No, this post is not the ultimate ego trip or a sign of a split personality (or at least not just those things)- Troy from The Blog with the Longest Name in Spain sent me a few questions a couple of weeks ago and then picked out the best bits of my answers to put in a real article for a real publication on real paper he was writing for, and thought I may as well use the rejected bits here on the internet where anything is okay:
“How would you consider Asian learners different from other learners that you have taught?
Japanese and Korean students are just as different as Germans and Italians, so if we bring in Singapore Chinese, Malaysians, Burmese refugees in Thailand etc you can see that it is difficult to make generalisations even if we just talk about East and Southeast Asia and ignore Central and South Asia. And then there are differences of age, class, gender… However, in my classes in Japan, Korea and Thailand and from teaching Chinese students in the UK I would say they are less willing to speak out in front of the whole class, have more of an idea that they are lacking in fluency (although reading and understanding natural connected speech are often actually more important weaknesses when taking IELTS etc), are less likely to interrupt each other, pause longer before speaking (also a factor with Finnish students), expect the class to cover the whole book in the order in which it is on the page, and read all the instructions on the page even when you have just told them what to do. On the positive side, they have less interference from false friends and grammatical forms that seem the same, and actually listen to each other even without being told to (unlike Spanish students!) There are also plenty of hard working students and ones that are obsessed with foreign culture.
What has been the biggest culture difference that you have encountered in the classroom?
My classic moment was teaching in a language school in London, where a Japanese girl almost died from shock when Alessandro, the obligatory loud and lively Italian student in a group of mainly Asians, did his impression of a trumpeter summoning the hoards with his nose and handkerchief. He was completely oblivious to effect he was having.
Another was finally sending out a student who spoke Chinese and got a “red card” for the third time in that one class, only to be as gobsmacked as the other students when he gave a five minute speech on how Columbians (about half the class) hate Chinese. This nationalist paranoia is hidden better in Thailand and restricted to a certain segment in Japan, but is an undercurrent that since then I have always found it worth keeping an antenna out for.
In kids’ classes in Japan, there are two moments that stick in my mind, One is pointing at my chest to get them to understand and repeat “teacher” and being perturbed when I got repeated choruses of “T shirt” (Japanese point at their noses when saying “me”, so they thought I was pointing at my clothing) . The other was having the kids turn to the other teacher in amazement and say in Japanese “He is drinking water!” (you will rarely see a Japanese teacher drink even a glass or water in class, and certainly not straight from a plastic bottle)- to which, to his credit, he replied “Ningen kara” (“Because he is a human”). One thing not one teacher has ever got used to in Japanese kindergarten classes in the “kanchou”- kids sticking their index fingers out from their combined fists and seeking to stick it up the arses of off-guard teachers and students. I still fail to see how this is funny however young you are or whatever country you come from! I wrote a post on my JapanExplained blog on my faux pas in Japan- http://japanexplained.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/the-big-list-of-my-japanese-faux-pas/
What’s the biggest misperception of TEFL?
That it is easy. Another is that it will give you useful skills for the job market when you go home. It might, but very few people catch up with the salaries of the people who graduated at the same time and just stayed at home to climb the corporate ladder.
What is the best/worst thing about teaching in Asia?
The worst thing is being 13 hours and 500 pounds away from home (the UK) and needing to factor in a 9 hour time difference to even make a phone call. This also means family and friends visit for 10 days (a strain by the end!) or not at all.
The best thing is being constantly surprised. At the beginning this is mainly things like being surprised by the taste of food you had to pick from appearance only (biting into what turns out to be a curry donut is a pleasant surprise for many in Japan), cultural differences where you thought things were universal, and views of the city and countryside where nothing seems familiar. As you stay longer that turns into surprise at how much you have changed (bowing on the phone even when you go home) and how quickly Asian countries, especially cities, change.
If you could only offer one piece of advice, what would you tell someone before accepting a job in Asia?
If you mean before accepting a particular job you have been offered, I could give you a list of a hundred things you should look out for. The best thing to do is to apply for as many jobs as you can and watch out for schools that miss out info that most of the others have included.
What cultural differences should you keep in mind when planning your classes?
I wrote an article on 15 cultural differences in the classroom (http://edition.tefl.net/articles/cultural-differences/), and ended up having to write an extra article with another whole 15 and two specific articles on Japan (http://edition.tefl.net/articles/cultural-differences-japanese/) because I’d hardly scratched the surface of the topic with the first one. The most important three things you can research are what their teachers do in their usual school classes (e.g. making them stand up and chorus hello, useful for discipline and getting their attention in Thailand, or brushing their teeth after lunch in Japan), body language, and taboo topics.”
Oh I do love talking about myself! Anyone else want to interview me? Quick. before I start asking random people in the street…
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