Why I hated teaching English in Japan [92LgEG6NhUw]

Hey, so in this video I want to talk about

the time I had this Japanese student and

she walked out on me after 20 minutes. So

6 years ago I was in Japan on the working

holiday visa and I had several jobs. My

main job was in a convenience store at

Lawson and I worked there for about 26

hours a week. I also had a second job in

an izakaya, which is like a Japanese pub,

and I only worked there for about an hour

every evening and they sent me home before

7 PM for some reason, before it got really

busy. It felt like they were just humoring

me. I was like this foreigner who was just

interested in experiencing working in

Japan, and they were like, okay, we'll

give you a job just so you can experience

it, but we're not gonna take you

seriously. We're not gonna treat you like

a proper member of staff. In the izakaya,

all I did was cleaning and washing up,

and they actually taught me how to make a

few Japanese dishes, which I tried, and I

completely screwed it up. It was an

absolute disaster. So in total, I was

working about 30 hours a week, and I had

enough money to survive support myself,

be independent. I could pay for rent, I

could pay for food, and I still had enough

money left over to go socializing, to go

to restaurants, to go to karaoke, to go

for drinks with friends. I think a lot of

people believe that living in Japan is

really expensive when actually it's not.

I was working for minimum wage in a

convenience store for just 30 hours a

week, and I could support myself. I was

independent. I was living by myself. And

sure, I couldn't save up much money. I

didn't have enough money to to like make

savings, but I could pay for rent and food

and I could still have a nice social life.

Every time I tell people that I'm going to

Japan, they're always like, oh, isn't

Japan really expensive? It's not really

that expensive. Sure, if you live in the

middle of Tokyo, then rent is going to be

really expensive, but that's just— the

same goes for every country. Even if you

go to London, if you live in the center,

if you live in a nice area in London,

it's going to be really expensive. But if

you live in like the suburbs of Tokyo,

outside of Tokyo, then it's very

affordable. I was also teaching English

one-on-one private lessons. I signed up on

this website called findstudents.com, and

you write out a profile, you put your

photo, and you can set your own lesson

fees. And Japanese people go onto the

website and they search for teachers and

they contact you. I had 2 students. I had—

my first student was this male middle-aged

guy, and I really liked him because he was

really chatty and talkative. I'm a really

shy and quiet person. I find it very

difficult to come up with conversation

topics and to make small talk. So if my

student or my conversational partner— my

conversation partner— conversational

partner is like a really chatty,

talkative person, then it's great. It's

perfect for me because I don't have to put

much effort into trying to come up with

things to say or to try and think of

conversation topics. He was a really big

football fan. He would always bring this

football magazine into our lessons. And he

would show me his magazine and talk about

Manchester United and his favorite

football players. And to be honest, I

found this really boring because I have

absolutely zero interest in football. But

like I said, it was really nice because he

was really chatty and talkative and a nice

friendly person. And then one day I got an

email from the Find Students website from

this girl, and I was really excited to get

my first ever female Japanese student.

She sent me an email asking me if I was

interested in giving her English lessons.

And I said, yeah, of course I'm

interested. And we spoke on the phone and

we decided to meet in Ikebukuro to have a

1-hour lesson at McDonald's. So I went to

Ikebukuro. I got kind of lost in the train

station. I phoned her. We were trying to

find each other and we finally found each

other and I saw her and I was so

surprised. I was so shocked. She was

absolutely huge. She was gigantic. She

wasn't fat gigantic, but she was really

tall. She was towering above me. She must

have been at least a head taller than me.

