Essay : An Old Story: Memory of Café English Lesson near Tokyo

 

Please forgive this old person for indulging in a little reminiscence.

It was more than twenty years ago.

 

For several years, due to ill health, there was a period when I was unable to work outside the home. Then, fortunately, I happened to find a good doctor, and I finally began to feel that I might be able to return to work.

 

If I were going to work again, I thought, it might be useful if I could speak at least a little English.

 

But in those days, there were no video-sharing sites, no social media, and not even internet radio.

The only thing I could listen to, more or less, was what was then known as FEN, the radio service for American military personnel stationed in Japan.

There were very few opportunities to come into contact with English at home.

 

So I started looking for somewhere near my home where I could practise speaking English.

And that was when I found a teacher offering what was advertised as ‘500-yen English conversation’ at a café near my local station.

 

I had heard that café English lessons were not particularly useful.

I had also heard that many people called themselves teachers simply because English was their native language, despite having no experience whatsoever of teaching it.

 

Still, I thought it would be rather narrow-minded to judge something solely on the basis of what other people had told me.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

So I contacted the teacher offering the café English lessons.

A few days later, I met the teacher at a café in front of the station.

 

As I was paying for the teacher’s drink, I asked what she would like.

The teacher, sounding slightly put out, simply said,

‘Coffee. Black.’

 

We sat down, and the lesson began.

 

This was exactly the sort of ‘500-yen English teacher’ I had heard about.

 

There was no self-introduction.

The teacher did not even tell me her name.

I was given no opportunity to introduce myself.

What followed was thirty minutes in which the teacher, beaming from ear to ear, talked at tremendous speed about her own experiences in Japan.

 

How she had first come to Japan.

How surprised she had been by the cultural differences.

How surprised she had been by the differences in language.

And her own ideas about how to improve one's English.

 

She simply would not stop talking, as if she had made up her mind not to let me get a word in edgeways.

 

Wasn't this supposed to be an English conversation lesson?

Instead, I was subjected to an endless monologue by the teacher.

 

There was even something about the way she spoke that suggested a determination not to let the student interrupt with a question.

 

Was this really an English conversation lesson?

I began to wonder whether something was slightly wrong here.

 

After thirty minutes, the teacher wore the satisfied smile of someone who had just worked extremely hard at talking, said, ‘Right, then,’ grabbed the 500-yen coin, and left the café.

It had been a completely pointless thirty minutes.

 

It was not a conversation at all, but thirty unproductive minutes spent listening to the teacher rambling on about herself.

 

Perhaps the meaning of the word ‘conversation’ as understood by this ‘500-yen English teacher’ I had encountered was not quite the same as what I understood by ‘conversation’.

We would introduce ourselves to each other.

We would learn a little about each other's lives.

From there, we would look for something we had in common and, if possible, turn it into a dialogue.

That was what I understood ‘conversation’ to mean.

Yet there was not the slightest hint of such an approach in that lesson.

 

Did that teacher go on offering ‘500-yen English lessons’ after that?

Or did she simply put the experience on her CV and hope to find a job at a proper English-language school?

Or perhaps it was nothing more than a way of passing the time.

I have no way of knowing now.

 

Which makes me wonder: are there still café English teachers like that today?

 

A few years ago, a group of students whose native language was English gathered at my local station and launched into a very enthusiastic campaign to advertise English conversation lessons.

 

Their recruiting became so persistent that I eventually made them a suggestion.

‘I think you should target students. However, most of the Japanese students who use this station already have English as their native language. Why not have them teach and learn from each other?’

Having said that, I declined their offer.

 

Perhaps the only thing that has changed is the location. The café has simply been replaced by the station forecourt.

 

Being a native speaker of a language is not a passport to teaching that language to foreigners.

Of course, quite some time ago, it was not unusual for people to teach a foreign language simply because they were native speakers of it.

But being able to speak a language as a native speaker and being able to teach that language to foreigners are two different things.

Speaking from my own very limited experience, I sometimes wonder whether there is any real need for a teacher who does not actually try to have a conversation with the student.

 

Can someone who has no ability to get their students to speak really be called a conversation teacher?

 

Perhaps it is a different matter if, rather than resting on the privilege of being a native speaker, they focus on the act of conversation—or, better still, dialogue—and take the trouble to develop the skills necessary to teach foreigners how to converse in their native language.

That, at least, would be a different story.

 

That day, at what was the first—and probably the last—café English lesson of my life, I sometimes wonder what that teacher gained, apart from 500 yen and a cup of coffee.

 

She advertised English conversation, yet all she did was make the student listen to a monologue.

No conversation.

No dialogue whatsoever.

 

I only hope that, at the very least, the coffee the teacher drank was a good one.

It was a thirty-minute lesson so utterly pointless that I can think of nothing else to wish for.