Thursday, May 08, 2008

Whining About Wine

I'm starting to enjoy teaching a lot more recently. I had a discussion lesson this morning which went pretty well. In Japan it's always hard to get good class interaction. When I asked the class to suggest a topic for the next lesson they remained silent so I just said "Plan a bank robbery". I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

My next lesson was with a new student who works as a wine waiter in a famous Italian restaurant in Tokyo. I couldn't bring myself to tell my student that I don't drink. Instead, I pretended to be interested in issues such as plastic-cork technology, emerging markets for Australian wines and the amount of alcohol Japanese people are able to consume in a typical evening.

My last lesson of the day was to coach a university student for the TOEIC English exam. TOEIC is a stupid exam, but the lesson was still fun. Cynical readers may wonder how two hours with an 18-year old Japanese cheerleader can be anything other than fun...

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