Well, that's classes over for the day.
Some of my classes with a few of the high school grades are 'giri giri' (there's no test) and you'd think that the kids would jump at the chance for a fee-free conversation class, instead of having to haul their non-muscled asses to an Eikawa School, but hey, this ain't no Chinese disco, so 90% of them just sit there and don't write down new words like, 'veal' or 'athletes foot'.
What I'm trying to say is, ergo, such classes are taught in a random manner; if they don't give a shit, I don't give a shit, even though I do give a shit and I'm always trying to get them to change this frustrating ambivalence they have towards actually utilising and making use of 6 long years of English study, but more often than not, it's to no avail. Take a breath and think about it cowboy, cos I do.
I tigressed so back to the point, which is, the classes are whatever they become, and today I noticed one of the boys looking at my Italian Cuisine book that Darth Vader gave me years ago and which I keep trying to 'leave' and never see again.
So anyway, I picked it up and made Italian Cuisine the first course, then after we'd exhausted looking at all the recipes involving 'innards' (is it any wonder they don't write down the new words) we moved on to Japanese History and how most of the students were obviously stuck in the 17th century, what with their absolutely pathetic lack of effort towards actually giving a damn about acquiring a second language, and not just any second language.
I told them about how I had bumped into an old neighbor of mine this morning at the 100 Yen shop where I buy my chestnuts.
He's in his 60's, used to be a road worker, always has a mop of dyed jet black hair with visible grey roots, and married a young Chinese woman a few years ago, dividing his time between here and China (his wife is yet to be given a full visa to live in Japan - no sulplise there), and who was the only other person in the 'hood with the heart to feed the stray cats.
Well, he told me this morning how surprised he was to find that lots of Chinese people can speak English, indeed, that they actually make a concerted effort to master the language, and that he has met many who can also speak Japanese, and I was like,
'You're preaching to the choir, mate'.
So I told this story to the students just now and put them to shame.
Evil roar.
I'm sure I had something more interesting to write about than all of the above.
Oh well, maybe I'll remember something for later, you know, what with living such a dumb life right now, ah ha, that was it, this is what I wanted to write about....
I had wanted to say that posting these pics from last year and the year before and the other years is extremely cathartic and I find myself looking at all the places I've seen, remembering all the things I've done, and sometimes, when I look at the pics, I say to myself, 'Holy cow! You did that!'
So I feel better about my life now. Hell yeah.
Some of my classes with a few of the high school grades are 'giri giri' (there's no test) and you'd think that the kids would jump at the chance for a fee-free conversation class, instead of having to haul their non-muscled asses to an Eikawa School, but hey, this ain't no Chinese disco, so 90% of them just sit there and don't write down new words like, 'veal' or 'athletes foot'.
What I'm trying to say is, ergo, such classes are taught in a random manner; if they don't give a shit, I don't give a shit, even though I do give a shit and I'm always trying to get them to change this frustrating ambivalence they have towards actually utilising and making use of 6 long years of English study, but more often than not, it's to no avail. Take a breath and think about it cowboy, cos I do.
I tigressed so back to the point, which is, the classes are whatever they become, and today I noticed one of the boys looking at my Italian Cuisine book that Darth Vader gave me years ago and which I keep trying to 'leave' and never see again.
So anyway, I picked it up and made Italian Cuisine the first course, then after we'd exhausted looking at all the recipes involving 'innards' (is it any wonder they don't write down the new words) we moved on to Japanese History and how most of the students were obviously stuck in the 17th century, what with their absolutely pathetic lack of effort towards actually giving a damn about acquiring a second language, and not just any second language.
I told them about how I had bumped into an old neighbor of mine this morning at the 100 Yen shop where I buy my chestnuts.
He's in his 60's, used to be a road worker, always has a mop of dyed jet black hair with visible grey roots, and married a young Chinese woman a few years ago, dividing his time between here and China (his wife is yet to be given a full visa to live in Japan - no sulplise there), and who was the only other person in the 'hood with the heart to feed the stray cats.
 |
| John Wayne Gacy |
Well, he told me this morning how surprised he was to find that lots of Chinese people can speak English, indeed, that they actually make a concerted effort to master the language, and that he has met many who can also speak Japanese, and I was like,
'You're preaching to the choir, mate'.
 |
| 'I just don't get this apathy that Japanese students have' |
 |
| 'Me neever' |
 |
| 'Nor me' |
So I told this story to the students just now and put them to shame.
Evil roar.
I'm sure I had something more interesting to write about than all of the above.
Oh well, maybe I'll remember something for later, you know, what with living such a dumb life right now, ah ha, that was it, this is what I wanted to write about....
I had wanted to say that posting these pics from last year and the year before and the other years is extremely cathartic and I find myself looking at all the places I've seen, remembering all the things I've done, and sometimes, when I look at the pics, I say to myself, 'Holy cow! You did that!'
 |
| Yes, I did this, pumped out the bilge |
So I feel better about my life now. Hell yeah.
4 comments:
I taught a company class where they not only got free English but 2 hours off work to go to class. Still weren't interested.
Yeah, those are knackered salarymen. I taught them, too.
They have their jobs,for life back then, probably still plodding on in them, but this new generation, it's gonna be a different world for them out there, and their Chinese/Korean peers are sucking up the English wherever they can get it, indeed, today I was cleaning stuff out from behind the curtain and I came across some 'pen pal' letters sent from some Korean students two years ago - I wasn't working there at the time, another teacher's project - and the letters from the Korean students were not only grammatically correct, but they wrote about interesting topics, more grown-up questions were asked, and I'm gonna photocopy the letters and use them in my classes, just to bring home the point that the students are lazy fckers in Japan.
Products of a pumped bilge, or yet another shot of colonic irrigation evangelism?
One never knows.
The company that is contracted to do the cleaning of all the buildings in our school district often employees Vietnamese and Hispanics. They offer them a bonus if they will attend English classes. Yet they don't bother to learn to speak and generally answer 'yes' to everything. But why should they go to class? They are already driving Mercedes SUVs and Jaguars, they clearly don't need the bonus $$.
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