Job Discussion Forums

[Lynn]

Yes, I socialize with my students; not always my students, but students. Lately, I've been going out with my teacher friend and his students. I teach level one; he teaches level 8(highest level).

I've gone out with his students 3 times this year and we're going out again this Friday. I have so much fun with them. They come from all over the world, from all walks of life. My friend is quite funny, too. He can't stop correcting their English. They say, "Teacher! This isn't class anymore!" and he says,"Well, yeah, it is. You're with your teacher." But it's all in fun because they love him very much.

[schwa]

The line between work & play in Korea is really blurry. Unless you do something truly egregious or scandalous, just about anything goes.

Theres an endearing level of trust in teachers, & a corresponding absence of paranoia about false accusations (unlike in my home country Canada). Extracurricular activities, home visits, closed doors etc dont automatically arouse suspicion. Free time spent with students is viewed with admiration as dedication.

A lot of my work now is with Korean english teachers. If they have the gumption to come socialize with me & my friends, more power to them. We're all just people after all. Its absolutely true that the best learning happens outside class.

[shenyanggerry]

Hey schwa, great nick.

[cafebleu]

It`s an interesting question to ask of those of us in Japan and I would like to read more responses from those in Japan. I don`t socialise with students in Japan - I only socialise with Japanese friends who are not students or were previous students.

I find that there are potential problems in socialising with students in Japan, and these are nothing to do with dating or anything like that. I am a woman with a partner (a lovely Chinese man to those posters who whined about the fact I mentioned my partner`s ethnicity before in other posts - tough, I`ll refer to it as much as I like!) and I have no interest in my students romantically whatsoever. However, I find that there seems to be a misunderstanding of what a relationship (not talking about romance or sex here) with a foreigner means to a Japanese person.

From experience I have had Japanese students and staff with whom I worked expecting that because we were friendly I was going to introduce them to a homestay in my country. Notably saddle my family or relatives with the obligation. It made me uncomfortable. I also found that favours given by students and staff were never without a pricetag in one way or another. These expectations went beyond my doing a usual favour back - I never have to be asked to do favours back, I give as a matter of course. But homestays and future obligations are a different matter. Completely different matter.

I am loathe to get involved in socialising with Japanese students and staff because there seems to lurk the notion that I am going to do something for them in the future. They seem to invest a relationship of a social kind with a foreigner with significance it should not have. There is no pure good socialising vibe going on there - there is a future purpose there which I don`t like. I stick to socialising with my Japanese friends and foreign friends with whom I have a good understanding.

[Wolf]

[cafebleu]

Great to read a post from somebody who lives in China but had experience in Japan. I dunno - maybe my case is different from some people`s but my problem is not somuch if Japanese people want to practice their English on me. I am ready to avoid doing that these days.

I know how to deal with that NOW although it doesn`t leave me feeling so comfortable with them. Unfortunately I have given a fair bit of free English practice to Japanese people in the past who I think were simply looking for a freebie. They didn`t want to pay any money and I was convenient to hook up with for free English lessons. Never again.

My real problem is the homestay leeches whom I referred to in the Japan thread some time ago. At one time when I had not been in Japan for even a year, I had students and staff cultivating me (I think that is not unfair give I was the one experiencing this and I can separate genuine people from non genuine people) in the expectation they were going to stay in my home country with my family or friends.

Later, one time I was looking at a new place to stay when the owner said to my Japanese female boss `Oh your teacher is English - you should go to England for a homestay`. My boss looked at me smiling and said `Yes, I think so too.` This was in Japanese and I knew my boss well enough to know she wasn`t simply being polite to the owner. There was the implication that because she was helping me find a house, I was going to do that homestay favour in return.

I also had some female students in their 20s who used to ask if they could visit me at my place. They would come around but they never thought of asking if I wanted to hang out with them and go somewhere interesting with them on my day off which was Sunday. I have a UK drivers licence but not an international one and I don`t drive in Japan. I was never invited to do any of the things that make life in this country so special - hot springs, remote mountain places, local culture, great hidden eating and drinking places - but they were always asking me about coming to the UK and could I introduce them to my family and friends. It all seemed so one way.

Maybe my case was different from other teachers` cases in Japan. Maybe it was the school but I was not invited anywhere (which was fine if that was the students` thinking) but I was expected to give hospitality all the time and have students at my place and talk to them in English (sure beats paying for extra lessons!) and give them a fun time but it seemed so one sided.

All giving and no receiving, and having them ask about homestays with people close to me to boot! It was when I met my future partner that I started to experience Japan, have fun, go to hot springs and eating places and really live here. It also enabled me to be able to tell those students and that boss that no, I wasn`t available for them to come over as my boyfriend had planned something for me already.

Those are the main reasons I don`t socialise with students. I`d love to know if anybody has had a similar experience ..............

[cafebleu]

I just realised that the paragraph beginning `Maybe my case` is riddled with too many `buts`. Sorry, a quick message can result in some poor grammar and sentence structure.

[Wolf]

That's a really crap story about your boss. In China I don't have that problem quite so much. Rather than "homestay leeches" I have a problem with "conversation leeches."

One day one of my students asked me a question about something. We were standing in the hallway, not far from our classroom. Within the space of a minute, 20 people had stopped to listen to us.

I'm always chasing people who shouldn't be there out of my classroom. Class sizes are already a problem when I have only the students I'm supposed to teach. I also have to run off people standing outside the classroom glaring at me.

I often go running in the mornings. The sports grounds are often crowded - even in the early mornings before classes (when I prefer to run when the wether is hot.) Anyway, early one morning I was running, and I passed a group of students. One of them begins to run alongside me. Now, the track itself had no other runners on it at that time. So I quickened my pace considerably (I've run regularily for nearly 3 years now) he fell behind, but not nearly as far as he should have. I went even faster, and yet I didn't lose him. I ran quite the 400. I could hear him huffing and gasping behind me. When I had finished I did a rest lap (usually do.) When he passed me I noticed that he was going slower.

Later on I met this guy again. He had the audacity to tell me that he wanted to talk with me while running, but that I had been too fast for him. Talk with me while I'm trying to exercise.

A personal favorite of mine was the one time I went to KFC. On my own, I wouldn't get caught dead doing something so obviously foreign, but my friend's daughter wanted to go. So the three of us ordered stuff (they DO have coffee, even if it is BAD coffee) and the three of us sat down at a table designed for four. A woman came up to us and asked my friend (in Chinese) if she could sit and talk to me to "practice English." Well, my friend's daughter was only about 8 and spoke English very well, so my response was limited to "Tell her to go away and never, ever bother me again."

When I was trying to learn Japanese, I made sure to NEVER do that to anyone. I made friends with people in my neighborhood who couldn't speak English and couldn't be bothered to learn. So that was no real problem. Most of my Korean friends I had to speak to in Japanese as they generally didn't know English either (one exception.)

I seem to have drifted off topic. The moral is there's a huge difference between going to an EFL class and expecting a teacher to sacrifice every aspect of his or her life to accomodate the wishes of EVERYONE.

[Cleopatra]

I've taught in many different countries and in each one of them I've made a point of not socializing much with students - even if they're the same age and sex as me, which they often have been.
I just find it tiresome to have to do 'unpaid work' in a sense - I mean having to communicate in stilted English and being asked questions about the past perfect continuous. Even in those cases where I spoke the students' language better than they spoke English, they would often insist on speaking English while 'socializing'. After all, I'm the teacher, am I not?