She must have been at least 200

centimeters, maybe 6 foot. I'm not that

short in Japan. I'm actually maybe taller

than average. I feel pretty tall when I'm

in Japan. I'm 5 foot 8, 175 centimeters,

so I do actually feel quite tall when I'm

in Japan. But this, this lady, this girl,

she was absolutely huge and she made me

feel really small. So we said hello, we

had like an awkward conversation, and we

walked together. Felt really strange

walking next to her because when I had to

look at her to speak, I was like looking

up. And I think I did a really bad job at

masking my shock or my surprise, and we

had like an awkward conversation. She

seemed like a nice person, like a chatty

normal person when we spoke in Japanese,

but when we spoke in English, it was like

a completely different story. So we went

to McDonald's and we went into McDonald's

and it was Completely crowded. It was

packed. Now there's something you need to

know about me. I, I can't stand it when

you go into a restaurant and it's packed,

it's crowded, and you have to sit down and

there's people right next to you on either

side or really close to you. I feel really

nervous and it makes me feel really

uneasy. I feel like they're listening to

everything I'm saying. So when I go to a

restaurant and it's really crowded and

packed, I end up not speaking. I would

just not speak to the people that I go

with and And I'd end up sitting there in

silence listening to all the conversations

going around me, and I'd be really

paranoid. I'd be like, I don't want to

speak because I feel like I don't want all

these strangers listening to what I'm

talking about, which is kind of ironic

because right now there are potentially

hundreds of strangers listening to what

I'm talking about. My ex-girlfriend used

to absolutely hate this. She used to say,

Daniel, you're so boring. We go to a

restaurant and you don't even speak, you

just eat. And I'm like, I I don't want to

speak. Everyone's listening to what I'm

saying. Can't we just go home? So we went

into McDonald's, we found a table, we sat

down. There were Japanese people— people,

because it was Japan, obviously they're

Japanese people. There were people next to

us, people in front of us, people behind

us. I felt really like trapped. I really

wanted to get out of there as fast as

possible, but I couldn't. So we sat down,

I took out my notepad. I didn't prepare a

lesson because I didn't prepare lessons.

I specifically wrote on my teacher's

profile that I I don't offer planned

lessons. I just offer conversation,

conversation practice. So we sat down and

my student sat down, the really tall girl,

and she just sat there. She just sat there

waiting for me to start the lesson, and I

sat there waiting for her to start

speaking. And I realized that she wasn't

going to say anything, so I took out my

notebook and I started asking her random

questions in English. I asked her lots of

things. I asked her stuff like, So what

kind of job do you do? What work do you

do? What are your hobbies? What are your

interests? Have you ever been to another

country before? And every time I asked her

a question, she would just reply with one

word. She would just reply with one-word

answers, and she would never say anything

else. She wouldn't ask me any questions.

So every time I tried to start a

conversation, tried to pick a topic and

turn it into a conversation, it went

nowhere. She would answer with one word,

and then I'd be like, Oh, okay, and then

that would be the end of that

conversation. And then I'd ask her another

question and it would be exactly the same.

So after asking her loads of questions, I

asked her so many random questions, it

felt like I was interrogating her. Felt

like I was giving her the Spanish

Inquisition. I ran out of questions and I

just sat there going, um, uh, I was

desperately trying to think of something

to talk about and she wasn't helping at

all. She just sat there looking at me.

Like waiting for me to say stuff. And it

was so awkward and embarrassing. So I took

out my notebook and I started writing

sentences. I asked her before we started,

could you speak any English at all? And

she said no, she didn't understand any

English. And I don't know if this was true

or not, if she could actually not speak

English, or maybe, maybe she understood a

little. But you know what Japanese people

are like, they always play down their

abilities. They never boast about what

they can, what they can do. So if you ask

them if they can speak English, and they

can actually speak some pretty basic

English, they'll say that they can't speak

English at all. So I assumed that she

couldn't speak any English, and I started

writing like really basic sentences. I

tried teaching her how to do a

self-introduction, and I tried teaching

her verbs, like past tense of verbs and

present tense, and she just sat there like

staring at my notebook going, oh, oh,

okay, oh. So after about 20 minutes,

20 minutes into the lesson, she looks at

her phone and she said she had to go. She

said she got a message from her friend and

she had to meet her friend. So she gave me

¥500 for my time and she left. It was,

it, it was really embarrassing. I felt

kind of irritated, to be honest, because

we were supposed to be doing an hour

lesson, but I could totally understand why

she wanted to leave. It was kind of

obvious that she was lying. I'm pretty

sure she wasn't going to meet up with her

friends. She probably just went home. It

was so awkward. I was really glad— no,

I was glad that she left, that she came up

with this lie to leave, but I was also

kind of hurt because I felt like I did a

really bad job at being a teacher. I got

the feeling that she wasn't actually

interested in learning English. She didn't

really seem interested in learning

English. She didn't ask me any questions.

She didn't try speaking much unless I

asked her a question, then she only

replied with one answer. I felt like she

was looking for a boyfriend, like a nice

tall Western boyfriend. And I guess when

she met me, I was like this average height

guy. She must have been kind of

disappointed. I don't think she was

disappointed because I wasn't white

enough, because I had a picture of myself

on my teacher's profile, so, so she knew

what I looked like. Unless I look more

white on my photo than I do in real life.

If she just wanted a nice tall Western

boyfriend, maybe it would have been a

better idea if she went onto a dating

website instead of looking for an English

teacher. I don't know, maybe I'm

completely wrong and she was actually

interested in learning English and I was

just a really bad teacher, which I was. I

kind of felt sorry for her because it must

be really tough trying to find a boyfriend

who's taller than her when, you know,

Japanese guys, they're not really that

tall. Most of them are quite short,

actually. I've never seen a 6-foot-tall

Japanese man before. So after that

happened, I was really traumatized. It was

such an embarrassing, awkward horrible

experience, I just— I gave up on teaching.

