Shunji

One of my nicer students and one of the nice rooms I get to teach english in as well. This is Shunji, a dentist by day and Jazz bassist by night. This place has a pretty cool vibe to it with a Grand Piano, Bass and drum kit in it. The sorta room where you could have yourself a nice little cocktail party. It's too bad I only get to visit here once a month.
Before she left, Robyn passed on a book of Canadian Humour to Shunji. I big book full of interesting stories about life in the True North. He started reading it and last month asked me if we could use the book as a sort of reader on which to base our englsih lessons. I wish all my students did their own class planning. He gave me a photo copy of one of the short stories. Last night I returned prepared to discuss the chapter and practice grammar and pronounciation.

The story was about a hockey players experiences in Hong Kong. It was full of shower humour and the sort of stories a veteran hockey player could relate to. I never imagined having to explain to a student what a dangling protrubance was or what 'yer wanger' is either.

Shunji could read the chapter just fine. While home studying he stopped to look up more than 100 words in the englsih japanese dictionary. We read along together and I would stop to explain the underlying meaning, helping him to understand the sarcastic nature of the writer. I was glad at the end of the class that shunji could actually see some of the humour in the story.