Archive for category Kawasaki Nova
November 12, 2003 – I didn’t travel half way around the world to watch Beverly Hills 90210
Posted by Barniferous in Hello House, Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on November 12, 2013
(rewrite of original post)
There was an earthquake today when I was teaching. My student was a teenage girl who was much more scared than I was. Since I was now a seasoned veteran of Japan (after 6 weeks) I tried to calm her down and just keep teaching through the shaking. I still really hate earthquakes, even small ones.
Speaking of things I hate, I really hate Beverly Hills 90210, which has somehow because the late night TV choice at Hello House. Since my only entertainment options in my room are old video games on the laptop or reading, I managed to sit through a few episodes. I didn’t travel half way around the world to watch crappy Beverly Hills 90210.
November 9, 2003 – Tongue Twisters
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on November 9, 2013
Original post
Language exchange in Yokohama today. I am meeting with an English grammar teacher who wants to improve her spoken English. I got to practice some Japanese, show off pics of Winnipeg, and exchanged tongue twisters. While she is practicing “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood” and “She sells seashells by the seashore”, I will be trying out “namamugi namagome namatamago” and “tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da”. I got pretty good at saying “namatamago” but everything else was very challenging.
2013 Update
She sells seashells by the seashore was one of my favourite teaching tools. In Japanese there is a sound for “she” but not “sea”. Walking through this slowly was good pronunciation practice. For more advanced students, I would use this to practice emphasizing certain words in a sentence. For example, I would ask “What does she sell by the seashore” and the student would respond “She sells seashells by the seashore.” with the emphasis on seashells. It was a bit cruel, but also a lot of fun.
October 18, 2003 – The blind leading the blind
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on October 18, 2013
(complete rewrite from the original post)
Work was insane today. Overall there were 4 schedule changes. Since I am still pretty new, it takes me a long time to plan my lessons. A schedule change may involve a new student added into a lesson. That new student might have recently done the lesson you were planning to teach, which will involve finding a new lesson that works for everyone. It is also possible to have your entire lesson switched with another teacher to avoid the same student having two lessons in a row with the same teacher. Again, this will involve coming up with something new on short notice.
Due to continuous changes, I ended up with a business class student for a short time. The business class involved a set curriculum which I knew nothing about. Fortunately one of the senior teachers saw the problem and got this fixed before I failed spectacularly. My other big challenge was being scheduled with a low level student who was nearly completely blind. Nova was supposed to be heavily focused on speaking and listening, but there was still a big textbook component to the lessons. Some of the more experienced teachers had been given special instruction on how to work with blind students, but I am still a novice teacher about 3 weeks into the job. I ended up getting switched to the Voice room 5 minutes before the class started.
Kawasaki Nova is too busy!
October 3, 2003 – Enter the Penpal
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English, The Penpal on October 3, 2013
Original post
Today was my first day of work. I have just finished 3 days of on the job training which was pretty scary. The first day went fairly well overall. I only had 5 lessons. I was able to reuse two lessons from before so my planning time was nicely reduced. It still takes me too long to plan a lesson. I also talked to my long time Japanese penpal on the phone tonight. Thankfully her English is much much better than my Japanese or it would have been a very difficult conversation.
2013 Notes
Nova on the job training (OJT) is a terrifying experience. On the first day you learn how to choose and create a lesson. You observe an experienced teacher actually giving the lesson. Day 2 and 3 involve actually teaching lessons and getting feedback from observing teachers. Due to the high turnover, training time is kept short to maximize the amount of time teachers can be making money for the school. I believe that lesson quality could have been better with some more instruction, but Nova was a business, and that business wanted to make money.
The conversation with the Penpal was interesting – it was the first time I had ever heard her voice. The conversation was fairly short, and mainly served to set up a meeting two days later in Kamakura. Take a guess what my next post will be about…
Drinking in Japan 
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