I've started giving English conversation lessons to a friend of our neighbor, Yoshi. My student, Fumiko, is a nursing professor at a college in Nagasaki. Like most students in Japan, she's had six years of English classes in her schooling. Fumiko's goal is to take some of her nursing students to America and be able to study and speak with other nurses. She told me I am the first foreigner she's ever spoken to.
Our meetings have been surprisingly fun so far. One lesson, we walked around our house and talked about the differences between American and Japanese homes. Fumiko, her husband and two teenage children all sleep together on their tatami floors. She was very surprised to see Wilson and Leo's beds. Do they fall out??
So far, Fumiko has brought gifts to each lesson even though I've told her she doesn't need to. Just another example of how the Japanese are so overly generous and kind!
Nathan has also started teaching English lessons once a week and will be doing a blog post on it soon.
What a great way to connect with your neighbors. I have studied a little bit about the Japanese educational system in an International Education class I took for my masters. I had read that speaking conversational English, versus textbook English, was a great challenge for Japanese students. Truthfully, the same could be said for my Spanish education from grades 7-college. Lots of 'book learning', but not so much with the conversational Spanish. Good thing I have had some opportunities to practice, but never enough to call myself fluent.
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