TEFL Courses, TESOL Courses and TEFL Certificate Training,
TESOL Certificate Training for Teaching English Abroad: Thailand



"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.


         

Go Back to the Newsletter