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"He Taught me to Play Golf!"
My weirdest teaching experience
ever
by
Clyde Haumann
Editor’s Note: Private
students can not only augment one’s teacher earnings, they also can
give a teacher great satisfaction when they work hard and learn. In
fact, some teachers make so much money teaching well-to-do private
students to use our language fluently, that they are never to be found
in a school of any type! Then, again,
there are students like Clyde Haumann's Mr. Yamamoto, who can
make you think twice about earning money in this enticing way....
I have been teaching English as a foreign and second
language for a very long time, and have taught in schools of all types,
and classes of all types and levels to both children and adults, and
certainly have taught my share of private students, from pre-school age
children to company directors.
Priding myself on my ability to get
good English language teaching results, I would have to say that the weirdest teaching experience I
probably ever had was when I taught the managing director of a large Japanese company years ago.
Mr. Yamamoto was (it seemed at the
time) an “elderly” gentleman of about 55, who spoke absolutely no English at all. As to why he
suddenly had decided to learn English I was not able to discover, because he
certainly never put much effort into learning it when I taught him, try
as I might to gain his interest.
The study agreement was that I had to teach him two
hours a week every Sunday morning at his home on Silom
Road in Bangkok.
Mr. Yamamoto, fully understanding the traffic situation in Bangkok,
was kind enough to send his driver to pick me up at home every Sunday
morning at nine o’clock sharp.
The first couple of classes went as one might expect
when a somewhat older gentleman engages himself in learning a foreign
language for the first time ever. In teaching him, I
very soon learned that Mr. Yamamoto’s
one great passion in life was golf. It was the only thing he
ever wanted to talk about, and one day he suggested that we should move
the classes to the driving range course where we could play golf and
practice English at the same time.
At first, I told him that I didn’t think that would
be a good idea, but he insisted. Well, since he was paying me
handsomely for the English course, he was the boss, and when he told me
he would tip me another one thousand baht every week for doing this,
I’m afraid I didn’t hesitate to agree! It was actually great fun, for
both of us, I daresay. I would speak to
him in English and he would answer me in Japanese,
and neither one of us could understand a word of what the other was
saying!
I never did find out why he had ever signed up for an
English course in the first place, and need I say that when his forty-hour
course was up and he signed up for another sixty hours, I must have looked
like one giant question mark!
It was certainly
not one of my most successful English classes, nor one I was very proud
of – because Mr. Yamamoto
never did learn to speak English (or, if he did, it was a
closely-guarded secret unknown to me), but I myself learned some golf
and increased my income.
We became great friends and I still receive birthday and Christmas
cards from him every year.
ENROLL NOW!