I didn't— I stopped looking at the Find

Students website. I stopped responding to

potential future students, and I never

wanted to be in that awkward situation

ever again. And I just completely gave up

on the idea of being an English teacher.

A few months later, I would get really fed

up with my convenience store job, and I

quit. And I completely lost all interest

and motivation in living in Japan, and I

left after about 4 months. I I left Japan

and I was supposed to be there for a whole

year. At first, I was so excited to be

there. I was really excited to be there

for a whole year. I wanted to stay for

longer. I was actually planning on going

to university. I was talking to my boss at

the convenience store. I was telling him

that I wanted to go to university and if

I could make enough money at this job to

pay for university courses, and he said it

would be possible. But after 4 months, I

ended up giving up and I caved, I lost all

my willpower, my determination, and I

went to Korea to see my ex-girlfriend. I

actually tried teaching English again when

I went to Japan in 2014, when I went to

Kyushu, and I had this really nice

student. She was this 40-year-old lady.

She was so friendly and chatty and easy to

talk to, it completely reversed my, my

negative experience of my negative

thoughts about teaching English. And I

really enjoyed it. We had 5 lessons a

week, 1 hour long, and she paid me ¥1,500

for, for a 1-hour lesson. I'm not the kind

of person who can open up easily and have

a conversation with anyone. I need to feel

comfortable with the person. I need to

feel like the person I'm talking to is

interested in what I have to say. If I get

the feeling that they're not really

interested in me as a person, then I kind

of, I close up. I build a wall and I find

it really difficult to start talking about

things. I need to be— I need to have like

a good listener to listen to me. The main

reason why I'm so quiet around most people

is because I find that I can't relate to

most people. I find most people to be kind

of boring. If I don't feel like we have

similar interests, or if I don't feel like

you're an interesting person, or if I

don't feel like you're interested in what

I have to say, then I build a wall. I

close up and I become really quiet. And

most people don't like this. They think

I'm weird, but they just, they don't

understand my personality. I'm not really

sure what I would do if a similar

situation were to happen. The thing is,

if I have a really chatty and talkative

student, then it's fine. There's no

problems. But if my student is really

quiet and shy just like me, then it's

really difficult because when 2 shy people

come together and they don't really have

much in common and they're forced to be

together for a set amount of time, they

have to, they have to have a conversation

together, it gets really awkward. I'm not

sure what I would have done differently.

I guess I should have really planned a

lesson and like brought material, maybe a

textbook, and I should have stopped asking

her so many yes/no questions where she

could just reply with one-word answers. I

should have asked her more open questions

where she had to speak more. I should have

learnt how to— I needed to learn how to

get quiet students to speak up, to speak

more. And even now, I don't really know

how to do that. I think I had this

misconception that teaching English would

be really easy. I mean, you just go there,

you meet them, and then you teach them

some English. How hard can that be? I

speak English, I can teach English. Sure,

why not? But it's not as easy as it looks.

You have to be good at speaking, you have

to be good at getting quiet students to

speak up, you have to be good at

explaining things, which I'm terrible at.

Everyone else at the guesthouse, all the

other foreigners, the American guys, the

other British guys, they were all teaching

English, and they kept asking me, Daniel,

why don't you teach English? You could be

earning 3 times more than you're earning

now, and you'd have to work half the

hours. And it sounded really enticing to

me. I really wanted to try it out. I

really wanted to be an English teacher as

well. But I think you need to have a

certain personality to be a good English

teacher. You need to be talkative and

friendly and confident, and you can't

really be shy like me and introverted,

otherwise you just make the student feel

really uncomfortable. Actually, I'm not

sure how true that is because my last

Japanese student, that lady I was talking

about, she actually told me she was glad

that she had a teacher like me because she

had an American teacher before and he was

like, you know, typical American, really

loud, really talkative, and she said she

didn't actually like that. It kind of put

her off, and she preferred me because I

was quiet and I listened to her talk and I

wasn't like blah blah blah blah all the

time. So I guess everyone's kind of

different, everyone has their own

preferences. For me personally, I don't

feel like I'm suited to being a teacher.

The only thing that interested me about

being an English teacher in Japan was the

money and having to work less hours. I'm

not really passionate about teaching

teaching people things. I'm not really

interested in teaching people things in

general. So if I ended up in a situation

where I was living in Japan long-term

again, I'm not sure what kind of work I

would do. I guess I'd have to do

convenience store jobs again, kitchen

work. I guess I could try English teaching

again, see if I can try and improve my

confidence, try and become a better

teacher, but I don't really feel like I'm

passionate about being an English teacher.