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more teaching excitement...
I figure that my little upload-to-LJ-at-the-7-11 trick saved me about 1000 yen so far -- I was spending an average of 650 yen per night at the internet cafe for about 90 minutes of internet time, so not only did I save 650 yen for not going there Tuesday night, but then I saved another 300 yen or so because I was only at the internet cafe for an hour on Wednesday instead of 1.5 or 2 hours (and if you think about it, the 30-45 mins I write an entry in is just paying for internet but not actually using it as such). Of course, I think this really sucks, and I haven't been reading my LJ friends page for obvious reasons, so if you need me to know something, please tell me directly, because I'm really probably not going to see it for a while at this rate.
I still don't have a cellphone, and haven't even gone to try to get one. Rita told me they won't take my proof-of-gaijin-registration and I actually need the card, but I want to go try anyway. I wonder if I should just go by myself and not worry about having someone to help/translate, but... I think that might be a bad idea.
So let's see. Yesterday I got to the school and the worst thing happened -- I couldn't unlock the door. Sachi had told me it was tricky, you have to shake the door and turn the key and push and all this stuff, and I couldn't figure it out. So I got there at like 12:30, having stopped at a tonkatsu place by Warabi station on the way in for lunch (yum!), and stood outside for ten minutes in the sun worrying about the door and wondering if some policeman was going to come by and arrest me for being this crazy gaijin trying to break into an eikaiwa building. Rita showed up at 12:40 and also tried to open it and failed, so she got out her keitai and started emailing/calling some GEOS people to confirm that we were there on time even if we couldn't punch in our times on the computer (so we wouldn't get docked salary for being late).
Finally Duane showed up at 12:50 or so and he actually knows how to open the door. Thank god. So he let us in.
So my Wednesday schedule is wacky. I have to sign in at 12:40pm but my first class isn't until 5pm, a kid's class. So I spent 4 hours planning lessons, kind of... more like 2-3 hours planning lessons -- Rita said that I'd teach 3 classes and she'd teach 1. So I had a Passages class, a private Sprint 8 class, and a Headways class to prepare. Passages I had worked on before, so with Sprint I went through Becky's notes and her props and tried to prepare what I thought would be good. Headways... I just listened to the CD and tried to figure out how to model the class around what we would do with the few minutes of stuff on the CD, basically -- a discussion to lead into it, some exercises they could do WHILE listening to it, and some things to do afterwards.
It wasn't all just planning, anyway -- other people come in and out of the school during the day, and Eri pretty much brought every student of hers by to meet me. There was one 5-year-old boy who had a lesson in mid-afternoon, and his mother came by with him and his 2-year-old brother, so that basically meant an hour of preparing lessons but being interrupted every 3-4 minutes by a 2-year-old running into the room and running back out. (When the 5-year-old finished his lesson, it was more like TWO little kids running in and out all the time while Eri talked to their mom). It was cute though. Then right after that Eri brought by a student of hers who I had met on Tuesday, who I could have sworn was in college, but turns out to be in junior high. I'm not kidding, she seemed very mature and she looked way older than that. So Eri was like "Let's talk to Deanna!" and pretty much at first prompted the girl to talk to me, but once she got started we actually talked for about 30-40 minutes. She asked me about baseball players and stuff. It was funny because she was talking about the Hawks and Johjima, and said her favorite player was Munenori Kawasaki ("I like Kawasaki, he is a very nice player." "Ahhh Munerin! He's so cute!!" I replied), so I explained the difference between "He is a nice player" and "He is a good player". I have heard Japanese people say that before, like at Safeco a girl told me that "Kenshin Kawakami is a very nice pitcher". And of course she was surprised that I know about Yuki Saito, and she asked if I was watching Koshien now, etc.
