Tuesday, June 03, 2008
A difference
I ate lunch with 5th years two weeks ago at elementary school. I sat with some particularly genki students. They wanted to communicate with me. They pooled their knowledge together to form the questions in English. Using sentence structures I'd taught them they asked questions like, "What's your favorite food?; What's your favorite movie?" Then, these eleven year olds asked me, "What's your favorite? Obama or Clinton?" (Ignore the bad grammar, they have English once a month.) I find it incredible that elementary school students in Japan even know those names, let alone their relevance. Try finding that same awareness in young American children.
3 comments:
Yay! You're blogging again. What is the meaning of "genki"?
Hmmm. The students do seem surprisingly interested in our politics. Does everyone over there get CNN? And, putting the shoe on the other foot, how many women or people from ethnic minorities are prominent in Japanese politics?
Genki is a fantastic Japanese word. It means energetic, lively, spirited.
I don't know about CNN, but American politics is reported on the national news channel and in the paper we get at school.
It's true there are few women, and I bet there are even fewer (if any) ethnic minorities in Japanese politics. I don't know much about the people in Japanese politics, but aside from the emperor and his family I cannot think of any women in politics.
Post a Comment