Teaching Engrish in Japan

I remember my years of teaching Engrish in Japan... as if it were yesterday! The whiteboard markers the kids would run across my dress shirts, how they would slide their hands up my shorts and grab my bum when I was reading to them (yikes!), and of course, the wearing of the jockstrap to prevent doubling over in pain as some curious boy or girl would come up and punch straight out at their eye level...

You may laugh when you see this... but the guy on the video trying to study engrish? A HUGE number of students are really like this! One of the big reasons is that they study to perfect the written sentence, and expect the students to be able to speak. The way of teaching when I was an AET on the JET Programme was totally in conflict with what the Board of Education said they wanted to do. In conversation, even in native language, we ALL make mistakes! That is part of the language, but we keep pushing forward because getting the message across is more important than getting a perfectly formed coalition of grammar out of your lips. Unfortunately, that's not quite how it worked...

I love you!

Cam