Anyway, the only downside of talking so long is that next thing I knew it was time for the kid's lesson! We only had one girl, an 11-year-old, and she was VERY quiet. Rita taught the class and I think it mostly went well, but I worry that I might have trouble hearing the girl in the future. I wonder how bad it would be for me to do a "shouting" lesson :)
We had an hour break at that point, so I discovered the BAKERY AT THE STATION! and got a yummy katsu sandwich and a big raisin roll -- for 350 yen total. Yay for cheap "lunch".
(I have a side point -- I am watching Koshien again, this time Matsusho against Ohmi, and the Ohmi oendan marching band in the stands is really good -- and I'm just humming along and realize, "haha, that song is Daite Senorita, sung by Yamashita Tomohisa... I had no idea the cheer bands would play J-Pop!")
I did more planning for the evening classes and before I knew it, students were showing up. Even weirder, two of my Sprint 7 students from Tuesday were here again, taking Duane's Sprint class, and they won't be around next week because of Obon. I greeted the younger one like "HI! HOW ARE YOU!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" at first, and I might have been overly genki on that because even Duane was looking at me like "Are you crazy?" Sigh.
So my 7pm class went okay. We were talking about phenomena. I had to prompt words a lot, but they knew a surprising amount of them, and we talked about ghosts and aliens and stuff. I think it went well. They had a lot of funny stories to tell.
My 8pm class was awful. Mostly my fault, I didn't really know how to prepare for this one. It's a private student, who is a doctor, and apparently they used to spend about 10 minutes talking and the rest going through the Sprint 8 book. Problem is that the Sprint classes usually take 45 minutes and we talked for 15, so I had 35 minutes for it AND I had prepared too many cards and stuff, so it didn't go very well. I felt really bad and I apologized a lot for it and I hope next week I can do better.
Fortunately my 9pm class went very well. It's a Headways class, which is pretty much one of our highest level classes. The students in it were very interesting and very well travelled. Only two out of three showed up, but they talked a lot so that was good -- we did a lesson on the Earth, and I was surprised, but my lesson "plan" of just talking through the Earth quiz together and then listening to the 4-minute CD track about the earth, once for the answers and once for additional answers to a small quiz I made up, actually worked really well, and after that we went through these "funny" sentences, and the best part was that they really got it -- like when I explained that "in the west, we put dames in rivers to block them off" meant putting ladies to stop up the rivers, they both cracked up.
So I left feeling better overall. I guess we'll see how things go today...
We did paperwork and everything and I guess I got out of the building at like 10:40pm. Yikes. I wandered around Akabane a bit looking for food and instead ended up at the Book-Off, which is a medium-sized one, it has DVDs and CDs and games and stuff and two floors. I ended up actually buying volume 3 of H2, since that's where I left off before giving them all to Konstantin. Also, it turns out that Book-Off has a new point card -- I think they said that they're all converting people by Sept 30 and the cards will work all over the country and maybe even in other countries?
I ended up eating at McDonald's by Akabane station, which is open until midnight. I had a McPork sandwich combo. It was... interesting. I also found a wireless point in McDonald's so that was good. It might be bad if I always go there to eat though, y'know? I never go to McD's in America.
I stopped by the net cafe after that, and then I walked home, and fell asleep shortly after getting home.
Woke up this morning because the guys were showing up again to fix my balcony door. They were very fast. I was also watching Koshien at the time, yay. After they left, I decided to do laundry... which may have been a patently bad idea. I think next time I should do it at night because, well, my clothes came out funny (full of lint and very wrinkled and I don't know how to use my washer as a dryer) and I'm not sure it's the best idea to leave them hanging up here all day while I go to work, BUT I don't really have time to iron/lintroll/etc them right now. I'm also trying an experiment in which I will wear my street clothes to school and change there. Rita says it's a better idea than getting sweaty in my work clothes for 40 minutes and then working, but I'm not sure I get the idea what the difference is between that and getting sweaty in street clothes and then changing...?
Oh, and ugh, in worse news, this morning I slipped and bruised up my left leg getting out of the shower. I should probably go find a bath mat. I put some ice on it but it still swelled up a decent amount.
