Archive for category Kawasaki Nova
January 21, 2004 – Avoiding the teacher
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Movies, Teaching English on January 21, 2014
I had a student deliberately avoid one of my voice classes today, which was a bit of a blow to the ego. At the end of each class we have to ask the students if they have another lesson. This helps determine which files we need to get to another teacher. One of the students said no, she didn’t have another lesson, but she would be going into the Voice room for an open conversation class. I told her that I would be teaching Voice next, so that I would see here there.
During the 10 minute break between classes she went to the reception area and booked another classroom lesson so that she would not have to take my Voice class. Ouch!
After work I went back to Hello House and finally got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. It was good, but could have probably been about 20 minutes shorter. I love movies, but living in Japan makes it difficult to keep up on the newest releases. Most movies take a few months to show up in Japan, and the DVD releases are similarly delayed. The result is that I can’t talk new movies with people from home. Oh well, a small price to pay for living in Japan.
December 26, 2003 – The out group
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on December 26, 2013
(original post)
Last day of work before holidays! Today was a good day, but I noticed that after work some of the teachers went out for drinks. They were very careful about who they invited and made a point of avoiding questions about where they were going after. The Japanese get a bad rap for being very cliquey and keeping their own little “in” groups, but it happens just as much or more with non-Japanese as well. I kind of felt like I was back in high school again.
(2013 update)
There was a cliquey “cool” group at Kawasaki Nova, but looking back on things it is very likely that the teachers were going to hang out with students. Interacting with students outside of the classroom was officially not allowed, both because NOVA wanted to avoid teachers poaching students for private lessons and because NOVA wanted to avoid teachers doing anything that could affect repeat business. Failure to follow this rule could lead to anything from official warnings through termination.
I was definitely not part of the “cool” group, but I would prefer to think that my exclusion was due to interaction with students. It really doesn’t matter now, but I was feeling pretty excluded at the time, in addition to being homesick for Christmas.
December 25, 2003 – Christmas chicken for all
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Yokohama on December 25, 2013
I was woken up by two phone calls from Canada wishing me Merry Christmas very loudly into my hungover brain. It was nice to hear some familiar voices, but did they really need to shout?
At work I got to inform a student that she was ready for a level up. If a student’s ability is good enough, a teacher will fill out a level up slip and put it in to the student’s file. The next teacher will then agree with the level up, or give reasons for denying it. I was the second teacher, so I was happy to agree and then left the teacher’s room to find the student on her way out. I told her that I had a Christmas present for her and handed over the level up slip. She burst into a huge smile and looked like she was ready to give me a big hug. This would have been very un-Japanese, not to mention getting me in trouble with NOVA. I wished her a Merry Christmas on her way to schedule her level up test.
After work all of the teachers and some of the Japanese staff went to a Christmas house party in Yokohama. We changed trains in Yokohama station and I was surprised to see a long line of nicely dressed young couples waiting to purchase KFC. In Japan, Christmas is more of a day for couples than for families. Young couples will dress up nicely, get some KFC special Christmas fried chicken, and in many cases go to a love hotel. It’s no Christmas turkey, but not a bad way to spend the day either.
The house party was a good opportunity to spend time with some of my coworkers outside of the office. Usually I spend most of my free time with the other people in Hello House. I even got a chance to practice some of my Japanese with the NOVA staff in attendance. I would have preferred to be spending time with my family, but it was still good to be around people.
On my way home, I noticed some well dressed young couples riding home on the train holding hands. Apparently it was a good night for all.
Merry Christmas!
(complete rewrite of original post)
December 19, 2003 – Depresso, the most depressed kid in Japan
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on December 19, 2013
In addition to my group kids class, I have to teach a man to man kids lesson. Normally when I ask how a student is, people will tell me that he or she is very smart, a good kid, no problems. The mention of this girl`s name brought comments of “oh no!” and “She`s really depressed! Something is really wrong with that kid!”. Needless to say this didn’t really build my confidence about class. However, my lesson turned out to be better than my regular group kids class, which was a nice surprise.
December 17, 2003 – The Canadian Ambassador has arrived
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on December 17, 2013
Why yes I do always travel with a Canadian flag and a laminated map of Canada.
Today I had my special Canada voice class. I got two class periods to talk about and take questions about Canada. I wish I had more time!
After a brief introduction, I ran through comparisons of Japan to Canada (population, area, GDP, exports, etc.) and took questions. After the break, I showed off some of my pictures from Canada, including lots of snowy winter pictures. Then it was time for “Canada: Myth or Fact”, where I gave some popular stereotypes about Canada and the students had to decide if they were true or not. Some examples include “Hockey is Canada’s national sport”, “Canada doesn’t have an army” and “All Canadians leave their doors unlocked”. (all myth BTW).
