I have a senior student, he’s pretty high level, but he hardly tries in class. He loves to answer my questions with ’so-so’, ‘I don’t remember’ and ‘I don’t know’. He never pisses me off too much, cause he knows when to stop. When it is open question time, he also likes to annoy me by asking simple questions. Every week I have to add a “you can’t ask this question” to the list. They mostly include “When is your birthday” “How old are you.” “How are you.” and “When did you come to Japan?” He is a great kid though and I enjoy our relaxed classes.
This week was review of the last three lessons, which embarrasingly enough included the dreaded topic of relationships. It was also our last class of the year. In April, another girl would be joining his class. For his last class/review I decided to just do what he likes to do, card game. We were playing a card game where, depending on which card you had, you had to take a vocabulary card from a certain unit. Kazuya was of course being himself and asking silly easy questions.
“Are you a police officer?” Kazuya asks.
“UUugghh, Kazuya, really?? No, I am not a police officer.”
“Are you–
“Kazuya, you know I’m not an interior designer!”
“Is it your dream to be an Interior designer?”
“No. Why? Is it yours?”
“No.”
Kazuya then got a round of cards that dealt with personal characteristics.
“Why are you intelligent?”
“That’s an easy question Kaz.” He just shrugs his shoulders. “Man, I don’t know, cause I went to school and I read a lot of books.”
“Why are you honest?”
“What?! Because I don’t like liars.”
I can tell he’s enjoying being a little brat and seeing me get annoyed with his simple questions. He then pulls up a card that I read and says handsome/beautiful.
“Why are you beautiful?” He looks impressed with himself until half a moment later when his eyes show that he has realized what he has just asked. I feel my face turn a bright shade of red. This can go down in the books as the first time a student has made me blush. He looks straight at me to show that this question hasn’t fazed him. He caves to the embarrassement of the situation when he looks down a few seconds later.
“Uhhhh…uuuuhh…uh.” The tic-tocking of the clock becomes noticeably loud. “Uhh… because I wear make-up.”
He nods in all seriousness and says “Ok.” as if to say “Glad we dealt with that question…cause, you know it was a real question, and I don’t even care.”
He gets a little cocky when I ask him after the card game is done:”Alright Kaz, what do you want to do for the last 15 minutes of our last class alone together? More cards, or a board game?”
“I don’t know. How about you?”
