Music

In the lobby of our school, we always have English music playing. Until now, it's been a kind of mix of 70s and 80s music. You could hear Billy Joel, Queen, Michael Jackson, all manner of popular older songs... But in the last few days, the station was changed to a pop station. I immediately realised the station had been changed when I came out of my class to hear Ricki Lee singing 'Can't Touch It'!

(Actually, I just looked up Ricki Lee's profile on Wikipedia and it says 'Working with songwriter Roselyn Della Sabina, Coulter wanted to crack the music market in Japan.' So... I guess she has. I've heard the song a few times now. :))

Now I get to hear the latest hits again... and again... and again!

It seems that pop music channels are just the same in Japan as in Australia. There are no ad breaks (?!) but they DO play the same songs over and over. Today I heard Fergie's 'Clumsy' three times, Alicia Keys' 'No One' FOUR times, Colbie Caillat's 'Bubbly' three or four times, and Crank That (Soulja Boy) three times. It's literally like they had about six songs on loop. (Bear in mind that half the time, I am in classes. So it's not like I'm listening to the radio ALL day...)

Oh well... I *do* like to keep on top of which songs are popular.

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Jim often says he has very little to do during the times he has no classes. (We have some hours for office work and admin, but more hours of classes.) This kind of surprises me. The longer I work here, the more work I seem to acquire. I have more admin hours than him, but I have no problem filling all my hours. Of course I spend *much* more time on lesson preparation (not that I spend an unreasonable amount of time, but of course, he's taught most of the classes, like, 40 times before, and I've never taught them before, so I have to look at each one).

Still, apart from the basic 'figuring out how I'm going to teach each lesson', there's:
-writing progress reports for students
-doing educational counselling
-preparing for educational counselling and thinking through what recommendations I will make for each student, and which materials I will give them
-preparing vocab lists for my advanced classes (I don't have to do this, but I think the advanced classes are better if I add extra material)
-updating or adding materials to existing lesson materials
-teacher's meetings
-interviewing possible new students
-miscellaneous admin tasks
-cleaning (only a little)
-creating or searching for new materials for private lessons
-helping students with their 'study at home' program

As you can see, there are lots of bits and pieces. I always have many things to do and keep in mind. And I have a reduced teaching load at the moment, since a few of my classes ended. I can't imagine what it will be like once kids' classes start. I will be a Busy Bee. But, actually, by that time, I should have taught the entire textbook for one of my 'streams', once (it's a 6-month course), so I'll be doing all repeat lessons; ergo, less preparation...

(Oh my goodness... there's this dreadful show 'teaching English' on TV... a 'gaijin' (foreigner) and two 'cute' Japanese girls are dancing and singing together: 'fried rice! sunny side up! beef bowl! pork cutlet!' WHY oh WHY is Japanese TV so dreadful?!

Okay good, now that bad show has finished, and my preferred 'French teaching' show has started. This one is far less obnoxious and does not feature any songs about pork cutlets. Not that I really study French; I just have it on in the background...)