Anyway, time to save this and go to work. I'll check back tonight at the net cafe again.
I still don't have a cellphone, and haven't even gone to try to get one. Rita told me they won't take my proof-of-gaijin-registration and I actually need the card, but I want to go try anyway. I wonder if I should just go by myself and not worry about having someone to help/translate, but... I think that might be a bad idea.
So let's see. Yesterday I got to the school and the worst thing happened -- I couldn't unlock the door. Sachi had told me it was tricky, you have to shake the door and turn the key and push and all this stuff, and I couldn't figure it out. So I got there at like 12:30, having stopped at a tonkatsu place by Warabi station on the way in for lunch (yum!), and stood outside for ten minutes in the sun worrying about the door and wondering if some policeman was going to come by and arrest me for being this crazy gaijin trying to break into an eikaiwa building. Rita showed up at 12:40 and also tried to open it and failed, so she got out her keitai and started emailing/calling some GEOS people to confirm that we were there on time even if we couldn't punch in our times on the computer (so we wouldn't get docked salary for being late).
Finally Duane showed up at 12:50 or so and he actually knows how to open the door. Thank god. So he let us in.
So my Wednesday schedule is wacky. I have to sign in at 12:40pm but my first class isn't until 5pm, a kid's class. So I spent 4 hours planning lessons, kind of... more like 2-3 hours planning lessons -- Rita said that I'd teach 3 classes and she'd teach 1. So I had a Passages class, a private Sprint 8 class, and a Headways class to prepare. Passages I had worked on before, so with Sprint I went through Becky's notes and her props and tried to prepare what I thought would be good. Headways... I just listened to the CD and tried to figure out how to model the class around what we would do with the few minutes of stuff on the CD, basically -- a discussion to lead into it, some exercises they could do WHILE listening to it, and some things to do afterwards.
It wasn't all just planning, anyway -- other people come in and out of the school during the day, and Eri pretty much brought every student of hers by to meet me. There was one 5-year-old boy who had a lesson in mid-afternoon, and his mother came by with him and his 2-year-old brother, so that basically meant an hour of preparing lessons but being interrupted every 3-4 minutes by a 2-year-old running into the room and running back out. (When the 5-year-old finished his lesson, it was more like TWO little kids running in and out all the time while Eri talked to their mom). It was cute though. Then right after that Eri brought by a student of hers who I had met on Tuesday, who I could have sworn was in college, but turns out to be in junior high. I'm not kidding, she seemed very mature and she looked way older than that. So Eri was like "Let's talk to Deanna!" and pretty much at first prompted the girl to talk to me, but once she got started we actually talked for about 30-40 minutes. She asked me about baseball players and stuff. It was funny because she was talking about the Hawks and Johjima, and said her favorite player was Munenori Kawasaki ("I like Kawasaki, he is a very nice player." "Ahhh Munerin! He's so cute!!" I replied), so I explained the difference between "He is a nice player" and "He is a good player". I have heard Japanese people say that before, like at Safeco a girl told me that "Kenshin Kawakami is a very nice pitcher". And of course she was surprised that I know about Yuki Saito, and she asked if I was watching Koshien now, etc.
Anyway, the only downside of talking so long is that next thing I knew it was time for the kid's lesson! We only had one girl, an 11-year-old, and she was VERY quiet. Rita taught the class and I think it mostly went well, but I worry that I might have trouble hearing the girl in the future. I wonder how bad it would be for me to do a "shouting" lesson :)
We had an hour break at that point, so I discovered the BAKERY AT THE STATION! and got a yummy katsu sandwich and a big raisin roll -- for 350 yen total. Yay for cheap "lunch".
(I have a side point -- I am watching Koshien again, this time Matsusho against Ohmi, and the Ohmi oendan marching band in the stands is really good -- and I'm just humming along and realize, "haha, that song is Daite Senorita, sung by Yamashita Tomohisa... I had no idea the cheer bands would play J-Pop!")
