How Do I Stop Students From Saying “I Am Reaching Orgasm To The Store”?

In English, reaching orgasm is expressed by many phrases – “Bingo”, “Yahtzee”, “Team Rocket is blasting off again”, etc. However, none are more common than “I am coming”. In Japanese, it is expressed by saying “I go”(行く). There are many mistakes made in Japanese, as they confuse sentences such as “I am going to the store” and “I am reaching orgasm to the store”, and these oftentimes find their way into English lessons.

When the student makes a mistake, confirm meaning by having them demonstrate with their hands. 99% of the time, they mean to express “going” and not “reaching orgasm”.

To practice the difference between the two English meanings, you may practice a roleplay where the student travels throughout a city and reports their activities to you via “phone”. This roleplay should only focus on the literal English meaning of “go”. This will help the student avoid saying anything particularly embarrassing when using English outside of the classroom.

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How can I have my student share their coffee?

We’ve all had classes where our eyelids can barely stay open, and we spend most of the class trying to keep our head upright. When a student brings a can or cup of coffee into the classroom with no intention of sharing it, they are inadvertently insulting the teacher and they are responsible for creating a lower quality lesson.

Coffee started as a drink in the Middle East, to keep desert dwellers awake throughout the nights during Ramadan, allowing them to fully enjoy their times of feasting before the day-long fasting. Coffee has spread all throughout the world and is renowned for its ability to keep people awake. Of all of the world’s coffee, Japanese coffee is among the most delicious.

How can we have the student share their coffee? Like everything else, it must be integrated into the lesson.

There are two effective methods that work for this;
1) Telephone roleplays
Communication becomes much more difficult when you are unable to see body language or facial expressions, such as when conversing via telephone. Tell the student that in order to prepare for these situations, you will do some roleplays where you are not allowed to see each others faces.
Have the student turn their chair around so that they are no longer facing you. As the student talks, you will be able to take a sip of coffee.
There is an inherent problem with this in that it is a sneaky way to get coffee. If the student catches you, they will very likely be unhappy. However, this method has a greater success rate.

2) “Would like” practice
Students expect a certain degree of fun and excitement in the classroom, and practicing “would like” is the best way to do so.

“Would like” is very useful language in that it lends itself to a variety of situations. To drink some of the student’s coffee, start by asking three “would like” questions in either the verb or noun pattern, incorporating objects in the classroom (ie, Would you like to use my pen? Would you like to open a window?”)

After asking 3 questions, have the student ask 3. They will not think to ask about the coffee, so if you see the student struggle to compose a question, point to their coffee to encourage that question. When they ask a variant of “Would you like to drink my coffee?”, answer with an enthusiastic and grammatically relevant “Yes, I would” and take a quick sip. Most students find this very amusing, and you can have them repeat the question to have a second or third drink.

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How Do I Teach the Difference Between Ketchup and Catsup?

Several years ago we had a student who was confused about ketchup and catsup. This took the staff by surprise. Being native English speakers ourselves, we had never put ourselves in the shoes of the student. We had all assumed that the difference was as clear as night and day, but were surprised to find out otherwise.

In teaching the difference between ketchup and catsup, start by making a list of flavors with the student. Ketchup is universally accepted as being “zesty” and “flavorful” whereas catsup is more “zippy” and “tangy”. After writing down the flavors, have the student associate other foods with them such as V8 juice, bisque, secret sauce, etc. The student will begin to see the clear difference between the two.

To help the student remember, engage them in a roleplay. In the roleplay, you both need to choose a restaurant for a foreign dignitary with very demanding tastes. The dignitary wishes to eat french fries, but you both need to compare the merits of ketchup as well as catsup as a topping. One person campaigns for ketchup, and the other for catsup. When finished, switch roles and try again.

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Why Do Pencils In Japan Not Have Erasers?

In Japan, it is rare to have a pencil with an attached eraser. An eraser company by the name of Momo has successfully lobbied the Japanese government to make it illegal based on safety concerns. Other countries are little behind the times, unaware of the number of eraser/eye related injuries that happen everyday in the classroom.

