Classroom story

Some of my friends are in public schools all day, and therefore get tons of cute and funny stories to tell everyone. Working at an Eikaiwa, a private English conversation school (sounds like Eh-ee-kI-wa), means I spend my time in various businesses, culture centers, and in the office. All of my students are adults, except for the 3 10-year old girls I teach each Friday. And my classes are always subject to change. I might get more students, someone might cancel a lesson, or might lose a class altogether. The closest I get to teaching in a school now days is each Wednesday when I go to Tekikyo Asaka High School.

As I've been told, Tekikyo has never had a foreign English teacher before. They wanted their students to practice hearing and repeating English with a native accent. Tekikyo is a private school, which most of the time in Japan means that students are receiving less than great education. It's totally backwards from schools in America. Students have to pay lots of money no matter where they go for high school, but they also have to pass an entrance examination. If a student doesn't pass the test for their choice school, they have to go to a private school. Tekikyo is a fairly large school- 10 first year classes with about 40 students each. It also has the lowest English test rate in all of Koriyama. I'm happy anytime the students are speaking English, even if it's mocking me through repetition.

Here's my 'funny story', though it's the kind of funny you can never admit to in front of the students.
In my 1-4 class (class 4 of the first year students) there is a block of particularly noisy, rowdy boys. A couple of them are genuine trouble makers, a couple are just wisecracks showing off for their friends. They were supposed to be working in groups to complete an exercise in the book, but of course they were just talking and goofing off. As I came to their side of the room one of the wisecracks (one I generally like because he's willing to talk and answer questions) called me over to his desk.
As I approached to answer a question, he pulls out 1,000 yen bill (about $10) and holds it toward me as if I should take it. Before I can ask Wisecrack what his question is, his backstreet boy(because this other wisecrack sings in class sometimes) friend taps him on the shoulder and says, "No, no." Then, Backstreet boy pulls out an American dollar bill (I have no idea where he got this or why he happened to have it on him), hands it to Wisecrack saying, "This." Wisecrack giggles, exchanges the bills and pushes the $1 toward me. I'm still confused until he says "Cheap, cheap," still gesturing I should take the money. A number of responses ran through my head, but I settled for swiftly tapping him on the head with my book and told him to stop watching bad movies. Isn't great that my students are properly using adjectives I haven't taught them yet?