I can’t help but feel sorry for students in English class. A friend told me recently that he hated English in his Japanese junior high school because no one could help him with it. No one, not even his teacher, understood it. That was more than fifteen years ago, and something tells me the situation has improved, but perhaps not by much. I’m in English classes with these kids every day, and almost no one understands it, least of all the teachers. All I can say is that the electronic dictionary has improved understanding more than any English teacher I have met in Japan. Unfortunately, some of the problems don’t stem from a teacher’s lack of English proficiency, but rather from a lack of teaching proficiency, and sometimes from a lack of common sense.

I was helping teach a seventh grade English class, and the teacher had just spent an hour discussing with me what he wanted to do. My suggestion, which was grammar-oriented, quick, and would have encouraged all the students to speak, was rejected.

“Because you don’t speak Japanese, I will use Japanese words, and you will ask, ‘Should I eat this?’ because you don’t know. The students will tell you, ‘Yes, eat it,’ or ‘Don’t eat it,’ and why or why not.”

Ok, this is a plan. The best one he’s ever had, actually, despite its complex nature and great potential for failure. I agree. We go to class. We play a warm-up game, which goes well. We get to his idea. It’s not going well. The students don’t understand, which I find out later is because he didn’t explain the English grammar in the previous class, which he said he had.

After five minutes of failure, he changes tactics. He gives each group of students two flashcards, one with our edible Japanese word and one with an inedible Japanese word. They are to figure out how to describe them in English to me. These words are difficult. They are Japanese culture words, and might not make sense to me even if the students describe them accurately, because I have never heard of most of them. Whatever. We press on. Some students do very poorly. Some do very well (thanks to their private English tutors). And some baffle me.

I approach a group and ask, “Should I eat this?” pointing to a card. The leader says, “No, it is the holiday New Year,” which is a pretty good answer. A+. next card. “Should I eat this?”

“Yes, it is delicious. It is from Osaka.”

Great! Stellar! “What is it?” I expect she will tell me the animal it comes from or that it is soup or something, but she looks perplexed. She thinks, then grabs a nearby boy’s head and wrenches it around so the back faces me. She then looks up at me while making a circular, smoothing motion a few inches above his buzz cut, which gives his head an almost perfectly spherical quality. I have no idea. I have never had less of an idea.

“Boy’s head?”

She says, “Yes!” Her eyes are wide with recognition that I have understood her completely. She is on a roll now. I am almost unbearably amused. “Boy’s head in…” She pauses. I help her with a likely continuation.

“Boy’s head in a…”

She thinks. “Boy’s head in a…” There is a long pause, then quickly, “Boy’s head in a taco!”

I am undone. She has killed me. A boy’s head in a taco is both delicious and from Osaka. I am trying to contain my laughter to the point that I begin to feel sick. I look at her card. It says “takoyaki,” a delicious, perfectly spherical, fried octopus treat from Osaka. She has tried very hard, and I am impressed by both her confidence and her inspired use of props. His head does look like takoyaki, but I sure do hope–for his sake–that the comparison ends there.

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