Upon hearing of the eraser situations in other countries, most students are unable to grasp the concept. This may be remedied by visual demonstrations. The teacher should bring some cellophane tape into the class along with several pencils of different sizes, one eraser, and a sharp knife. In the classroom, have the student cut the eraser into smaller pieces and tape them to the ends of the pencils; one piece per pencil. Once the activity is finished, have the students hold all of the pencils and say “These are American pencils”, and have the student repeat.

It is conductive to the learning process to have the student apply their knowledge. You can do a roleplay with the student where they wish to buy some American pencils, but you only cell Japanese pencils, cellophane tape, sharp knives, and erasers. The student will instruct you how to create American pencils and then purchase all of them.

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How Do I Teach Proper Usage of “See”, “Look At”, and “Watch”?

Since the Japanese language has only one word to represent the English words “see”, “look at”, and “watch”, a great deal of confusion arises from their use. At first glance, these words to represent sight are interchangable, but at second glance we can see that they are very uninterchangable.

To watch something means to follow its movement with your eyes. To look at something means to focus on object, often stationary. To see incorporates peripheral vision, and rather than being focused, the eyes take in everything possible.

An easy way to demonstrate the difference between these words involves a pencil, and some scotch tape. Using the scotch tape, attach the pencil to your forehead so that it points straight out. This will represent the focus of your attention.

If possible, freeze a fly or bee for use inside of the class. Make sure you have a window to it to escape from. (If you don’t have a window, it may be best to simply wait for a clock’s minute hand to tick over to demonstrate the next part.) With the pencil taped to your head, follow the movement of something in the room to demonstrate “watching”. Help the student affix a pencil of pen of their own and join you.

To teach “looking at”, stare intently at an object in the room that is stationary. “To watch” and “To look at” may be contrasted by use of a TV, as any direction that isn’t facing the screen is “looking at” the TV, and not “watching” it.

Finally, to represent “to see”, look directly at the student’s eyes. List items that you can see in your periphery, all while keeping your vision locked onto the student. Have the student do the same.

This teaching activity lends easily to “listen to” and “hear”. The pencil may be taped to that it protrudes from the ear to demonstrate the direction of focus for “listening to”.

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How Can I Teach Proper Pronunciation of the Word “One”?

Pronunciation of the word “one” is as important as it is vital. Therefore, a great degree of teaching is required.

As most students revert to lesser pronunciations such as “wun”, “wuhn”, or “won”, it is the duty of the teacher to repeatedly yell “one” while pointing to the written word.
In addition to pronunciation of the word being of higher difficulty for the Japanese students, up until the late 1800s there was no concept of “1” or “0” in Japanese, lending to their concept of teamwork. If they used Katakana to write “team”, it would look like “chiimu” (チーム), but still wouldn’t have an “i” in it because it would have two “i”s.

If the student is unfamiliar with the concept of 1 and 0, it is best to draw an image of a group of people. Ask the student to provide names and short backgrounds for each image of a person. After that has been established, explain that they are all dying, and use a red marker to represent blood, and a black marker to cross out their eyes or draw widows. With one person left alive, say the word “one” and have the student repeat. Draw a representation of death for the final person and say “zero” and have the student repeat. This will help the student to associate the numbers with the concept.

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How Can I Make the Student Accept the Teacher’s Touch?

Japanese English learners are a unique group of people in that there is very little student-teacher touching within the classroom. If the students travel abroad, they are often shocked at the amount of touching and embracing that occurs in other school systems.
To ease the student into the concept of touching, it is best to start early and often. Any negative reactions must be strongly reprimanded, and positive reactions praised and rewarded with snacks.

This is a hand.If dealing with a female student, start by complementing her on her skin complexion before laying your hand on her forearm. As most Japanese, she will recoil at first, but persistence is key. As your level of trust increases, you may grip her forearm for several minutes at a time as a demonstration of trust between the two of you. When dealing with male students, it is best to compliment their knuckles, but not to use your fingers to touch them. Start with your own knuckles and gently tap theirs while saying the alphabet.

