What will we do to become TEFLy and dandy, just like Amos and Andy?
When I wrote about native speaker Assistant Language Teachers making the Japanese and younger big city Koreans more comfortable around foreigners, there is also a downside to that. What their experience of having native speakers in the classroom seems to have taught them is that foreigners are fun. For example, most classes of Japanese five year olds only have to see a white face enter the classroom to go mad with excitement. It’s also noticeable that almost every image in that video by my school that has me flapping my hands around is of people laughing – they know what the customers expect and want!
That’s a step up from foreigners being seen as the source of crime or stealing their women, but I do wonder if the real acceptance of outsiders can progress beyond the level of 1970s Britain while foreigners are best known for clowning around in classes of kids and cracking jokes and pointing out amusing cultural differences in classes of adults.
I’m far from the only person to notice this, and quite a few people have objected to the name of the otherwise very useful Genki English site because it seems to perpetuate the idea that foreign teachers should be genki (lively), which is certainly not something ever expected of local teachers, even ones who work in kindergartens.
Alternatively, maybe all countries need to go through a stage of Amos and Andy and Mind Your Language before they can really accept people of different culture, colour or language (if such a thing is ever truly possible). And I’m also not completely discounting the theory that me being offended by being regularly laughed at by rooms of Asian kids being more a sign of my own (well hidden) sense of cultural superiority than any reflection on the country I am in (They can take the British out of the Raj, but they can’t take the Raj mentality out of the British, etc…)
TEFLtastic 
I’m with you entirely Alex. I haven’t taught children for a long time, but if you compare the two NHK kid’s shows “Eigo de Asobo” and “Nihongo de Asobo” (Let’s play in English and Let’s play in Japanese, shown back-to-back daily on the national broadcaster) you can see the difference. The latter has smart, creative and witty songs and animations, the former seems to consist of people saying “Yaaaaay!!” and pulling goofy faces. I get that educators want English to be fun, and that a lot of adults have been turned off language study for life by boring and irrelevant lessons…. but why does fun have to be so stupid?
But then, like you, I wonder if there is a horrible colonialist hidden away inside me, snorting into his pink gin because the natives dare to laugh at him.
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Years and years ago teaching at an advertising company in Tokyo, I had a student tell me over drinks (now paraphrasing from memory but something like the following), “I was surprised. You’re serious, like me. The foreigners I met before were just fun.” It was not a bad surprise on his part. If you’re just yourself, people will eventually sort out what you are and in so doing might even break with stereotypes.
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Hi Hugh
That seems to be a point where cultural training (by being yourself) would be different from what students and managers expect, and maybe even from what is most effective as a purely language teacher. Most people here agreed that it isn’t always best to be yourself:
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Glad to see it’s not just me, Darren. This is a different point, but it’s also interesting to see that NHK think that foreigners can cope with a programme 100% in Japanese, but that Japanese learning English (or other languages, the Spanish one is perhaps the worst) can’t cope without 90% of the programme being in L1
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That reminds me, I haven’t listened to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy for ages. Now, let me actually get down to reading this post.
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I don’t know if I change personality, but sure, certain aspects are brought to the front and I try to do what I can do (as me) to be as effective as I can. But then again this sort of tacking is true to some extent of all social situations.
But actually, I’m in agreement with you and Darren as to the Amos and Andy aspect. Plus a very important point – I don’t teach children!
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Spot on comments! I may well be an ageing miserabilist, but I get annoyed when colleagues at university bring their guitars into undergraduate English classes as if it’s a junior high school lesson;surely there must be a point where we don’t have to act up like this? University open days, where the gaikokujin are told to be entertaining while our colleagues give lectures, is another sore point. Aside from that, it can be lovely…
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There’s definitely some truth in this article. However, I think it’s necessary to note the difference between being a more effective teacher by making a class fun, and acting like a clown. With adults, you can play games and point out amusing cultural differences, and still make intelligent points when it comes to more serious discussions. With kids (especially in an ALT position) it might be more difficult to avoid the clown role, but I think it’s certainly possible. The problem, for me, is more with the foreign teachers who embrace the clown role.
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When thinking about customer and employer expectations in Japan especially, it’s also worth remembering that “being yourself” is not a very Japanese concept. All behaviour should first of all be suitable for the role you are playing and the situation you are in.
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Also, I don’t think it’s just kids
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