English Teaching in Japan: How I Got There Through Comedy

by Kevin Burns
(Odawara, Kanagawa, Japan)

I was going to be the next Steve Martin. My heart was set on becoming a comedian. Never did I think I would be in Japan - English teaching!

When I was younger, I was interviewed and had even performed some comedy on CBC radio in Canada. I also performed at Yuk Yuk`s and Punchlines in Vancouver.

I had majored in theatre and felt that was where I was headed - a career in comedy and comedic acting.

However I came to the realization that I didn`t want to be living out of a suitcase, traveling to various cities in Canada. While at first it would have been excitng, I could see that I wanted a wife, kids and a nice home. I wanted to be based in the same town.

How could I combine being funny with that I wondered? The answer came through English teaching in Japan.

My Japanese History professor at UBC encouraged me to become a teacher after I gave a one hour lecture on Noh Theatre. Noh Theatre is incredibly dry unless you have an avid interest in it.

To liven up my "lecture," I put in some comedy slides during the slide show and pretended that I had slipped up a few times to much laughter. As well, I took out my guitar and did my blues number about Noh. The students and my professor loved it!

He felt I would fit in well as one of the English teachers in Japan. My brother had taught in Tokyo, and encouraged me to really look into Japan English teaching for EFL learners.

I became a teacher, and now I perform comedy all the time! I am like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Larry King in my English classes in Kanagawa, Japan.

Japanese people can be very hesitant to speak English, but if I act like a total goofball, they relax. No one can be more of an idiot than me!

They stop worrying so much about making mistakes.
A sense of fun develops in our classes and rapport between the students and I.

I don`t regret becoming a teacher. I love teaching. Really, I wasn`t that great a stand up comic. I think I could have been, but my comedy actually is all about playing off of the moment and people - which is not stand up comedy it is more improv.

Anyway I do improv in the classroom at expense of myself or at the expense of students who enjoy that kind of humor.

I`m very careful with my with as some people don`t like that kind of thing. I am gentle with the shy types. I`m intuitive about how people are feeling. I always have been. So I use the comedy to enliven a class but I am careful with this gift.

I think bringing fun and laughter to the classroom is a great thing! Especially at the universities here - some of the students don`t like English at the start of the term, but at the end of the term, they often comment that now they do like English.

For me that is very satisfying.

I see myself as not just a teacher but as an "internationalizer" of sorts. Japan is still very insular. So I hope I can show them that Canadians are kind, interesting and hopefully...FUNNY - just like learning English in Japan English schools!