lioness in japan

Sorry for the long delay in this last installment of my “Teaching in Japan” series. Life has been busy with all sorts of things and I have to admit I’ve slacked a little on blogging, but I promise there will definitely be more prolific times.

Let’s dive into this topic — what are Japanese students like and how to teach them?

I am sure many English teachers will agree with me on this: Japanese students are very respectful and polite. It’s great for you as a teacher because they pay attention when you are talking and this makes you want to be a better instructor, too.

A Canadian friend who was a trainer for English teachers at a big chain school once told me she found teaching foreigners an absolute pain and missed her Japanese students. They constantly challenged her rudely and interrupted her flow all the time: “Are you sure that this is correct?”, “Why do you want us to do that?”, “That’s not right!” These were remarks she was often thrown at, on top of overall inconsiderate behaviour like talking and eating in class. She lamented that most of these wannabe English teachers were fresh out of university, 18 to 25 years old on average, had no real job experience and a real attitude problem.

SO, thank your lucky stars that you are going to teach nice people.

However, there are a few stereotypes of Japanese students and I have a disclaimer that not all my students fit into this mould, plus all these observations were from my conversational sessions with Japanese working adults and not any other kind of lesson:

Little or no initiative. The flip side of being someone they totally respect is they could completely lean on you on all aspects. One new student of mine last year met me for her first class at a busy, smoky coffee shop just outside the train gates of the Tokyo metro. It was impossible to teach nor for her to learn so I asked her if she knew of another café near her office. But she said, “I don’t know.”

I couldn’t believe she didn’t know her office area well, so I jumped online anyway and found a Starbucks close to her workplace the next day. It wasn’t a big deal but I want to use this example to illustrate the subtle interpersonal dynamics of a teacher and student in my experience. I sensed there was more of a care-giver slant in the role of a private teacher, as opposed to relating as absolute equals.

Hardworking. If you give homework, you can be certain you will get it back complete and on time 99 per cent of the time. They may even request for more as it’s important to them to improve their language abilities because of work and getting that next promotion (many employees get more cash if they attain a certificate at an official language test like TOEFL, EIKEN, and TOEIC).

Punctual. Most students will be early or on-the-dot punctual. It’s better if you get there beforehand to settle down with your drink and spread out your teaching materials. It looks really bad if you keep your student waiting, especially in the beginning of your time with them — the first month is very important to run everything smoothly and like clockwork, but after that, if daily life gets in the way, they would be a bit more forgiving.

However, missing a lesson without proper notice could be the end of your time with a particular student. I am embarrassed to confess that I had one such experience — it was the last month before I ended teaching officially and I sent him an email to cancel the lesson the day before because I was going for a snowboarding trip.

Unfortunately he didn’t check his email and thought he was stood up. Even after apologising profusely over a few emails, he still refused to have another lesson and gave a thinly-veiled excuse that he was suddenly busy with work. Aside from work, this is also social suicide, even to cancel an hour before an appointment. You can expect the friendship to end abruptly over this unacceptable infringement of social graces. I’m not saying people are so rigid here but you must give sufficient notice before you cancel — there is no magic number but more than 24 hours is fairly courteous.

Local mindset. This is something I found across the board with my students but you can’t really blame them for being less international-minded. They see global events through the lens of Japanese media where lots of things can be lost in translation and they choose what goes on TV and newspapers. Therefore, they relate to you better when you present more locally centred topics. But I think it is a basic teaching technique where talking about something familiar always gives learning a better boost.

Having such a unique language is rather crippling to the Japanese and they do see that and feel isolated — it not only affects how they view other cultures but their own culture, too.

They may throw the most candid stereotypes they have of other countries at you, but you can change this mindset because they want to know what’s real, too. Though you may encounter very shocking (or hilarious) statements, just deal with them graciously and politely.

Some examples from my memory: “Foreigners need stronger medicine because they are bigger”, “the Ainu are not Japanese”, “Tokyo is a very dangerous city”, “Tokyo is very polluted”, “women get molested on trains because they don’t scream”, “everyone has a gun in America”, “adoption is bad for the family because you have different blood” and the list goes on. But one I simply couldn’t refute at all was: “George W. Bush looks like a stupid cowboy.”

This is not an exhaustive list of qualities but more of a summary. The Japanese may be very mono-cultural as a people but within all communities lie all kinds of characters and I learned never to fall back to stereotypes. I had one student who kept standing me up because she was a busy beauty spa trainer, I also had another student who didn’t care so much about grammar and just wanted to know more about anything outside Japan, and I also taught an aspiring translator who went over and beyond in fine-tuning her skills not just in grammar but colloquial speech and common metaphors. Teaching so many different personalities made my so-called gap year intellectually stimulating for me — a pleasant surprise I must say.

This is a topic very close my heart as I miss all my students. That one year teaching them, meeting each and every one of them once or twice weekly, made my time in Tokyo unforgettable.

“I’m jealous you can dive right into Japanese culture,” the kangaroo once said to me. They told me everything and more about Japanese life and thinking. Right now, although I am back to writing which is what my career has always been about, I wish I could go back to teaching on some level. I feel like I am back in my gaijin bubble where I predominantly hang out with foreigners. I have a few Japanese friends but I could never get as close as I managed to with my students.

As a one-on-one private tutor, I was privy to their daily routines, thoughts, aspirations and problems. Some of them wept or complained to me, or shared happy moments. I usually have a couple of topics at hand to have some foundation to the lesson but sometimes the conversation flows like it is one between friends.

I remember one incident when I brought an article about AIDS and HIV NGOs in Africa for a student who was working with a non-profit organization. We chatted about the issues at hand but somehow the topic of casual sex made her burst into tears. She kept tearing and wiped away the sad drops with a trembling finger, so I asked her, “Are you okay?” Then she revealed that her new boyfriend refused to take an STD test to see if he was clear of any disease, but she did anyway and was worried about her results. It was heartbreaking to see her so upset. She sobbed a bit more and bravely continued the lesson like nothing happened.

I’m not going to romanticize that I was their closest buddy, the one whom they could tell all their dirty secrets, but I think I was allowed into a private circle of opinions that they would probably not express to their peers or families.

I didn’t write about the negative experiences because it’s not so much the point here but I would just like to say it’s not roses and peaches 100 per cent of the time.

So there you have it, my sincere mind-ramblings about teaching English in Tokyo. This entry inspired me to do several portraits of some students who were absolute characters. I’ve gone on long enough and will touch on this again soon.