Choosing Register for a Teacher's Farewell Message
You are a Year 12 Japanese student on the organising committee for your teacher Tanaka-sensei's farewell. She has taught your class for three years and is moving to a school in Osaka. You must write a short speech (about 120 Japanese characters) to deliver at the assembly in front of students and other teachers. A classmate suggests opening with 田中先生、いつも元気でいてくれてありがとう and closing with またね！. Another suggests using いらっしゃってください when inviting her to visit. You have 90 seconds to speak and want the tone to be warm but respectful, appropriate for a public school event where the principal is present.
1. Evaluate the classmate's suggested opening and closing. What register are they in, and why are they risky in this context?
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The opening uses plain/casual forms (元気でいてくれてありがとう) suited to friends, not a teacher. またね is a casual farewell. In a public assembly with the principal present, this register could seem overly familiar or flippant. The relationship is hierarchical (teacher-student) and the setting is formal-public, so です・ます with respectful vocabulary is safer. A better opening: 田中先生、三年間本当にお世話になりました。A better closing: 先生、どうぞお元気で。Also note いらっしゃってください is not wrong as sonkeigo, but ぜひ遊びに来てください or ぜひいらしてください flows more naturally in an invitation.
2. Rewrite the invitation to visit in appropriate honorific form and justify your choice of keigo type.
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Use ぜひ学校にもいらしてください or ぜひ遊びに来てください。いらっしゃる is sonkeigo (respectful language elevating the teacher's action). 来る→いらっしゃる is the standard respectful equivalent. Justification: the subject is the teacher (out-group superior), so sonkeigo is correct, not kenjōgo. Avoid うかがってください (that would be humble language describing your own action, wrong here). Also avoid double keigo such as いらっしゃってくださいませ overdone in a short student speech.