Let's sing the 'hello' song!

Greetings from Omiya! There's a light at the end of the tunnel - only one more day of training to go. Of course, then next week it'll be actual work, which isn't exactly a reprieve!

Feeling quite stuffed at the moment but it's been a good week.

Maybe I should change the name of my blog because as it turns out, while I'm working in Kawasaki, I'm actually living in Yokohama. (They're right next to each other. It's only half an hour commute to work, switching train lines, which is pretty good for the Tokyo area.) I think this is great. Of course, I don't know anything about Yokohama, having tried to research Kawasaki, but Kawasaki sounded like a slightly uninspiring industrial town, whereas Yokohama is supposed to be very lively and cool and pretty.

I have my apartment and schedule information. Some of it goes like this:

All my classes are 'standard' lessons - grammar and function classes. No kid's classes, no private lessons, no business classes, or any other curve balls.

I teach 26 classes a week, but 10 of these are repeat lessons, so I only have to prepare for 16.

I work from 1pm-9pm three days a week, 12-9pm one day, and 11am-8pm one day. Apparently my school is in a shopping centre with lots of restaurants on the same floor.

My apartment will be new (as in, no other teachers have lived in it), but very small. (Which I expected anyway.) From the address I think it's on a somewhat main road, which is good.

There's only one other 'foreign' teacher at my school, and as I already found out, he's a guy from Chicago.

Gee I feel tired...

Ummm, what is there to say... training week has been quite good, considering how full on it is. We have heaps and heaps to learn, about how to teach each type of lesson. As I mentioned in my last post, the lessons are quite structured. So once you're on top of how to do them, you can prepare your lessons quite quickly, since you have all the materials. So for example you'll have a listening exercise from the textbook, and a section where you use drill cards, and a section where you do a scenario roleplay, and so on.

I'm finding it a lot of fun to be sharing this training centre with all these people. Everyone gets along really well. Since being here I haven't felt down like I did when I was travelling by myself; I guess it'll be quite different next week when I move into my apartment by myself, but this is a good transition week.

It's good having broken routine so completely; I'm doing things I've never done, hanging out with people I've never met, and enjoying myself.

All of us had to do a little bit of kid's training. Not all of us are going to schools where they have kids - I'm not - but we all did the basics just in case our schools or situations ever change. So it was pretty funny seeing all these guys holding hands and singing the 'hello' song (accompanied by the 'hello' dance).

Hello, hello, hello, hello, we are glad to meet you...
Hello, hello, hello, hello...

It's a pretty catchy tune, and you can't go more than an hour here without hearing *someone* singing it, so it's been in my head pretty well continuously for three days. Other popular favourites are 'walking, walking', 'how's the weather' and 'I can make a letter'.

The other thing is that you catch everyone, in everyday conversation, doing their 'Classroom English' voice. Classroom English is where you really simplify your instructions and eliminate all unnecessary words, so that beginner students can understand you.
Eg, instead of: "Could you all please open your books", you just say:
"Please open your textbook."
And instead of:
"Keiko, would you please come up here and practise this with me," you just say:
"Keiko, please be my partner." (gesture)

So even outside of training, everyone here is intoning their words very clearly, saying 'please _____' and gesturing excessively. Today I said a couple of things and used the words 'appropriated' and 'surreptitiously'. The trainer told me that I'd soon lose my vocabulary. Haha :)

We're in Omiya, which is a fairly small city but has a bustling area near the train station about half an hour's walk away. We've gone there a few times for meals. We're in a quiet suburban neighbourhood here. There's also a nearby park with a shrine and zoo.

I've taught two half-lessons so far. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, they had a bunch of Japanese students come in from the surrounding areas to get a free English lesson from us new teachers. Both of mine went quite well. Apparently I use good classroom English and a good talking speed, have good lesson structure and a nice, friendly teaching manner. On the other hand I need to do more eye contact, think of different ways to elicit answers when they students aren't talking, etc etc...

Tomorrow's the last day of training and we have to give our first full lesson, with all the component parts. I'm pretty exhausted so I should go and prepare so I can get a nice long night's sleep... see you!