English Teachers - Episode 3 "Hail Mary"

PANIC!

English Teachers - Episode 2 "(Un)equilibrium"

Tom is distracted by a new teacher and the school is in trouble.

English Teachers - Episode 1 "First Days Suck"

Those of you who have taught English in Japan or intend to will find this series very funny. This is the first episode, I look forward to new episodes in the future.

Summer Bitch Festival

Source: English Funny

How does this leak out? How do you not know?

Lotte is a sponsor! Lotte is a huge food company, they can't be happy.

I know the English in Korea isn't 100% perfect, but how the hell can they mess up this badly?

Miss Hong Kong: Me No Speak English

Source: Asian Fanatics Forum

Miss Hong Kong's slogan has always been "Beautiful and Intelligent". But earlier the girls that turned up for the auditions were below standard. Apple Daily received an English e-mail from a contestant that attended the first interview named Lucy. She stated that the judges treated her poorly. The judges suggested her English was below standard which she found unfair. In the email she used the words "Hurt Die Me". The Co-ordinating manager for the pageant Chan Ka Yeung denied and said "Definitley not, the company will always pay attention to courtesy. Perhaps the contestant didn't get through the next round and was unhappy about it."

TVB executive Virginia Lok also denied treating the contestants poorly. She said "6 Contestants are grouped together to face the judges in the first interview. Normally we just ask them very general questions such as "Why do you want to enter Miss Hong Kong?" and "Which part of your body do you like most or dislike? We will see what reaction and answers they give us. Perhaps the contestant was too nervous."

Lucy's E-mail

The Contestant's e-mail contained a lot of Hong Kong English (港式英語),

我是 Lucy, I went to Miss Hong Kong first interview. Wah d judges very not polite and not nice law. Today I see a megazine saying this year's Girls so ugly. I saw many good and pretty girls there but they didn't choose ja ma. Don't choose mei suen law but the judge in first interview -- most very not polite to many young girls and to to me law. I only 18 the judges ask me to "why join Miss HK go and why not study la u only F7 ja wor how can fright with other wor." Also say my English bad … hurt die me.
Ho La, other girl tell me la, she study in University ok ga dou but little fat or short then the judge (woman) said " why you look fat or so short!" wah ho hurt ga ma.
One girl is a 博 士 student ar very high level and very nice ga dou cant get in second interview la. We think she will be in ga but she said no law. You can search her pic and my pic to see la. She gum high level duo ng dak, gum me ng duk duo rite gei but i think the whole choosing is not fair law, choose model mei? young yao inch', high study level yao inch, short yao inch … They onky choose rich girl law so bad.
We don't go and let them inch ga law if they need tall or high level people then why not put in the application form lei.
Waste time !
dou ng fair gei!
u can email me if u want.
Lucy

I've got a headache. Was this letter to prove her English was good and the judges were unfair?

HURT DIE ME!

What are they teaching over there?

What in the world are they teaching in Japan!?


Youtube Link

SEVEN YEARS!! Yao Ming and Ichiro learned English in about 3 months!

What are Japanese English teachers teaching? Are they just giving the students a textbook and then surfing tenticle porn?

Please to be teaching in Engrish OK? Congratulations!

Confession time - I am not the painfully hot regular blogmistress, or even Asian ... but rather, a guest contributor. I do, however, have some experience with the topic of this post: Japanese Engrish.

By all accounts, Japan, with a population of 150 million people, should be one of the largest English speaking nations on earth. Why, I hear you ask? For starters, Japanese children are taught English at a very young age, and it is a compulsory subject for Japanese children from grade school through college. English has obtained a status as Japan's unofficial second language, with English language television shows and movies to be found in great abundance. English is used in Japanese advertising, popular songs, as a second language for street signs and subway maps, and is more consistently omnipresent than in some places with an actual native English speaking population I could mention.

And yet, for all of this intensive, mandatory study, the actual quality of the English used in Japan is bad - even infamously so. It's certainly not for lack of effort - or even enthusiasm for the subject. Many English speaking visitors to Japan, myself included, have had the startling experience of complete strangers rushing up to practice their invariably broken English with anyone who "looks American" (read as, white - god knows what German or French tourists are supposed to think). So with all this desire to speak English and all this practice, why does Japanese English still suck so terribly?

Part of the problem lies in the way English is taught in Japanese schools, where the language is presented almost as a theoretical exercise. English grammar is emphasized at the expense of phonetics, conversation and practical usage. A Japanese English student will be drilled extensively on the differences between "Jane walks", "Jane walked" and "Jane will be walking", but will invariably butcher a question about what she's doing to Jane herself.

Japan's Education Ministry is apparently tired of Japanese English being the butt of the jokes of ESL teachers from New York to Johannesburg, and is attempting to remedy the problem by mandating the usage of English instruction in English classes. This move is being met with polite resistance by Japanese English instructors and students alike, for practical reasons (the difficulty), but for cultural reasons as well.

Cultural reasons, you ask? You better believe it. Part of the "problem" with lousy Japanese English is that Japanese English teachers, on average, are better with Engrish than they are with actual English (see the photo above). What's more, this move by the Education Ministry would not only force Japanese teachers to admit that there is a problem (which is difficult in general in Japan), but also that they haven't been doing their job as well as theoretically possible (most Japanese would rather eat a live skunk than admit this). There's some serious face saving to be done here.

For my part, I think I would miss the occasional brain jarring displays of Japanese Engrish. Once you've seen a sweatshirt proclaiming the wearer to be a member in good standing of the "Philadelphia Oatmeal Subway Boy Club" or meekly tried to obey a sign instructing the public not to be "photo taking of nature's koala magnificence if at all possible", real English just isn't as good anymore.