Getting paid to talk about the World Cup is a great job. I’m not a football commentator(评论员), though-just an English teacher in Japan.
I come to Japan two years ago, and didn’t think I would stay, but Japan has that effect on you. People often end up living here longer than they planned. I think it’s best to teach in a bigger city where there are other foreigners to mix with, rather than a small town where English teachers often complain of feeling like a goldfish in a bowl. Many people choose to live in Tokyo, of course, which is good for the nightlife factor. But I’d say that for general quality of living, cities of neither too large nor too small, like Sapporo where I live, are better choices.
I teach English privately, which means I’m my own boss. If you want to devote yourself to private teaching, it’s well worth doing a TEFL course first, because your lessons will be much better for it. The problem with private teaching is finding students; it took me a year to build up a full schedule(日程表) of private lessons, so I started out teaching in schools part-time.
Most of my foreign friends here work full-time for big English conversation schools. The salary is fine to live on, but whether you can save money depends on how much going out and traveling you do here.
The schools are unwilling to take time off –even teachers with tickets for the England-Argentina game had trouble getting the day off.
小题1: From the passage we know in Japan the writer likes to live in ________.
A．Tokyo
B．a small town
C．a city of middle size
D．a big city小题2:According to the writer, one had better _______ first to do private teaching better.
A．give a TEFL course
B．decide his or her own lessons
C．find students
D．build up a full schedule小题3:The underlined sentence in the second paragraph implies that _______.
A．there are many foreigners in Japan
B．Japan is good for nightlife
C．they can teach English privately in Japan
D．Japan has something more attractive than expected小题4:After reading the passage, we can see _________.
A．the writer travelled a lot and saved much money in Japan.
B．the writer teaches English in more than one school as a part-time job.
C．the writer enjoys watching football games
D．the writer spent one year in finding students for his private teaching.
小题1:C
小题2:A
小题3:D
小题4:B
题目分析：文章介绍作者在日本做英语老师的经历。
小题1:细节理解题。由第二段But I’d say that for general quali~of living，cities of neither too large nor too small，like Sa- pporo where I live，are better choices．可知本题应选C。
小题2:细节理解题。由第三段第二句话可知答案为A。
小题3:句子理解推理题。句子意为：“人们实际居住的时间比计划的时间要长。”由此可推理得知句子含义是日本比预料的有更多的吸引人的东西。选D。
小题4:推理题：从第三段的句子：The problem with private teaching is finding students; it took me a year to build up a full schedule(日程表) of private lessons, so I started out teaching in schools part-time.可知作者在不止一个学校做兼职工作。选B。
点评：这篇阅读理解集中考查了细节理解题，要求考生仔细阅读全文，做好相应的标志，以提高阅读的效率和速度，做题时要审清题干，发觉和把握试题中有效的提示性信息，确认命题的角度、阅读范围和答题方式。