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Sensei Nelson fumbles her way towards enlightenment

Today I taught English “officially” for the first time. I am meeting weekly with a student from Japan. I teach her English for an hour, and then she teaches me Japanese for an hour. I consider this my warm up for when I have to move across the Pacific and teach everyday. I’ve been a writing tutor for over a year, but teaching English is VERY different from teaching writing to those that already have a masterful grasp of the language. Naoko is very smart and pleasant and we like make up inappropriate sentences to practice our grammar with and then drill them loudly in cafes. For instance, Naoko is working on learning complex sentences using conjunctions. She repeated, “Because Joe forgot his ID, he couldn’t get into either the strip club or the swingers bar and now he will never find his true love” over and over again. Very funny. I imagine that I can use the same “inappropriate subject matter to create interest in the lesson” technique with the 13-year-old boys I will be teaching. Yep. No doubt.

My level of Japanese is no where near Naoko’s level of English. I just pointed at things and said what they were and who they belonged to. Not as funny.

Here is a funny thing: I’ve been writing and studying writing in college for years now. I’ve even spent the past year tutoring students and explaining grammar concepts. But, multiple times during our English lesson, Naoko asked me questions I couldn’t answer for the life of me. She wrote: “The boys found the grey big box.” I said good, but it should be “big grey box” not “grey big box.” Why? Um, I dunno. She asked if there are any rules for the order of adjectives. How come “tiny broken wooden boxes” is correct and not “wooden broken tiny boxes”? Maybe there is a rule to explain this, but I certainly don’t know it. I made up some garbage about vague global adjectives whittling down to specific visual adjectives and then quickly turned the page and told her it would all make sense to her in time.

Later I told teased her that I had her pegged as a “good girl”, but then I got to know her better and found out otherwise. “Pegged?” She asked. “What does that mean?” Um, identified, I guess. “Why do you say pegged?” I have no idea. Any reason I could come up with seemed much too vulgar to be correct.

She also questioned me quite fiercely about why we Americans say we are going to THE store and not to A store. In fact, why do we even say we are going to THE store when, in fact, we may have multiple stops? I don’t know! Quit asking me!

When I was little, I held strongly to the belief that teaching is easy. The teacher just shows up and the kids do all the work. I have even thought that through most of my college career. I didn’t expect I would have to us MY brain so much. Doh!

Atmosphere visual: Kio and Matt are crashed out in the living room watching Pinocchio. Their mouths hang open and both have the same vacant deer-eyed look. I studied their faces for a full minute to see if either one blinked. Their lashes didn’t flicker at all. Sometimes when people say they can’t see the resemblance between the two I just have to shake my head and bite my lip. At home, they may as well be twins.

posted by Scribbler @ Wednesday, June 23, 2004