Archive for category Kawasaki Nova
July 9, 2004 – New Voice Co-ordinator
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on August 9, 2014
Today was my first day back to work after my family left. I had 3 kids classes to welcome me back to the office, but they were all pretty good. I also learned that I am the new Voice co-ordinator at Kawasaki NOVA. The Voice room is a general conversation area for students of all levels. Occasionally the school will offer some specialized topics, including Club 7 (for low level students) or special topic Voice. The special topics are usually something related to one of the teacher’s countries, or teaching language for a particular task. My job as Voice co-ordinator will be to schedule the special Voice topics, and ensure that they are evenly distributed among all the teachers. I am pretty excited about it, even though there is no increase in my pay.
After work I went for Kiosk beers with Anzac. Usually we will get a can of Asahi or two and watch people in the station. Our highlight of the evening was a really drunk middle aged businessman in a suit who had peed his pants. When I say “peed his pants”, I don’t mean a few drops; he literally hosed down everything. I don’t envy the people next to him on the train.
June 8, 2004 – Back to work
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on June 22, 2014
Today was my first day back to work after my friends returned to Canada. Kawasaki NOVA is just the same as when I started my vacation. To cover the shift swaps needed to accommodate two sets of visitors, I will be spending a lot of time at work in the near future.
June 5, 2004 – The Strip Club
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English, Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 17, 2014
I had to work today, leaving my visitors to their own devices. At work I had a one on one class with a kid known around Kawasaki NOVA as “Notorious”. I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised.
When I returned home, I found the guys drunk and grumpy from a bad experience in Kabukicho during the day. Apparently they went out to see strippers. In the strip club they ended up having some drinks and singing karaoke with one of the dancers. When it came time to settle up the bill, there were charges for singing with the dancer on the bill. Some of the guys didn’t want to pay, as they were not told in advance that there would be any charge. To avoid an argument with the establishment, Flounder settled the bill and then tried to get the rest of the group to pay him back.
The money was the main reason why everyone was grumpy, however we were all at the point in our vacation where we had been spending entirely too much time together. Being with the same people 24 hours a day for two weeks is a whole lot of togetherness.
In the evening, Code Red and Hippie stayed at Hello House, while Flounder, Blue and I went out with Lux and some of the other Hello House residents to a nearby izakaya for beer and grilled mochi.
(2014 Update) I have heard a few different versions of what caused the money dispute at the strip club, but this version seems plausible. Since I was at work and all of the participants were drunk, it’s possible that I will never know for sure. Not surprisingly, there are no pictures from that day!
May 15, 2004 – Free lesson
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on May 15, 2014
I actually got a free lesson today (no students showed up), which is EXTREMELY rare for a Saturday at Kawasaki NOVA. This helped make for a better than average Saturday at work. Only 3 more working days until DU Invasion!
May 8, 2004 – Atlanta? Seriously??
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on May 8, 2014
I asked students today if they knew the capital city of Canada. I managed to get only one correct answer all day. One lady guessed (in order) Calgary, Quebec, Atlanta.
Seriously.
May 5, 2004 – Pixies Rule!
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on May 5, 2014
Just before 10:00am this morning I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. It was one of my supervisors calling, asking me if I knew that the work schedule had changed. I told him no, and asked what time I was scheduled to start. He told me that I was on the schedule from 10:00am. For the record – this is not a fun way to wake up.
I quickly shaved, threw on some clothes and RAN for the train. The train ride was 27 minutes long, and as soon as the doors opened I again RAN towards the NOVA school. I managed to arrive 3 minutes before my second lesson. Usually arriving late will get a monetary penalty, but I assume I will not have to pay since I was not informed of the schedule change.
Aside from the excitement, I had a great day. Working a 5 lesson early shift was great because my entire afternoon and evening were free. I used my free time to buy and watch a Pixies concert DVD with documentary. PIXIES RULE!
May 1, 2004 – Request forms
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, The Penpal on May 1, 2014
Busy busy day at Kawasaki NOVA with a pile of new teachers. I did a bunch of paperwork today, submitting vacation requests and a transfer request.
