Holy crap the kids group was good again! In this case good is extremely relative, but they were still putting forth an effort. I found that the best way to get results was to time them on their activities. Everyone really wanted to beat the clock.
During the workday, I got into a lengthy, pointless, but very fun argument with other teachers over the correct pronunciation of words and letters. The Australians, in particular, did things very differently than the correct Canadian pronunciation. Seriously, who pronounces the letter “H” as “hate-ch”. We also had disagreements over Z, Adidas, Semi, and a few others.
After work the discussion continued over beers (like most good discussions), and I learned that in Australian English, to “knock off work” is to go home. This simply makes no sense, and it is no wonder that their country is overrun by kangaroos.
(2014 Update) In case my sense of humour doesn’t come across well written, I would like to state for the record that I love Aussies and their unique pronunciation and slang. It it always a surprise how two countries with similar roots can speak English so differently. And now any Aussies reading this are laughing at “roots” 🙂
Drinking in Japan 