Archive for category Teaching English
March 30, 2005 – A cluster of Canucks
Posted by Barniferous in Shizuoka, Teaching English on March 30, 2015
Today I repaid a shift swap by working at Fuji school. It seems that all the Canadians in the area work in Fuji school, except me.
March 25, 2005 – The empty lesson king
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 25, 2015
Another 2 empty lessons today. I am the empty lesson KING!
March 24, 2005 – 4 empty lessons!
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 24, 2015
I tied a personal record today with 4 empty lessons. Not only that, but they were all in a row! Thankfully NOVA pays us even when there are no students.
March 18, 2005 – More games less teaching
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 18, 2015
Teaching English to kids has always been the most challenging part of my job at NOVA. In talking with my supervisors today, they suggested that I am probably expecting too much from the really young kids in the class.
We are given set lesson plans for each kids class, and are supposed to get through the vocabulary and written homework each class. I have been trying to follow this to the letter, which doesn’t work very well for the young kids.
I now have the green light to let the kids play around and have fun, while exposing them to the lesson English. I will now focus on more games and much less formal “teaching”.
I tested out the new strategy today, and have already seen improvements. Hopefully this will work for some of my other classes as well.
March 12, 2005 – Bad kids
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 12, 2015
Today was not so busy at work, but the kids in my kids class were BAD.
March 7, 2005 – Mid Shift
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 7, 2015
Today I worked my first mid shift. Mid shifts are rare at NOVA. Typically there are early shifts of 10:00 – 5:00, late shifts of 1:00 – 9:00, and part timer shifts of 5:00 – 9:00 on weekdays. The mid shift was about half way between an early and a late. It was scheduled to help increase branch capacity, but it was awkward because I really didn’t get much use out of my morning, and all of my coworkers were still working after I left in the evening. Not a big fan of the mid shift.
The one good part of the day was my first multimedia level check. NOVA uses a video chat system that they use to give lessons in other languages outside of major cities, to give students lessons at home, and to allow level checks in small branches that don’t have a surplus of teachers. It was my first time to use the multimedia system, and it was pretty cool, although not quite the same as being in the same room as the student.
March 3, 2005 – Empty classrooms
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 3, 2015
I am not sure why, but almost nobody came for English lessons today. There were 6 teachers scheduled, but all of the lessons could have been covered by 3 people.
Unlike some other English schools, NOVA pays teachers for the amount of lessons they are available to teach, whether the lesson has students or not. For this reason, teachers are expected to find something productive to do around the branch if they have an empty lesson.
Full time teachers are scheduled for 8 lessons in a shift. I would have had a record tying 4 empty lessons if I hadn’t convinced the staff to get one of the students to stay for another lesson. At least I didn’t have to go hand out tissues at the nearby train station like I did before!
February 21, 2005 – This kid is messing with me
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 21, 2015
I was feeling surprisingly good after last night’s party. To make things even better, I was rewarded with 3 empty lessons, making for a nice easy day at work.
One of the lessons I did teach was a one on one kids class. In a nice departure from the norm, the lesson material was WAY too easy for this student. We breezed through the lesson, and I tried to think of a challenging way to keep him occupied and engaged for the rest of the class.
I decided that the classic game “Hangman” was a good option, using words from the lesson material. One of the words I chose was bike. The student got a few letters correct, realized that he almost solved the puzzle, and then started guessing some unlikely letters. Q came out first, then Z, W, X, and other letters that would provide some high scores in Scrabble. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, so I kept asking him if he was really sure he wanted to guess those letters. He said yes, so we kept going.
After several more wrong guesses, I finally completed drawing his stick figure on the gallows and told him that he lost. His response was to say “hee hee it’s bike”. He was messing with me the whole time.
It was a refreshing change from a usual kids class where the kids aren’t interested in the material and just run around in circles.
February 15, 2005 – Shift swap payback
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 15, 2015
Getting a day off by trading shifts with another teacher = fun! Working on a day off to pay back the shift swap = not fun.
At least we do have the flexibility to trade shifts, which is a huge selling feature for the whole “Conversational English teacher” thing.
February 4, 2005 – Oni wa soto
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 5, 2015
I wish I had saved some of the soybeans from Setsubun for my kids class today. They all seemed to be possessed by demons and needed the kind of exorcising that only roasted soybeans can provide.
ONI WA SOTO!!
Drinking in Japan 
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