Thursday, October 19, 2006

An actual reflection

So I thought I might actually do some reflecting on the current state of my teaching, just for a change. I have time here to do this sort of thing, it seems, and I thought I might use the extra time I have to make my classes as interesting as possible. There is some incentive to do this. As I am employed by an outside company, and not by the university, and only see our company "Program Coordinator" once a week, the only measure they really have of our usual performance is student attendance records. And a lack of complaints from them, I suppose! Anyway, the idea is we have to make our classes interesting, fun and relaxing so that they want to come and don't miss too many lessons, thus giving us a good attendance percentage. Yay.
So my current problem is my morning classes. I keep trying out new games or activities that don't work so well the first time through. And as the class is only 40 minutes, there isn't much time for changing things to get it right. Of course, by the time I repeat the lesson at lunchtime, I've tweaked things to make it work better, but I'm finding myself thanking the morning class for being guinea pigs! I need to work on getting things right the first time, I guess.
The 40 minute thing is a definite change. I haven't had such short lessons since my first time in China, 4 years ago, and I haven't taught pure conversation much lately, or such high level students, so all in all, I'm rather glad to have extra free time, as I seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time planning the 40 minutes worth of lesson I teach each day, and trying to think of ways to extend the plan to provide some challenge to my higher level students. And then 15 minutes before each lesson writing things on the board (not much time to do that when you have to fit in so much else) and of course I'm never in the same classroom twice, so I write it all up three times a day. Again, improving where necessary as the day progresses!
I think I might use some of my free time to read up on a few things as well, like conversation class theory - there are some good books on teaching conversation here on my computer, and a few in our small selection of resources at school. I might actually attempt to learn something, and improve my classes.
Shock! Horror!

And here's a picture of our teacher's room, for no good reason. It seems to double as a storage room for spare chairs and desks...

Friday, October 13, 2006

World's easiest job

So I think this job in Japan is going to be a bit of a walk in the park. I've been here three weeks now - the first week we didn't work at all, and our first working week finished in a three day weekend. This is a short week, then two full weeks until our next long weekend. In fact, in three months here, we never have more than 2 full weeks in a row. One of the advantages of living in a country that has the most public holidays of any country in the world, I think. And they are more concentrated in the second half of the year.
The other thing that makes this job a cinch is that I only have to plan one 40 minute session a day. Then I teach it three times over. 4 on Fridays. That's 3 40 minute sessions of actual teaching. And I have a total of 19 students, so only about 5-8 in each class. Then I have "English Challenge" three times a day, at least one of which is usually unattended, giving me an extra free session. English Challenge is more or less a free conversation period, although I may need to think up some conversation helpers like questions or topics sometimes. So far I usually just have 2 very high level students in EC, so we just chat, or I get them to help me with things like "what's this that came in my mailbox" and other useful things.
So I have 6 40 minute sessions a day in total. I have to be on campus 9 hours a day - 9.40 til 6.40. But the office here closes before 6.40, so we don't have to sign out (there's an internet site we have to sign into every day when we arrive - a time card, in effect), and on thursdays and Fridays, I have no class in the last period, so I get off early.
And on top of all that, I only live a 15 minute bike ride from my uni. This in a country where the average commute is an hour by train.
And for all this, I'm paid probably the best salary I've ever had, plus my airfare, plus a train pass (it's quicker to ride though) plus, today they gave us bus passes, as we live so far from the station - it's still quicker to ride though) that can be used on any bus in the tokyo area.
Yesterday I was actually bored. And worried that I was going to get very bored this semester. Today I'm more positive. I'm going to take this free time and USE it. Now I just have to think up some projects...