Sayonara Engrish Crub
Well, they finally did it...they broke the proverbial camel's back with the straw of shitty English. Or something like that. Anyway, my "English Club," which was held at the Joshiko where I work, was the bane of my existence for a long time, and I finally got myself out of it...or rather the students got myself out of it.Imagine this...
I'm having club one day, and four of the eleven members have shown up. So we're going over the recipes that we'll use for the next week's cooking class. Of course, none of the girls are speaking English, because that would be just too much work, so I end up having conversations with myself for about 20 minutes.
Then it happens:Two first-year students come into the room, and express their desires to join the English club. Well, I think to myself, "Fantastic!!" It sure would be nice to have a couple new faces around here. So I ask them to sit down and introduce themselves in English. It was at this point that one of the older girls breaks in, and tells me (in Japanese, of course) "Mike, please don't ask them to speak English on their first day." So I looked at her, and laughed thinking she was joking around. Mind you, these girls are 16 years old, and have already had at least three years of "English education" at school. I asked the girls again, and they introduced themselves in English. Then I asked a follow-up question to one of them, and another girl busts in and orders me to stop, saying that if I make the students speak English, it'll deaden their desires to join the club.
It was at this point, dear reader, that our conversation turned entirely into Japanese, so that I could properly put these girls in their places. So the first thing I asked these two be-atches that ordered me not to speak English in English club was this: "If you joined the tennis club, would you not want to play tennis on your first day?" They responded that it was a different situation for the tennis club, since it met every day. So I asked them if they would not want to play tennis if it met only one day a week, like the English club. Of course, they insisted that it was an entirely different thing.
We argued back and forth for awhile, before I finally just said, "Look, if you don't want to speak English, that's fine. But don't expect me to waste my time by coming here after my contracted hours are finished, and watch you speak Japanese for an hour. And that was that. After a few choice words, I left and never looked back. Now I'm free to hit the beaches on any given day after school!!
I'm having club one day, and four of the eleven members have shown up. So we're going over the recipes that we'll use for the next week's cooking class. Of course, none of the girls are speaking English, because that would be just too much work, so I end up having conversations with myself for about 20 minutes.
Then it happens:Two first-year students come into the room, and express their desires to join the English club. Well, I think to myself, "Fantastic!!" It sure would be nice to have a couple new faces around here. So I ask them to sit down and introduce themselves in English. It was at this point that one of the older girls breaks in, and tells me (in Japanese, of course) "Mike, please don't ask them to speak English on their first day." So I looked at her, and laughed thinking she was joking around. Mind you, these girls are 16 years old, and have already had at least three years of "English education" at school. I asked the girls again, and they introduced themselves in English. Then I asked a follow-up question to one of them, and another girl busts in and orders me to stop, saying that if I make the students speak English, it'll deaden their desires to join the club.
It was at this point, dear reader, that our conversation turned entirely into Japanese, so that I could properly put these girls in their places. So the first thing I asked these two be-atches that ordered me not to speak English in English club was this: "If you joined the tennis club, would you not want to play tennis on your first day?" They responded that it was a different situation for the tennis club, since it met every day. So I asked them if they would not want to play tennis if it met only one day a week, like the English club. Of course, they insisted that it was an entirely different thing.
We argued back and forth for awhile, before I finally just said, "Look, if you don't want to speak English, that's fine. But don't expect me to waste my time by coming here after my contracted hours are finished, and watch you speak Japanese for an hour. And that was that. After a few choice words, I left and never looked back. Now I'm free to hit the beaches on any given day after school!!
posted by spookydonkey at 11:02 PM
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