My Most Embarrassing EFL Moment

I have been asked to share my most embarrassing EFL moment, so here it is. Nothing to do with Kindle or ebooks or reviews. Plenty to do with being a twerp. I hope it brings a wee smile to your faces.


I’ve been teaching English since November 2005. I did my first chunk of the awesome online i-to-i course at that time and have never looked back.

I went to Japan in 2005 for a year and had a fantastic experience. I worked for two language schools and also had private students at the weekend. The incident I am about to describe for you happened at around 9pm one evening. I had been working for this one school since 8am that morning and was pretty shattered. They didn’t believe in giving their native language teachers much in the way of breaks, since a break for a teacher meant they weren’t working – so not earning money for the school, which, according to them, was not good.

So, I was shattered and it was my last class of the day. An hour-long class for one single student, whose name I have long forgotten. He was a nervous and awkward young man in his 30s, who still lived with his mother and had a terrible “comb over”. I think he was a scientist of some kind and he was always smartly dressed in a suit.

On this particular day I was so tired that I could hardly remember what my own name was. I leaned forward to point at something in the textbook and, as I did so, let out an enormous fart! I didn’t even feel it! It echoed around the school room, filling the uncomfortable silence and bouncing off the walls! I slowly looked up, to see my student red faced and twitching. Oh dear. Flatulence is a massive taboo in Japan. Polite girls don’t do that sort of thing.

After apologizing profusely, I struggled through to the end of the lesson, keeping a tight hold on my sphincter muscles, and praying nothing else awful would happen. To my absolute horror the student went to talk to my headmaster after the class and then, to make things even worse, my headmaster walked over to talk to me. I was sure I was about to be sacked for my unforgivable error, but no! Headmaster smiled broadly, shook my hand and said the student had told him it was the best English class he had ever had!!!!

The full impact of my gaseous mishap became evident the following week, when the student appeared in casual clothes, and smiled at me broadly for the whole lesson. It would appear that, yes flatulence is a taboo in that country, but is also a fetish and my dear student thought my accident was my attempt at flirting!!!!

Needless to say, I have kept a tight hold on my muscles ever since!!!