A week of teaching
My most memorable student was pretty much a frightened rabbit. When I came in, we sat down and I opened the book. I said, "We'll start here," and she got this blank expression and shook her head no. I asked "here?" and pointed to a different page, and she shook her head again. It took a bit of work, but I finally managed to convincer her to show me where she left off by pointing at pages until she nodded yes. Of course, what I should have done is just asked her to tell me (in English) which number the page was, but I didn't think of it at the time. ^^;; I did manage to get her to talk a bit near the end, which was nice.
I did a lot of explaining this week. Lang does various conversational practice groups called "topic talks" where you either discuss a article from The Economist or a series of questions based on a subject (like "art" or "houses" or "speaking languages"). So, I had to explain a lot of English idioms, like "up to your ears" or "bailout," as well as bits of U.S. political history, the reason the Southwest is running out of water and the difference between American and Japanese houses. It's a good thing I got a liberal arts education.
Next week, I start at Suzugamine. Most of the classes are team-taught with a Japanese English teacher, but I have to teach one class on my own. It's a test-prep class, so there's probably a strict syllabus to follow, but I don't really know anything about it yet. I was really worried until I realized that they weren't going to make me write the textbook myself.
I also got yelled at by the owner for having my hair down. Now, when I say "yelled at," I mean Japanese-style, so she came over, sat down, and said, "If it's no trouble, it's company policy, so could you please-" *hair-putting up motions* "I feel bad asking, because it looks so pretty, but if you don't mind..." and so on. So, I put it up. :-p
I did a lot of explaining this week. Lang does various conversational practice groups called "topic talks" where you either discuss a article from The Economist or a series of questions based on a subject (like "art" or "houses" or "speaking languages"). So, I had to explain a lot of English idioms, like "up to your ears" or "bailout," as well as bits of U.S. political history, the reason the Southwest is running out of water and the difference between American and Japanese houses. It's a good thing I got a liberal arts education.
Next week, I start at Suzugamine. Most of the classes are team-taught with a Japanese English teacher, but I have to teach one class on my own. It's a test-prep class, so there's probably a strict syllabus to follow, but I don't really know anything about it yet. I was really worried until I realized that they weren't going to make me write the textbook myself.
I also got yelled at by the owner for having my hair down. Now, when I say "yelled at," I mean Japanese-style, so she came over, sat down, and said, "If it's no trouble, it's company policy, so could you please-" *hair-putting up motions* "I feel bad asking, because it looks so pretty, but if you don't mind..." and so on. So, I put it up. :-p