I did more planning for the evening classes and before I knew it, students were showing up. Even weirder, two of my Sprint 7 students from Tuesday were here again, taking Duane's Sprint class, and they won't be around next week because of Obon. I greeted the younger one like "HI! HOW ARE YOU!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" at first, and I might have been overly genki on that because even Duane was looking at me like "Are you crazy?" Sigh.
So my 7pm class went okay. We were talking about phenomena. I had to prompt words a lot, but they knew a surprising amount of them, and we talked about ghosts and aliens and stuff. I think it went well. They had a lot of funny stories to tell.
My 8pm class was awful. Mostly my fault, I didn't really know how to prepare for this one. It's a private student, who is a doctor, and apparently they used to spend about 10 minutes talking and the rest going through the Sprint 8 book. Problem is that the Sprint classes usually take 45 minutes and we talked for 15, so I had 35 minutes for it AND I had prepared too many cards and stuff, so it didn't go very well. I felt really bad and I apologized a lot for it and I hope next week I can do better.
Fortunately my 9pm class went very well. It's a Headways class, which is pretty much one of our highest level classes. The students in it were very interesting and very well travelled. Only two out of three showed up, but they talked a lot so that was good -- we did a lesson on the Earth, and I was surprised, but my lesson "plan" of just talking through the Earth quiz together and then listening to the 4-minute CD track about the earth, once for the answers and once for additional answers to a small quiz I made up, actually worked really well, and after that we went through these "funny" sentences, and the best part was that they really got it -- like when I explained that "in the west, we put dames in rivers to block them off" meant putting ladies to stop up the rivers, they both cracked up.
So I left feeling better overall. I guess we'll see how things go today...
We did paperwork and everything and I guess I got out of the building at like 10:40pm. Yikes. I wandered around Akabane a bit looking for food and instead ended up at the Book-Off, which is a medium-sized one, it has DVDs and CDs and games and stuff and two floors. I ended up actually buying volume 3 of H2, since that's where I left off before giving them all to Konstantin. Also, it turns out that Book-Off has a new point card -- I think they said that they're all converting people by Sept 30 and the cards will work all over the country and maybe even in other countries?
I ended up eating at McDonald's by Akabane station, which is open until midnight. I had a McPork sandwich combo. It was... interesting. I also found a wireless point in McDonald's so that was good. It might be bad if I always go there to eat though, y'know? I never go to McD's in America.
I stopped by the net cafe after that, and then I walked home, and fell asleep shortly after getting home.
Woke up this morning because the guys were showing up again to fix my balcony door. They were very fast. I was also watching Koshien at the time, yay. After they left, I decided to do laundry... which may have been a patently bad idea. I think next time I should do it at night because, well, my clothes came out funny (full of lint and very wrinkled and I don't know how to use my washer as a dryer) and I'm not sure it's the best idea to leave them hanging up here all day while I go to work, BUT I don't really have time to iron/lintroll/etc them right now. I'm also trying an experiment in which I will wear my street clothes to school and change there. Rita says it's a better idea than getting sweaty in my work clothes for 40 minutes and then working, but I'm not sure I get the idea what the difference is between that and getting sweaty in street clothes and then changing...?
Oh, and ugh, in worse news, this morning I slipped and bruised up my left leg getting out of the shower. I should probably go find a bath mat. I put some ice on it but it still swelled up a decent amount.
Anyway, time to save this and go to work. I'll check back tonight at the net cafe again.
I'm a Bad Influence!
Re: I'm a Bad Influence!
I have no idea how they talk for 15 mins and then do a full sprint lesson, seriously.
Today went better, but I'll be posting about that for real in the morning again with my cheat-the-internet method.
I think you're right about students not knowing the method. They seemed surprised when I tried to do lessons like I had in Vancouver. Seriously.
Re: I'm a Bad Influence!