Yesterday I taught my first class with the brand new employees at our company. They have just entered the company at the beginning of this month, and they are undergoing various forms of training for the next six months. They’ll get on the job training after that, so they’ve got a long road of learning ahead of them.
I had fun talking with the students, and they did very well on the activities in class. One student is from Bangladesh, which seems to indicate a continuing theme of internationalization at the company, albeit at a very slow pace.
At one point in the lesson the students asked how long I’ve lived in Japan, and I said that now it is getting close to ten years. Later in the lesson someone asked me if I spoke Japanese, and I gave my standard answer: “Just a little”. The last thing I want is the students thinking that they could speak Japanese to me and get away with it, so I have to hide my abilities for now.
The student who asked me if I spoke Japanese listened to my response, and shook his head. “You’ve been here ten years,” he said, “You should be able to speak very well.” Let’s hope nobody figures it out.
