Hello! My name is Derek. I’m from Canada and am enjoying teaching English in Japan to great students at my English conversation school (英会話スクール), Smith’s School of English Tsukaguchi (スミス英会話 塚口校) in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture. Oh, and I am an alien.
Now please don’t worry! Apart from Superman (who looks human), I don’t think that I look anything like the aliens in such films as Alien, Predator, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Transformers or any other fictional beings from other worlds. (^.^) I’m not that kind of alien. I am, as my Oxford Dictionary of Current English says, “a foreign-born resident who is not naturalized”. I was born in Canada, am living in Japan and don’t have Japanese citizenship. That makes me an alien. Did you know this meaning of “alien”? I didn’t before I came to Japan and obtained a Certificate of Alien Registration, an identification card which must be obtained and carried by foreigners at all times while in Japan (as I mentioned in an earlier post titled Super June ). I’ve always thought that it has as a funny name because when I read or hear the word “alien”, I think of a creature from another world. However, “alien” has other meanings, including “foreign-born residents that are not naturalized”, which is what people who obtain the card are. Therefore everyone who has such a card is, well, an alien. Sometimes English can be quite funny, eh?
Derek the alien (^.^)
Smith’s School of English Tsukaguchi
月謝制英会話のスミス英会話 塚口校
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/tsukaguchi.shtml
尼崎市の英会話スクール
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