A bit of background: I'm a Canadian EFL teacher at a Korean high school. Next week a Japanese professor who's visiting our school district to study it's English education programme will come to our school. Apparently he wishes to observe me teaching a lesson and speak with me about English education at our school. Since he's a professor of English and / or English educations I'm assuming he's somewhat westernised and has perhaps lived in an English-speaking country for a while. I presume he'll be making a report of some kind, which may or may not find it's way to my school district and school, so I'd like it to be quite positive. Hence, some questions that I have:

- How honest should I be? Should I be brutally honest about problems with English education in Korea? Should I try to be more euphamistic and make it sound like our perfectly average, mediocre school is God's gift to education? What about education in Japan? I've heard almost nothing but bad things about Japan's JET programme and would love to pass along some of it to him, along with explaining why I'd never, ever work in the JET programme? Should I keep my mouth shut?

- How formal should I be? With Korean visiters it's always formal to the max. Would Japanese expect the same?

- What sort of gift do you think a Japanese professor would like? Would a coffee table book about Korea be a good gift?

- Could someone give me, transliterated into English, the proper greeting to use for a professor (I'm in my mid-30s and he'll likely be much older than me). What would be the best terms for 'hello' and 'welcome'?

Thanks for any help!

I have the same question , what gift is appropiate for the first time you visit a Japanese friend , expensive , not too expensive , art crafts or just food .

Gee , thats beats me , can anyone offer some advise

Japanese will be insulted with an expensive gift as if you want something in return. How about a book on Korean archeology.

Thanks for the tips. On Monday I was told the visit was cancelled and then on Thursday morning I was told it was on again for that afternoon. Despite very little time for planning the prof seemed very, very impressed. He seemed most thankful to meet with someone who could actually answer his questions, after getting no shortage of completely useless, irrelevant, and trivial information from Koreans, lol.