My eight weeks of pretending to be able to teach Business English are over. In retrospect, it was a good experience.

At the very end I asked the students who came (I lost 3 or 4 in the last three times :() to tell me what they'd remember, and it was nice to hear their thoughts. It killed me a little when people said things like I confirmed my ( Read more... )

Lunch: Invited to the home of a previous director of our department and his wife, who works in education. Two CIRs, an ALT from New Zealand, and I went and were immediately bombarded with crab, sashimi, numerous hors d'oeuvres (wow that word is hard to spell!), champagne... the list goes on. They actually bought us a case of crab. (Including ( Read more... )

In English class yesterday I had my students play telephone, and it was pretty great ( Read more... )

Yesterday I climbed something like 29 flights of stairs. Only 13 today, but considering my lack of all other forms of exercise I think I am going to try to make this a habit ( Read more... )

Yesterday was my twice yearly what's up? meeting with my boss (I'm sure there's a better way of characterizing these but I don't remember), and he told me that T had said really nice things about me and my work and told him (boss) to listen carefully to what I had to say. Um, love!!!!!!! --but we'll shelf that for now ( Read more... )

Asked an ALT to come with me on my cultural understanding lecture tonight, and that went swimmingly. It's so much easier to interpret than to have to think of things to say! Very pleased.

Am thinking of ways to incorporate ALTs into my Business English class, which remains the biggest challenge of my week, every week.

AM: Spent at a rural elementary school giving a quick presentation about America and playing games with students ( Read more... )

PEOPLE WITH TEACHING EXPERIENCE PLEASE HELP ME.

On Thursday I begin a 10-week adult English course entitled English You Can Use at Work (more or less). My predecessors have left very little in terms of material, but I do have themes for each class, and the first one is, appropriately, introductions ( Read more... )

I had a four hour shift this morning ($35 dollars in my pocket! Falalala ♪ I wish I got paid more), which was rife with fooling around. I wonder if they will let me work six shifts next year??

I succumbed to the urge to translate the Jin otakara photo file that I was talking about here during work. I'm about 25% through the book and torn on ( Read more... )

To avoid thinking about the interview that I just embarrassed myself at, look! Spectacularly cute kitten!!!

I am always asked the questions I don't anticipate. I don't know how this manages to happen every single time. Oh, but I umm and ahh my way through them anyway. ;O ( Read more... )