Training Session #2
...written on 2000-10-22, @ 23:19:55
Sun October 22, 2000
Saturday morning I called Ivan to make sure he would make it to training on time.
John has structured his teacher training sessions in a way to give us ideas for teaching English. He started off with a Jeopardy-like game and wrote answers to questions about himself on the board and we were to quess what the answers meant. The number "3" for example is his favorite number, hockey is his favorite sport, "5" is the number of members in his immediate family, etc. The one who answered the most questions correctly got a chip (me).
Hide got up and told us about the company's history and how Japanese education will be changing in the year 2002. They will take school down to just 5 days a week AND they are going to abolish the test that jr high schooler's have to take to get into high school! At this point, this is why our company and many other juku schools exist, to prepare jr high and high school students for their various tests. The focus on English grammar will change to English conversation. So, we are trying to beef up the international division with native English speakers because while the Japanese teachers can teach English grammar, most of them can't speak English. Our company is trying to change its focus to accomodate the changes coming down the pike. Only a couple of years ago did the government finally concede that juku schools were ok to have around. Before that the government was anti-juku even though its own policies brought them into being. Pretty interesting. So, if you are interested in teaching English abroad, Japan is the place to be. It is going to mushroom in the next few years.
After Hide's little spiel, John got up again and started speaking French to us. He was trying to teach us greetings in French. First he used no gestures, or pictures and we were lost. Not only lost, as John would point out later, but frustrated and maybe angry that we couldn't understand him. I thought that was a great way to illustrate how the kids might feel about us blathering in English in front of them and how important it is to make ourselves clear by using various tools. John had us teach the greetings ourselves as well.
He gave us a handbook on the company and our responsibilties and gave each of us a section to read with the intent of "teaching" it to our teammates. After we presented our section of responsibility, we played a game. John moved the tables and left one in the center with a pen on it. He said we were to play in pairs. He would ask a question from the handbook and if we knew it, we were to run to the magic marker, grab it and answer the question. Ivan won a chip for this one.
After this exercise, John gave us a survey of our likes/dislikes, expectations and so on to keep for us for review maybe 6 months from now to see how we may have changed. So training was very interesting and lively and we all enjoyed it. John also gave us two books on learning the Japanese syllabaries, hiragana, and katakana. They look great!
Afterwards we all piled into Hide's van and went to Coco's California Restaurant. The waitress spilled hot tea on Hide and went screaming into the kitchen with fear and embarrassment. She came out with a cloth, but ran back in and the manager came out offering profuse apologies and a handtowel.
Ivan, Chad and I were all dragging by this time. Ivan just got here from the US on Thursday and Chad and I were having sympathy jet lag. John took us all home and mentioned going out that night. I said I'd pass and went up to my apt, laid down on the tatami and slept for about an hour. I woke up with tatami marks in my cheeks since I didn't use a futon or a pillow.
I got up and started cleaning. Then the phone rang. It was Chad asking if I was going to Gifu with them to party. . .