Japanese kids are frequently taught English as if it were a call and response exercise. For example, they are taught that when someone asks "How are you?", they should answer "Fine thank you, and you?". This is the most notorious example of this, although it extends into various facets of English, and indeed all, education. It gets to the point that when there is one of the frequent influenza outbreaks at school, you ask the students how they are during the greetings at the beginning of the lesson and a whole synchronized chorus of coughing, hoarse, spluttering students will all croak back, "Fine thank you, and you?".
This isn't because the students don't know any other answers. If you grill them and stress that you want their true feelings, they will answer with a myriad of original (odd and occasionally perplexing) reponses: "I am beauty", or "I'm glad to be here tonight", or "Yes, I am", or even "I am happiness". I meet all with expressions of praise: "Well done", "Good, beauty itself withers in your presence, Taro", and "I'm glad you're here too", and so on. However, the next class when we do greetings, "I'm fine thank you, and you?". Pointless.
I was talking to one of my students yesterday. She had gone to America over the Christmas holidays with her family and was telling me about it. She got ill at some point during the trip, and they took her to the local hospital. As she was the only English speaker, her family made her talk to the doctor. She said she wasn't worried about it, as she wasn't that ill and we had recently done getting ill role-plays in class. Apparently, she was all ready to tell the doctor that "her belly ached". When the doctor came into the room though, she greeted the student's family and then turned to the girl and said, "So, how are you?". She, of course, replied, "I'm fine thank you, and you?". The doctor said, "If you are fine, why are you in the hospital?", (which I have to admit sounds little bit harsh). The girl got confused and nervously, started spouting Japanese until the hospital got an interpreter. I asked the girl to explain this to the class, as an example of why the students should always think about their responses to these simple questions. The kids were mesmerized by her story, with lots of "oooo"s and "ahhh, naruhoudo"s. I was happy that they could finally understand what we had been telling them for so long.
I went into the class today and started the lesson. "Good morning class, how are you?". The class, depleted by the current school infection and lead by the girl I had talked to, replied as one: "Fine thank you, and you?".
