an odd resemblance to said illustrating and resource creating genius. I wasn’t here for last year’s summer schools but i had to suffer the spring and summer schools he came up with this year (i think he did the summer ones, if not it’s obviously the work of someone who thought his style was good) and the use of his HS books which are slowly but surely driving me to want to murder someone…
But yeah you’re right, I wonder who’s behind this school of golden eggs thing – it’s freakily striking in resemblance the more I look at it.
I should have checked who was responsible for the Swedish porn thing, as its an adult summer school resource, so it may well have been a parting gift? ha ha

The Little Britain thing is retarded beyond belief, I do really wonder if they’ve got licence for it though?

Gaijinman comic strips? That sounds like an interesting one too.

So did you use to work for said British English school in Japan as well Alex? I read on your blog you worked for them in Thailand.

@ Andy – yeah fair enough, i gotta be honest the design puts me off. I find those quick and easy to produce looking animations mainly so so, especially as south park was there first and did it better than anyone else 10 years ago now (1997, damn!). The only one I really enjoy these days is Robot Chicken – i think that’s genius.

By: Alex Case

Alex Case — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:20:17 +0000

Doesn’t look very Japanese does it?? It looks very similar to the style of the main illustrator of a certain British English school who quit 2 months ago to move onto a new job (have a look at last years’ summer school sheets to see what I mean). Did he move on to Eiken??

I also laughed at Little Britain for the first time in my life- at the idea that some genius thought that was a good thing to put in reception! And to think I used to take the effort to take down the Gaijinman comic strips someone put up in one of the schools because I thought they weren’t suitable for kids…