I’m checking essays this week. So far the highlights from the 17 year olds have been:
1. Foreigners shouldn’t get licences in Japan because they don’t drive as well as Japanese.
2. Foreigners are bad for Japan because they don’t pay tax.
3. White Americans kill blacks for no reason and are prejudiced against Asians because of Corona.
I’m hoping for a grand slam by the weekend!
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Do you teach the class? I find that the essays I see in classes from other teachers are more likely to have that stuff in them than essays from my own.
It’s like they think their Japanese teachers are capable of grading an essay or something.
all three are sweeping statements but the third one… hmm..
very interesting
Well number 3 ain’t totally wrong 🤷
Number 1, hm, are there any stats on that?
Number 2 is a teachable moment. You could show the particular student information about taxes in Japan, and you don’t have to burden them with difficult English. Lots of info in Japanese on that one.
Number 3, a teachable moment but of a different kind, right? You could easily point them to historical resources for the former, recent news items for the latter.
On related topic, what resources do you use to teach writing?
2. I’ve actually had full adult coworkers say “You foreigners don’t have to pay taxes, right?” They also seemed amazed I paid into the government pension system “but that’s the Japanese system and you aren’t Japanese…” Also, some seem to think I had my pay wired to my US bank as foreigners wouldn’t have bank accounts in Japan. Fortunately none of them were making the comments out of malice, but out of ignorance. They genuinely thought that non-Japanese people don’t pay into things here. They think “Japanese government…” and “Bank in Japan…” somehow means only Japanese people can use. I’m pretty baffled at that line of thinking.
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A cop told me a joke once. Q:”How do you know when Japanese have moved into the neighborhood?” A: “When the Mexicans all get car insurance.”
There is a news story of a family of Japanese tourist in America ignoring a cop lights and siren and leading to a high speed pursuit if you want to passive aggressively respond.
Hilarious! I’d love to know what the essay questions are.
Man I wish the 17 year olds I had knew enough English to get those points across. The best I get is “I want to be CEO because I want money”.
#2 is triggering lol I’m currently amending my ways 😠it’s just a lottttt
I would love to see a Japanese person drive around my hometown in the middle of winter in a stick shift. There’s a reason why we pump out so many professional drivers and house like 70% of the F1 teams.
3rd one is not entirely wrong
Is the essay prompt “Why do foreigners suck?” Seriously, 17-year olds don’t know anything about the world so this is why the JT should teach them how to “research” so they don’t just spout off ignorant stuff. And ideally, how they shouldn’t just choose the first random blog that comes up on Google, er, I mean Yahoo running on Internet Explorer.
At least they got one of them right.
I don’t think is possible for anyone to drive worse than the locals in Hakodate. Ha
When you see things like this, do you try to set them straight and explain how these things aren’t true (or aren’t exactly a norm, even if they do happen *sometimes*)? Or would you be out of line talking to students about that sort of stuff? Just curious. 🙂
Number 3 isn’t entirely wrong, though
Based
If I only watched CNN i would also be writing #3
You gotta at least share the occasional white-pill of the one 17 yr old with an internet connection who isn’t as xenophobic with an actual interest in the world.
1. Who won F1 this year? oh yeah, not a japanese person