Posts Tagged Nova
January 24, 2004 – 4 months in Japan
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on January 24, 2014
Nova Classrooms – a maze of glass boxes
As of today I have officially spent 4 months in Japan. I celebrated this momentous occasion by… working.
At work I managed to distract two other classes during a man-to-man kids class. “Man-to-man” is the term used when a student specifically requests a one on one class with the teacher, regardless of the gender or age of the student. A “lucky man-to” is the NOVA student term for when they book a group lesson but happen to be the only student to show up.
The first distraction was caused when I needed to go to the teacher’s room to get some teaching material that I forgot. NOVA classrooms are little glass boxes, so you can see what’s going on around you. A student from another class stopped listening to her teacher and watched me go all the way to the teacher’s room and back. It was a little strange.
The second distraction came when I was teaching using the “throw the paper ball at the flashcard” technique. The target language had phrases and pictures from a short story. I would read one of the cards, and the student would have to throw a paper ball at the card and knock it down. Then she would pick a card and read to me, and I would have to knock down the card. This sounds a bit dumb, but it involves both listening to English to identify the correct target card, and reading English to tell me which card to hit. Also, kids absolutely love this.
On one turn, the paper ball took a bad bounce and rolled under the wall into the next classroom. Without thinking about it too hard, I was down on the ground (in my shirt and tie) reaching under the wall into the next classroom to retrieve the lost paper ball. I had just closed my hand around the ball when one of the students noticed an arm grabbing around on the floor and screamed. I popped up and explained what happened, which cracked up the entire next classroom. I basically brought both classes to a complete stop, but everyone seemed to have a good laugh about it.
January 17, 2004 – Pandas speak Chinese, not English
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on January 17, 2014
Nova Usagi – the worst mascot ever
The picture above is of NOVA Usagi (NOVA rabbit), the horrible mascot of NOVA’s language school. It is supposed to resemble a pink rabbit with a bird beak. The idea behind it was that the rabbit ears represented listening well, and the bird beak represented talking well. To me it looks like a mutated Pokemon that needs to be destroyed with fire, but what do I know?
NOVA Usagi is well known all over Japan, and you can’t look in any direction at a NOVA school without seeing it’s stupid face. At work I was teaching Voice class (an open conversation room for students of all skill levels), when I was suddenly inspired with a good topic; finding a replacement for NOVA Usagi.
There were 5 talkative students in the Voice room, and I asked them to come up with ideas for a new mascot. Many animals were suggested, narrowed down, narrowed again, and we finally had a showdown between the two front runners; monkey and turtle. I then broke the class into teams and got them to come up with ideas to defend their animal. After a brief debate, Shelly the NOVA turtle won. It was one of the best Voice classes I have ever taught, and the students seemed to have fun too.
On a side note, I asked why nobody had suggested panda, and all 5 students (at the same time) shouted “PANDAS SPEAK CHINESE, NOT ENGLISH!!!” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I guess that’s why I have trouble talking to pandas.
January 8, 2004 – The All-Canadian Dream
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Teaching English on January 8, 2014
I had the best day at work! In my voice class I talked about hockey for the whole class. That`s right, I got PAID to talk about HOCKEY. This is literally the All-Canadian dream.
All of my other lessons featured students who tried hard and really seemed to get the point of the lesson. I gave 2 level ups and got compliments from the staff about my lessons. After work I celebrated with a relaxing evening watching “The People vs. Larry Flynt” while enjoying some beverages in the cool new beer stein I bought at Tokyu Hands. Sometimes, teaching English in Japan can be a really cool job.
December 29, 2003 – Robocop (the good one)
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on December 29, 2013
Most of Japan shuts down round New Year, and for a change NOVA was no exception. The one downside is that bank machines are also shut down, so you need to plan ahead for spending cash. I still don’t understand the need to shut down bank machines at any time, especially in a mostly cash based economy.
The day off was great. I sat on my butt, played video games and watched a lot of TV in the common room at Hello House. Included in my viewing was British detective show “A Touch of Frost” and Robocop. Fortunately this time it was the excellent original Robocop, and not the shockingly bad Robocop 3 that I endured a few weeks earlier.
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 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…)
November 22, 2003 – The University Educated tissue guy
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Keikyu-Kawasaki NOVA, Life in Japan, Teaching English on November 22, 2013
Japanese promotional tissues
(rewrite of original post)
I was working at Keikyu Kawasaki NOVA today with Smiling Mo and managed to get three no show lessons. As I had learned previously, when you don’t have students you are expected to find something useful to do in the office. There is usually enough busy work to cover one or two open lessons. However, Smiling Mo and I both had several no shows and completely ran out of office work to do.
We asked the staff if they had anything that we could do to help. They asked if we really meant anything. We answered yes, we really would do anything to help. Minutes later we were at Keikyu Kawasaki station handing out NOVA tissues.
Free promotional tissues are commonly found near all train stations. They are simply a package of tissues with information on a business in the wrapper. The tissues are usually handed out by part time workers or junior employees. On this day I got to join the illustrious ranks of the tissue givers.
While handing out tissues I was approached by one of my regular students. He was a fun guy from Peru who was in Japan for construction work. When he saw me handing out tissues he laughed and then asked me if I was being punished for doing something wrong. At this point I started to question the value of my Bachelor of Commerce Degree (with honours) and the choices that brought me to that situation. I was a smart, educated guy. How did I possibly end up handing out free tissues at a train station?
Then I looked over at Smiling Mo, who was absolutely having a great time. He was a charismatic, outgoing person and was using the tissues as an excuse to talk to strangers, especially groups of attractive female students. Smiling Mo’s enjoyment helped me to realize that I wasn’t just doing a menial task, I was getting paid good money to do a menial task in JAPAN, far away from the frozen tundra of Winnipeg. With this realization, I started to actually have a bit of fun handing out NOVA tissues.
If you are half way around the world for a limited time, you might as well enjoy everything that the experience has to offer.
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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