(2014 Update) My original post didn’t really capture the huge decision that I made regarding the transfer request. At this point I had spent 7 months in Japan, and was starting to really enjoy life there. I was about to get full time hours, I had a girlfriend, and was expecting two waves of visitors during the summer. One year in Japan simply was not going to be long enough.
On a NOVA transfer request you can list up to 3 different schools that you would like to transfer to. The Penpal was living in Numazu, so I wanted to find a school in the area. After consulting a NOVA school list and the internet, I found that the closest schools were in Numazu, Mishima and Fuji. All 3 were much smaller than Kawasaki NOVA, and close to Mt. Fuji. I consulted the area manager, and learned that NOVA divided Japan into West and East regions. Kawasaki was in the East, and the 3 schools I requested were in the West. A transfer from one school to a nearby school in the same area could be processed quickly. Transferring from East to West was expected to take a few months, but I was happy to wait.
With the submission of one piece of paper, I had just increased my commitment to both my Japan adventure and to The Penpal. It was a bit scary, but looking back I am VERY happy with my decision.
April 28, 2004 – Did nobody bring a watch to Japan?
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on April 28, 2014
Today was a great day at work. First, I taught a group of really good kids, which is a rare surprise for me. I taught two lessons with high level students, had voice class (which didn’t work very well), and then got to spend one lesson observing one of the new teachers.
As part of NOVA’s on the job training, lessons taught by new teachers are observed by experienced teachers. This is good for the new teacher because they get feedback and advice. This is also good for the experienced teacher because they don’t have to prepare a lesson.
Out of the current training class of new teachers, nobody owned a watch. A watch or other timepiece is fairly critical when you are trying to get through a lesson plan in exactly 40 minutes. Knowing the time is also pretty important for living in a society where punctuality is valued.
I mean, seriously, who doesn’t own a watch?
(2014 update) The original post was written at a time before the proliferation of smartphones. I am sure that many people do not own watches these days. However, I would still recommend them for teaching English. Occasionally glancing at a watch looks far more professional than checking the time on your phone in front of students.
April 24, 2004 – Maria’s first day
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on April 24, 2014
Today was the first day for a new teacher who I will call Maria. Unlike most teachers who are in their early to mid 20’s, Maria was somewhere between mid 30’s to 40’s, but was one of those people who always appears youthful and vibrant. Like most new teachers, she was feeling stressed and overwhelmed on her first day of work, mainly due to NOVA’s minimal teacher training. One of my supervisors asked me to help, since I was only a few months removed from being a stressed out new teacher myself. I worked with Maria to help her get her files ready and plan lessons. This made my day quite a bit busier, but I was happy to help.
After work we went out for a drink at a nearby izakaya. As we talked I learned that Maria considered teaching in Japan to be the next in a series of life adventures. She was one of those rare free souls who spends time travelling from place to place and really living life. After another drink or two, she admitted that at one point in her life she was the travelling mistress for a famous Grammy award winning musician (who will remain nameless here). Usually if someone makes a claim like that after a few drinks you take it with a grain of salt and smile politely. With Maria – I completely took her at her word.
After I went home, I was still pumped up from a busy day at work and the alcohol, so I tried to relax by borrowing a a bootleg DVD copy of Kill Bill from one of the other Hello House residents. The picture quality was crap, the subtitles were hilariously wrong, and the disc was damaged so the last 20 minutes were completely unwatchable. Come on bootleggers – take pride in your work!
(2014 Update) My original post lacked a lot of detail about Maria. I usually tried to avoid writing about my coworkers experience in the office while I was still working with them.
April 23, 2004 – Whatever it takes to get English
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on April 23, 2014
In my NOVA kids class today I caught a rubber ball directly in the face and accidentally drew on my own tie with a market. However, the kids all used English for most of the class, so I am happy. Whatever it takes to get them to speak more English in class.
Drinking in Japan 
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