Basically I got paid to talk about Canada for 80 minutes today. Life is good.
December 16, 2003 – Comparisions
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on December 16, 2013
I taught a special Club 7 voice on comparisons tonight. Yep, 80 minutes of the proper use of comparison words. Whee.
(2013 Update)
Club 7 is a regularly scheduled 2 class voice session just for the lowest levels of English students. The idea is to give the lower level students a non threatening place to speak and listen to English. Usually there is a topic appropriate for the group to help build English skills. In addition to comparison words, other popular topics are family words, prepositions, adjectives and verbs. With some more experience I could have really had some fun with comparison words. It would have been better than the lesson I taught at the time (see what I did there…)
December 7, 2003 – Tsumaranai sensei
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on December 7, 2013
I was a little tired from the late movie from the previous night, so was not at my best when I had a one on one lesson with a 5 year old girl. Fresh out of kids training I decided to sit at the table and follow the lesson plan to the letter. The student had her own agenda for the class, which did not include sitting still and repeating English.
The class was 40 minutes long but felt like a 2 hour long dental appointment. At the end, she looked directly at me and told me I was “tsunaranai sensei” which means “boring teacher”. I resisted the urge to tell her how I felt about her, but with my luck those would be the only English words she learned and I would be on the next flight home.
December 5, 2003 – First group kids class
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on December 5, 2013
(Original 2003 post)
Today was my first group kids class by myself. It is not easy to get 8 kids to pay attention to learning English for 40 minutes straight! I guess that is the difference between a good teacher and me.
(2013 update)
After only a few months as an English teacher, I was starting to feel mostly competent in the classroom, until I started teaching English to children. Unlike adult lessons where you don’t really know who will show up, the kids classes are scheduled at the same time every week with the same group. Adult lessons generally have students who are paying good money to learn English. The kids have no such personal investment in learning. I eventually became okay at teaching kids classes, but it was always my weakest point as a teacher.
November 19, 2003 – Easy day
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on November 19, 2013
Original 2003 Post:
What a great day! Three lessons, voice and an observation! Whee!
2013 Update:
An observation at NOVA was when an experienced teacher got to watch a training teacher’s lesson and offer feedback. Apparently my 6 weeks on the job qualified me to do this. Watching other teachers, even the training teachers, was a great way to get some new ideas for lessons. It also required no planning at all, which made things much more relaxed.
The biggest mistake that training teachers would make is on lesson timing. NOVA lessons were 40 minutes each and had a few different stages including a warm up, language introduction, drills, and then usually an activity to practice the new language. New teachers would rush through everything and be done in 20 minutes, leaving a 20 minutes of “WTF do I do now?”. During one memorable observation, the teacher actually opened the door and asked me for ideas on how to fill the remaining lesson time. I got him to get the students talking for a minute, and then frantically wrote down a list of ideas on a piece of paper.
If you are an English teacher and are getting to observe training teachers, make good comments and offer good advice. That way you will get picked for observations again and get a nice break from lesson planning and teaching!
November 15, 2003 – Stupid Day
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on November 15, 2013
Original 2003 Post
I was woken up by yet ANOTHER earthquake at 3:00am last night. However I quickly returned to sleep. Stupid earthquakes. Also stupid are Japanese bank machines as they usually don`t like to give money after banking hours. Not very convenient. Third in the stupid category are NOVA teachers who don`t look closely at the file, and do the lesson you had planned to do immediately before you can. This gave me two minutes to find a new lesson for 4 students. Stupid day!
2013 Update
NOVA has 8 different skill levels for students. In 2003, they were still using the old textbook with 40 lessons each in all but the lowest level. Choosing a lesson for one student is reasonably easy – pick something they haven’t done before, or failing that, pick something they haven’t done recently. Choosing a lesson for multiple students makes this process more difficult. When you choose a lesson, it is important to write down the lesson they have chosen in the student’s file. That way if a student has multiple lessons in a day, they will not get the same lesson more than once. It is considered bad teaching etiquette to choose the same lesson another teacher has already reserved for the student. Also, it will cause new teachers to have a minor panic attack as they need to find something else to teach in a short period of time.
I am still surprised that some bank machines are not open 24 hours a day, and even more surprised that they close on holidays. It is a bank MACHINE. It doesn’t need time off. This is especially difficult in a very cash friendly country.
Drinking in Japan 
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