I’ve done so many self-introductions that I’m getting kinda sick of myself. And the truth is, there’re more to go. By the time I’m done meeting all the classes for the first time, I would’ve done 97 self-introductions.
Now, as ALTs, we are at the school for students to have a chance to use English. That’s why I deliberately omit telling them how old I am, how tall I am, where I live etc. because these are the kinds of simple questions that students know how to ask, so I usually leave it to the Q&A section where they will definitely ask them.
Some of the most common questions are how old are you, how tall are you, where do you live, what sports do you like, what fruit do you like, when did you come to Japan and so on. There are also some deeper questions like what Japanese culture do you like, what culture shock did you experience when you first visited Japan. To which I usually answer something to do with the Japanese cars or roads. Like some cars have their driver’s seat on the right and some on the left. Or I would go “Japanese don’t cross the road when the green man is not lit even when there’re no cars”. To be honest, the number 1 culture shock I experienced was that pornography DVDs are sold in HMV and to make it worse, it actually has a shelf by itself with the category Erotica displayed proudly on top of it. But I can’t say that because it’s inappropriate.
I’ve also had many students ask me if I am married and when I say no, they usually follow up with a do you have a girlfriend. Some of the more interesting questions that I couldn’t answer are what insect do you like and what does the Merlion eat.
However, the questions that left the deepest impression on me was do you like sex, do you like adult videos and do you masturbate. Shocking, I know! They don’t know the words in their textbook but they know words like masturbate. = = What’s more shocking is that, I was asked these questions by 12-year-old girls! Of course I declined to answer and just when I was about to say “No, don’t ask this question!” The group of girls who played truant and skipped their volleyball training session saw their teacher come out and they ran off as soon as I said “No”.
So fortunately or unfortunately, my answer to “Do you like sex?” is a “No.”
a friend of mine doing linguistics in NTU once did a study on whether people take speaking in an unfamiliar language as a safety blanket, i.e. they are more likely to curse or say certain brazen things in a language that is foreign to them as compared to a native language. reading that bit about the 12-year-olds asking you those questions made me think of that. interesting post, if not kind of disturbing (not you of course, i mean the Japanese society in general, heh).
Haha…
Yea, I kinda think it’d be easier for me to curse in a foreign language but I’m thinking it’s less due to me seeing it as a safety blanket but more of my lack of native instinct.
It’s easy to be told the meaning of a word but It’s difficult to know the severity, notion and nuance of it.
A language can be taught but native instinct can only be understood through living in the language.