ABSTRACT
Unfortunately, this dreamy passion did not translate into learning English at school. In fact, I hated English as a school subject. As thousands of fellow Japanese from my generation would agree, it was the teaching method – grammar translation – that killed my interest. In all honesty, it was not just English classes that I dreaded attending. School work in general did not mean much to me back then. The reason: I grew up in a working class suburb of Yokohama and my parents had little interest in their daughter’s education. English? What for? There was simply no connection between my English classroom in my hometown, Tsurumi and the English speaking, glamorous world of Hollywood, to which my ‘Maverick’ belonged. Unsurprisingly, I finished high school with little knowledge of English (and all other subjects, to be more exact). I was perfectly happy to continue my carefree lifestyle into early adulthood with a part-time job in an izakaya (a pub) in Tokyo. Life was good – for a while.
