Interviewed
Your students will ask you a lot of questions about you. They’ll also gossip with each other about you. So if you start talking about something in your life that just happens to be relevant to the lesson, be careful about what you say. You may find that your stories about your life are spread around and repeated back to you in a later lesson. It might also end up slightly warped, Chinese Whispers style.
Below are the most common questions you’ll get from your students. I find that it’s best to give them a lighthearted, funny answer where possible. Even if it means lying a bit. They’d probably love to hear all the intricate details about your life but you may not like what they do with that information. They have blogs too, you know.
Anyway!
Q. Where are you from?
I usually find it’s best to say the city and the country. Especially since after simply saying “Australia”, the student will almost definitely ask “Aaah. Sydney?”
*grrrr*
“No, Melbourne. It’s further south”
“Aah. Olympics! 1952!”
“Um *tries desperately to remember* …yeah!”
Q. How long have you been in Japan?
A pretty easy answer, but be warned! It will almost immediately be followed by this one:
Q. Do you like Japan?
ALWAYS GIVE A POSITIVE ANSWER. And don’t do the same faux pas that I did by teaching them the concept of a ‘white lie’ later in the same lesson. It’s quite possibly demeaning, but some students can get narky over your Japan-bashing and complain which might mean the eventual loss of job. Or, permanently unfriendly students. So, happy happy joy joy answers, please.
Q. Do you speak Japanese?
This is all dependant on your actual skill, but since I barely speak anything, I tend to go for the comical answer, which is waving my hand in front of my face in the Japanese fashion of saying ‘no’ and saying “Nihongo dame!” (pronounce dah-meh, meaning “not good!”).
Q. Why did you come to Japan?
Again, try a comical answer, such as:
“Anime”
“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?”
That was so worth it.
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