Students who have been taking classes for years often reach the point where the entire class is spent in a warm, non-sensual embrace with their teacher, only breaking the embrace to take notes or write on the board.

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What Do I Do When a Student Hides Their Mouth Behind a Mask?

Face-to-face communication has been determined to be at least three times as effective as non-face-to-face communication, which may be one of the contributing factors as to why humans engage in such conversations on almost a daily basis. This degree of benefit is severely hampered when a student wears a facial mask.

Masks are worn in Japan to stop the spread of colds, flus, and airborne pathogens by completely covering the nose and mouth. However, by covering the mouth, the mouth becomes hidden and cannot be seen, thus removing the face-to-face communication benefits that help promote classroom learning.

Japanese Face MaskStudents expect to get the most value for their money, and this may only be accomplished with some clever thinking from the teacher. Although the student will continue to wear their mask, they can still express emotion and add important facial communication with the help of sheets of paper with images of mouths on them.

Drawing all mouth shapes by hand is the best option, but for teachers under deadlines, this may take away from other important preparation time. Time can be saved by printing the following characters with a 72 point font. (60 point font for children)

Emotion Mask

An emotion mask with "minor surprise" and "smile" expressions.

  • ) – smile
  • ( – frown
  • D – big smile
  • < - big frown
  • つ – biggest smile
  • く – biggest frown
  • | – apathy
  • / – confusion, disbelief, or skepticism
  • * – puckered lips, anger
  • . – light surprise
  • 。- minor surprise
  • o – big surprise
  • O – bigger surprise
  • ○ – biggest surprise
  • □ – maximum surprise, disbelief, or shock

Emotion Mask 2

A store-bought emotion mask.

After printing the characters, rotate them 90 degrees clock-wise, and affix double-sided tape to the rear of them so that they are able to stick to the student’s mask. During speaking activities, have the student choose the mouth shape that best reflects their current emotion, and then affix it to their mask. If the student wishes to change emotions, they may change the paper on their own.

If the student is often sick, and regularly wears a mask, consider printing a set of mouth emotion papers and giving them to the student as a gift, or even assigning construction of the mouth emotion papers as homework.

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What Do I Do If I Accidentally Steal From a Student?

In Japan, there are many instances where the students have considerable wealth and choose to show their wealth through means of expensive watches, pens, pencil cases, and laptops. As teachers, one of the most important things to remember is not to steal from the student. However, there are situations where you may end up with the students items. If these situations arise, remember to never acknowledge ownership of said items, and always act as though ownership was never implied. This is a legal loophole in the Japanese justice system, where no crime can be committed if there is no ownership (ie. one cannot steal air)

After being discovered, always offer the item back to the student as a gift. If they accept the gift, it becomes their property and any ill-will disappears. If they decline the gift, you are legally allowed to have it and consider it your property.

One way of obtained student’s items that I’ve witnessed takes place during role-play activities. Tell the student that you wish to roleplay the concept of clarification over the phone, and point your chairs away from each other. This makes conversation more difficult as you are unable to see each other’s faces and body language. With the student facing the other way, their possessions often go missing.

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What Do I Do When the Student Won’t Stop Crying?

We’ve all had multiple instances of students crying in classrooms, and it never gets any easier to deal with. Crying is a selfish, one-sided behavior that the students resort to when they no longer wish to express themselves with words. Great care must be taken in these situations to get the student to convey their true emotions.

If a student is beginning to cry, tell them to stop firmly, but not menacingly. Place several word cards on the table representing emotions and have the student point to all of the emotions that they are feeling. Often, their lack of vocabulary is what makes them cry instead of flustered, confused, frustrated, annoyed, confounded, perplexed, or enraged. By pointing to these words on the table, the students can let you as a teacher know how they feel, and then you can find the root cause of their crying.

Many teachers have not been properly trained to deal with crying students, despite encountering them on a monthly basis. Sure, it is much easier to throw a book against the wall and storm out of the classroom, but that will not make you a better teacher. Always do your best to pretend you are sympathetic during the class. You can always cancel all of the student’s future classes and cut off contact later.

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