I’ve realised that me being in Japan may not make sense to everyone, so in case you’re wondering why I’m currently living in the land of the rising sun, let me shed some light on it for you. There were main three reasons for me making the move to Japan:
- Life experience – I’ve always wanted to live overseas.
- Fascination – after studying Japanese (for two years in primary school, and five years in high school), and coming here on a school trip when I was 16, I’ve always wanted to come back at some stage.
- Career – in my wisdom, somewhere along the line I thought I might like to be a teacher. So I combined that idea with points 1 & 2, and here I am
After arriving here in the first week of December, and applying for numerous teaching positions, I finally found out on Christmas Eve that G.education had offered me a part-time position with their company. They gave me until the first week of January to make up my mind about the offer, which came in very handy. It was less hours than I had planned on doing, and much less money (by a long shot!), so it did need careful consideration. But after much debate, and given it was the only job offer I’d had, I decided to accept. Training was scheduled for the following week, and the process had begun.
Training was full on. Three 8-hour days (well, 12-8:30pm) were pretty hard slog, but I could tell right away that it was going to be great. Having done practical teaching experience in Australia before I left definitely came in handy, but their system is slightly different to the one I’d learnt through Teach International, so I still had a lot to learn. And they threw us in at the deep end – we (the three trainees) were team-teaching a lesson on the first day! And when the second day rolled around, we were told that we had to prepare for four lessons that day. I was shitting myself, but the lessons went well, and I got some really good feedback (both from the students, and the trainers), so it seemed to be quite successful overall.
By the third day we were exhausted, and I was pleased to find out we had Level Assessment training (learning how to place students into the appropriate levels) for the first part of the day, and only two 40 minute lessons to teach later that evening. But it was still tiring, and I arrived home at 10pm completely exhausted.
No rest for the wicked though. I was scheduled to teach my first day on the job the very next day. Admittedly, my Friday shift is only 5 lessons starting at 1:20, so I was given somewhat of a reprieve in the morning. But I needed the extra time to catch up on some rest, and make the almost-hour long journey to my branch. The next week would see me teach at four different schools, as well as having two days off for accruing too many hours due to the initial training. And although not every lesson goes to plan, I feel the training has made me well prepared to teach conversational English.
The Japanese-speaking staff at the branches are extremely friendly, and are always keen to practice their English too. I’ve met some really interesting characters along the way (picture 60+ year old lady who loves mountaineering, and almost died after falling while traversing a glacier!), and it’s been a great start to my potential teaching career.
Oh – and possibly the best thing - I get to wear slippers at work
Wearing Slippers at Work
