Posts Tagged Nova
August 27, 2006 – State of the Union
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on November 22, 2017
Today was a rare Sunday shift, working on a shift swap to help another teacher. I had forgotten how busy Sunday was!
In the voice class, I had yet another student asking questions about the state of NOVA and our branch. All of the schools in our area are seriously understaffed, short of both teachers and the Japanese branch staff. Students are finding it harder and harder to book lessons, and the staff are always extra busy.
As a teacher we are not supposed to talk about school business or policies. However, this is a topic that keeps coming up regularly. A few students have told me that I’m one of the few people who will actually have the conversation and they appreciate it. I sympathize with the students – they have all purchased large lesson packages that expire in time, but the shortage of teachers is preventing them from getting what they paid for.
I could be getting myself in trouble talking about the school, but at the same time I’m leaving in two months so I’m not as concerned as I would normally be.
(2017 Note) The financial situation for the company was MUCH worse than anyone knew at the time. The students were right to be concerned.
August 21, 2006 – Working overtime
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English, The Penpal on November 2, 2017
A few days ago, my area manager came to my branch and asked very nicely for me and another teacher to work overtime today.
When I first started at NOVA, there were overtime shifts available regularly, especially in the bigger cities. In the past year, overtime has become rare in an effort to cut costs, resulting in cancelled lessons for students. I was asked to pick up an extra shift because there were only 2 teachers available, which wouldn’t cover the schedule at all.
I don’t like giving up my days off, but I do like making some extra money. Not only that, but my OT shift was an early shift which made for an easy day of teaching English. After work I got some food and played Mario Party with The Penpal. Best overtime day ever!
July 20, 2006 – Multimedia lessons
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on April 13, 2017
After fighting bravely for a few days, I finally gave in and called in sick to work. A full day of sleep had me feeling much better. I found out later that instead of calling in a teacher to replace me, NOVA had instead provided students with multimedia lessons taught by a teacher from another branch.
NOVA has their own video conference equipment available for multimedia lessons. This allows students to learn from home, or to get lessons at their branch in another language. There is a huge demand for English teachers in Japan, but a much smaller demand for French, German, and Italian. The most efficient way to provide this service throughout Japan is to have the non-English teachers based in Osaka (NOVA HQ) who can virtually commute around the country where they are needed.
When a teacher is not available in person, students generally prefer a MM lesson to rescheduling. However, they did tell me that it’s just not the same as physically being in the same room.
July 2006 – Busted (not me)
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 29, 2017
“No interacting with students outside of the classroom” is one of the cornerstones of NOVA employee policy. The idea is to prevent teachers from stealing students from the school for cheaper private lessons, and to reduce the risk of any unpleasant interactions that could cause the students to stop buying lessons.
** Please remember, when I say “students”, I am referring to conversation school students who are typically adults.
In Kawasaki I was aware that some teachers were seeing students outside of the classroom, but when I arrived in eastern Shizuoka I was surprised by how often it happened. Pretty much everyone other than supervisors had been to an “unofficial” farewell party with students in attendance. In addition, several of the teachers are or were dating students, and my friend Koalako shared an apartment with two teachers in Numazu.
Hanging out with students was an open secret in the area, with the understanding that everyone should keep it quiet and not let the supervisors or Japanese branch staff know. For the amount of times that teachers and students interacted outside of the classroom, it’s actually surprising how few people got caught. The good luck streak was broken in mid 2006 when teachers got caught red handed.
The two male teachers had invited two female Japanese students out for a drink, and for some reason decided to go to an izakaya near Fuji school that was popular with the Japanese branch staff. They were seated near the entrance, when coincidentally the branch staff came in for an after work drink as well. My understanding is that the teachers were called to a tense meeting with the area manager shortly after to remind them of NOVA’s policies.
I can understand NOVA’s point of view about the policy: they are a business and they need to protect their future profits. However, I think there is a lot of benefit from teachers and students interacting outside of the confines of the classroom. The best way to practice conversational English is to have a real conversation. Interacting outside of the classroom in a natural setting is also a great way to improve intercultural understanding. Other than good times at karaoke, I got a lot more out of my time in Japan by spending time with Japanese people instead of just teachers.
If you are teaching in Japan and decide to ignore company policy by hanging out with students, please be sensible, behave properly, and don’t ruin it for everyone else. Also, choose the venue carefully: you don’t want branch staff to crash the party!
October 15, 2005 – Only NOVA teachers can badmouth NOVA
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Teaching English on October 16, 2015
In what seems to be a very regular occurrence, I went out after work AGAIN. As per usual, beer, sushi, and karaoke were on the agenda for the evening.
At karaoke we ran into a group of other foreigners, most of which were English teachers for other schools. When they heard we were working for NOVA, they started talking trash about how terrible NOVA was. For the record, only NOVA teachers are allowed to talk crap about NOVA. We alone have earned that right thank you very much.
April 25, 2005 – Office Space
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Shizuoka, Teaching English on April 25, 2015
Today I went to Shizuoka City to sign my new contract. I am officially NOVA property for another year.
Shizuoka City is the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture. It located roughly in the middle of the prefecture, and is the second largest city. The population is around 700,000 plus, which puts it at a similar size to Winnipeg. However when compared to Winnipeg, Shizuoka is much more dense and much warmer.
Shizuoka Station is served by Tokaido line and the Shinkansen. From Numazu it took me just under an hour to get to the station. From the station, I followed a detailed map to navigate my way through a maze of underground malls before returning to the surface to find my way though a busy commercial area. Fortunately I was able to find the main NOVA branch without getting lost.
While signing my contract, I had a good conversation with the area manager, who is actually really easy to talk to and get along with. Unlike many of the teachers who pass through the conversation schools, the area manager was a lifer who had settled in with wife, kids, and a house. We discussed the area, the job, and living in Japan.
I returned to Numazu after signing my contract, and in the evening I watched “Office Space” with Azeroth and Palmer. Office Space was written and directed by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead. Being a huge fan of B&B, I saw it in theatres when it first came out. It was funny, but I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. To really understand the movie, you need to work for a large company at some point in your life.
After experiences working for some large companies in Canada and the largest English conversation school in Japan, I can now fully enjoy Office Space. Azeroth, Palmer and I laughed our asses off.
April 14, 2005 – Expanded responsibilities
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on April 14, 2015
I have received a promotion of sorts at work. I am now the Voice co-ordinator at Mishima NOVA.
Voice is an open conversation classroom at NOVA that allows students of all levels to go and speak English. Most of the time the room is open to any type of conversation, but occasionally the branch will offer a special topic. I have done special topics on hockey, creating a resume, calling in sick, and some of the finer points of English grammar. Guess which of those I enjoyed the least…
As the Voice co-ordinator, it is my responsibility to make a plan for the next 6 months of special topics, and assign teachers to each of them. I had the same responsibilities when I worked at Kawasaki NOVA, but this time should be easier because I am now only scheduling 8 teachers instead of 23.
In other news: I somehow had another good kids class!?!?
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!
Drinking in Japan 
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