Tag Archives: 英会話

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) I teach an English class every week at the local medical association.   A few weeks ago, one of the secretaries there asked me how long I’ve been teaching that class. I had to pause for a moment before I could bring up the starting year – it was 1983! I’m in the 36th year of teaching that class!   During those years I’ve had physicians from all specialties and the class peaked at twelve students for a few years, but probably averaged about six for the majority. Also, there was a period of about five years when I had to ask a friend to fill in for me intermittently while I was running around the country and handling business overseas.   The class is now down to three members and the youngest is seventy, […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) I was reminiscing back to a day many years ago to a case that began when my English language school secretary answered the phone. An almost hysterical woman yelled at her over the phone screaming, “You’re the one, aren’t you? Don’t lie, I know that you’re the one!”   My secretary tried to get in a word edgewise, but the woman continued screaming, “You’re the bitch that’s been taking my money, right?!”   My surprised secretary hung up on the woman. Just as she was explaining what had happened, the phone rang again. She picked it up and it was the same hysterical woman. I motioned for her to give me the phone and took over the call.   She sounded surprised to hear a man’s voice and I said, “I think there’s some kind […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) It was 1980 in Kansai and there weren’t many foreigners from English speaking countries in the area. The English conversation industry was in full swing, but stringent restrictions on work visas made the number of “legal” teachers a rarity.   It had taken almost two months from the submission of my application for a work visa to the Japanese Embassy to its approval while I waited in the US. When I got here I found that there were a lot of foreigners working illegally on cultural visas which they’d been misled to understand allowed them to work up to 20 hours a week on (the law at the time forbid working while staying in Japan on a cultural visa).   The school I worked at had five legal teachers and I was one of them […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) One day back in the early 80s when I had an English language school one of the teachers that I’d worked with before opening my own business came to visit me. He was a tall and handsome teacher who had almost blonde hair and was very popular with the students even though he only had a high-school education.   As we shook hands I noticed that he was shifting his weight back and forth and seemed to be quite nervous, so I asked him, “Is anything wrong? You don’t seem to be yourself today.”   He looked down at the floor and said, “I’ve got a problem. I went to this gaijin bar and went home with a woman. My crotch has been itching ever since I woke up.”   I immediately knew what his […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) The first year after I came to Japan I worked for an English conversation school. I taught all kinds of lessons ranging from individual lessons at the school to group lessons on site at various businesses and groups. Some of the individual students requested my lessons specifically, much to the chagrin of the school which was always worried about teachers “stealing” their students and teaching them privately at lower rates.   I finished my contract and then set out on my own, starting with teaching lessons in my apartment. The years passed and I switched from an English language school to a translation company which later became a software localization company. Finally, I took my business into publishing and distribution.   One day on a sales trip to Tokyo, I happened to be walking around […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) I used to teach elementary school children junior high school English to give them a jump in junior high many years ago when I was running an English language school. Classes were held in all seasons at very early or late hours and the children would often ask me to tell them about my experiences with supernatural entities.   The father of two of the children I taught was a Buddhist priest at a temple that his family had taken care of for generations. His children told him about me and he asked them to talk to me about checking on a local haunted house. I agreed and we made arrangements for me to go there after I’d finished my day’s lessons at about 10:00pm.   I drove to the temple where my student’s father […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) This story goes back to the days when I was teaching English conversation many years ago. My student was a businessman whose company had decided to send him on a sales trip to the States.   His English was pretty good and I was certain that he was at a level where he could handle just about any sales conversation.   After he came back he said that he’d encountered a communication problem with a drugstore cashier. Apparently he’d gone there to buy some deodorant (since he’d noticed that other businessmen used deodorant).   I asked him to repeat what he’d said so that I could check his pronunciation. He said something along the lines of: “I’ll take this.” and “Yes, I’ll take this.” His pronunciation was clear and very understandable as far as I […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) I arrived in Japan for my English conversation school teaching job with only a suitcase and a gym bag. Naturally, I couldn’t pack many clothes in that amount of luggage, which also contained a large kanji dictionary, two Japanese-English dictionaries and the text the school said they were using (it turned out that they weren’t using it, other than for advertising, but that’s another story).   Having very few clothes meant that I had to make use of a launderette quite frequently. My 4 ½ mat room didn’t have a bath, and it certainly didn’t have a washing machine! I would bundle up my dirty laundry and take it to the nearby launderette a little before 6:00am to wait for it to open. A very old woman, probably in her 80s, was always there and […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) One of the strangest “lessons” I’ve ever taught in my teaching career was an on site private tutoring lesson for an infant (the English conversation school used to call them “going out” lessons, although I used to think that “way out” would have been a more appropriate term for them in many cases). On site lessons were very pricey and it was rare for individuals who weren’t affluent business executives, rich mama-sans or club hostesses and the like to request private lessons at the place of their choosing. In one of those rarer cases, I’d been given the address of a home in Takarazuka and had been told that that the client would provide the English materials. The address turned out to be a large house in a rich neighborhood. I pressed the intercom and […]