WARNING: This post is extremely boring, unless you are actually interested in what I do at work, then leave now.
Well I bet you are all wondering about how I spend the better part of half my time in Japan. Well I’ve just bought a Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra CD and I’m settling down to explain the hell that is Nova Language School.
“So where do you work?”
“Nova”
“Oh, so you’re a Nova baby. Sorry bout that man”
That’s a typical introduction these days. People have told me that Nova takes the fascist approach of The East and mixes it with the penny-pinching mentality of The West to make a super company. I’m painting a bleak picture. It’s really not that bad. I am one of lucky ones (I’m told) because I have both Saturday and Sunday off. Something most people don’t experience until a few years with the company. I work from 5pm until 9pm every weekday at a school called Tamekie Sanno. We are the smallest school I have ever heard of for Nova. It’s got 2 teachers, a full timer and myself (who had just resigned so it will be me and a rotation of 5 other teachers) and in total about 80 students as well as one fulltime and part time Japanese service staff. The other “small” I’ve heard of has 5 teachers and a normal branch has about 10 to 20 teachers with approx 1500 to 3000 students.
As far advanced as Japan might seam, there are still a few quirks. The first is the first thing I do each day, clock in with a crunch card. At lease the crunch is automated, but even the dodgiest jobs I’ve held in Melbourne involved a swipe card. Then I assemble the paper files for all of my students for the next lesson (there can be up to four in any class, but at Tamekie Sanno we are lucky to get one) go through their file and pick a lesson that none of them have done. I grab the textbook for their level (there are 8 levels, but Tamekie Sanno only provides the lowest 5) and when the bell rings I go to my cubical.
I am faced with a few blank faced students and after a small introduction (“My name is Alexander”, “A-ki-re-za-n-da?”, “Yeah, something like that” I’ve given up trying to get them to say my name right. The whole R and L is a ploblem) I ask a preliminary question about the lesson I’m going to teach, to asses, how much hell I will have to endure to see the light of day again. Tamekie Sanno is situated underground in a subway arcade so without any light it can feel like hell down there. We open our books; today we are going to talk about going through immigration. Now one of the good things about being a teacher is having access to the teachers’ edition. What a wonderful invention. I follow what is written on my Lesson Management Plan, almost word for word, it’s an idiot guild made for the most simplest Queenslandian to understand. We have 10min of Language Input where students are introduced to new vocabulary; “What is this”, “This is a passport”. And we usually do a little listen and repeat; “Is this your first time to Canada?”
“No”
“No, just repeat”
“Oh, one more prease”
“Is this your first time to Canada?”
“I first this time of Canada?”
“Close, listen again, Is…this …your…first…time…to…Canada?”
“Is this your… first Canada?”
And so on and so forth. Sometimes if they are really good, we get them to substitute words in the sentence. Like Australia, Is this your first time to Australia. But that’s only for the advanced students. Then we move onto “Tune In” where they say a sentence written in their book and then I model the sentence. Notice how I say it differently? Yes, that’s right, instead of saying “I’m…here…on…vacation” a natural speaker tends to say “I’m hereon vacation” you see? Hereon. The students love this part and often try to repeat what you have just said, but sometimes they just can’t quite master wad’yathink.
Listening exercise. Look at the picture, there is a woman going through immigrations. I will set two listening tasks: 1. What is the purpose of her trip? 2. How long is she staying? I model the dialogue, usually using silly, but still understandable voices and read the four lines of dialogue. I ask the questions again and get the answers out of the students. We are not allowed to repeat the dialogue, so we have to force them to think. We are now half way through a lesson.
Activity: There are usually two activities involving connecting start of sentences with the end of sentences, and a mini role-play with words missing. The intention being to put what they have learnt into practice. This is usually fun, usually. Then comes to the best part of the lesson, the application. Or as I like to call it The Do Nothing. In the do nothing the students are given case files, one student is a customs officer and the other is a passenger. With their books closed, they do a role-play and use all of what they have learnt for the day into practice. For this bit I am not allowed to intervene, actually I’m not even allowed to look at them, because if I do, they will start looking at me for approval. So I just sit back and take notes. Then after they have finished, I try to get them to correct any errors they made, wrap up and say goodbyes.
Back in the sanctity of the teachers room I now have 10min to write a good point and bad point of every student, recommended follows ups, give them a mark out of 5 for communicative ability, grammar and accuracy, vocabulary, fluency and listening comprehension. Put all of the files back, get out all of the new files for my next class and do it all again.
To tell you the truth it’s not all that bad. The students are really nice and sometimes you can have some good conversations. With the higher students you can usually muck around and have some fun. I was transferred to a different school during the holidays over here and I got one level 2 student (level 2 is almost a native speaker, off the 2000 students at that school, there are one three level 2 students) he was a lot of fun. He didn’t want to use the textbooks and rather brought in a newspaper, got me to read one article and we discussed it for the entire lesson. For this level the emphasis isn’t on learning the language, rather, the ability to use it properly, be able to engage in inelegant conversation and debate. So it was fun.
And that is about that. I know it's not that interesting, but then again, I'm not really here for the work.
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