Teachers Discussion

Teaching in Exchange for Home Stay

Posted By: Howie Hayman
Date: December 16, 2007

I arranged a three month home stay through a friend during one of my trips to Nara, Japan. My skills as a pronunciation teacher were pretty well known locally and it was easy for me to find this situation. I stayed with a wealthy, and very traditional Japanese family, consisting of the husband and wife and his parents. The house was beautiful. It was a newer home built in traditional Japanese style. I received room and board in exchange for English pronunciation and conversation instruction.

The name of my student was Jun and basically his motivation for learning English was to eventually open a new bed and breakfast hotel in Nara, catering to tourists. He needed to learn English in order to communicate with the hotel guests.

I was free to do anything I wanted during the day, and taught only at night and on the weekends, since Jun worked. The classes were pretty formal at the beginning but within a couple of weeks the class time was much more relaxed. I spent some time on grammar errors but most of the time was spent working on pronunciation, and basic conversation. Within a couple months he was pronouncing English pretty much like a native speaker.

Jun eventually went to New Zealand and entered an English language program. The instructor was amazed at his English pronunciation ability. He returned to Japan, constructed a new bed and breakfast, and is now accepting guests from all over the world. You can read my post “The Best Place to Stay in Nara” in the Good Travel Experiences forum.

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