English is Difficult

So, part of this post is inspired by a blogger living in Brazil and teaching English. You can find her blog here. She, I believe, majored in linguistics and a lot of her posts focus on the intricacies of English, Portuguese, and teaching English as a Foreign Language. Really interesting and I highly recommend it!

Anyways, my lovely friend Liz sent me a little moleskin notebook that I can carry around in my purse and record thoughts/sketches (not sure if the sketches will be happening, as I'm a horrible drawer, but we'll see).

Today, during my Eikaiwa (Adult English Conversation Class) my students asked a lot of really good questions. They usually do ask good questions, but I was surprised today. First off, the difference between "former" and "previous". This was really hard for me to answer at first because I couldn't explain why I use it differently. Think about it. The former president Bush (vs.) the previous president was Bush. There is a small difference. I tried to explain it as "former" being something that 'was, but is not anymore'. Like, my former professor. This person was my professor, but isn't anymore. Also, I think former is referring to any period before not just the one just before. While "previous" means more 'the one before this'. Like, the previous book I read. Means the book I read before this. What do you think? Is this totally wrong? I don't know why this was so hard. I think it's the little nuances that can be the hardest to explain.

Another point we discussed was how to say 'a lot of something'. My students (bear in mind, they are both middle-aged mothers) often tease me about different things. Like, when I sometimes buy foreign food online (I live on a tiny island... so foreign food really isn't American foreign food... just not Japanese food) it usually comes in a big size because I don't buy it often. They tease that it's American sized. Anyways, recently, we've been teasing about gokiburi (cockroaches) coming out. Ewwwwww! I killed my first cockroach of the season yesterday (still a little scarred). And they told me the place that has the most cockroaches is the bathroom behind the toilet.

So, one of my students used the bathroom today and I asked her if there were any cockroaches. She responded, "Yes, many, many cockroaches, " jokingly. And then paused and asked me if using "many, many" was correct. I explained that we don't say "many, many" though I've become used to it while living in Japan. And that we say "a lot of". But, then I said... more conversationally, we say "lots of". When they asked me why it changes I explained that I think American English likes one sound to kind of lead into the other. When you say "a lot of" you have to pause between "lot" and "of", but with "lots of" it flows and almost becomes one word. I think we do this with a lot of words. Is this true, or am I making stuff up and teaching my students wrong??

During the lesson, I also found out how amazingly cheaper university is in Japan. They told me the average price for public is about $5,000 a YEAR. WHAT?! I was so surprised. Whereas, private is about $20,000 a year, which makes more sense to me. And also, public university is better than private. Interesting, huh?

Also, the san nen seis (third year students) in both middle school and high school (so American 9th  and 12th graders, respectively) are taking their public examination this week. The 9th graders to get into public high school and the 12th graders to get into public university. And, apparently at the high school just ONE student has passed the public university test. I hope my students are just exaggerating. Is education on the islands/inaka (rural) area of Japan really that bad?

Also, my parents come in 9 days!! Can't wait to see them and have our tour of Japan!

~Steph

P.S. I had SEVEN spelling mistakes in this blog. Apparently, I can no longer spell surprised. Kept spelling it suprised. I tell you, I'm losing my English. I forgot the word for crutches and transcript today.