Memories of Japan - Night Time "tutoring"
Employed by Interac, I was one of 5-6 "ALTs" (Assistant Language Teacher) working in Narashino City. I will tell you more about this arrangement later.
I didn't actually work with the other ALTs, but we met each week at the Narashino City Board of Education. There was another (asian) Australian girl, from Brisbane. A few months into my stay in Japan, she told us about another company she was working for: IHC Way.
IHC Way is a kind of student/tutor matching service. Japanese people would go into the office and asked to be matched with a tutor. IHC Way was the middle man.
So the Australian girl gave me the contact details of the company, I called and made an appointment to go in and hopefully sign up as a tutor. The appointment was on a week-day night, I think around 8 or 8:30pm. The office was in an apartment block somewhere in the middle of Tokyo. I forget where. It was somewhere best accessed by subway. It must have taken me at least an hour and abit, plus several transfers to get there.
The instructions to find the office were pretty clear, I went up stairs, knocked, and was ushered into the apartment (that was being used as an office) by the sole occupant, an early 30's(?) Japanese woman in a bright yellow cardigan. I think her name was Kumiko. The bright yellow suited her perfectly and I told her so.
Hence followed a very easy and straightfoward "interview", which was more of just a "checking that I was a normal person" type clearance. You know the kind of interview you get when you have the job before you walk in, and the interview is just a matter of course, just explaining the job? She printed off a large A3 train map of Tokyo and surrounds for me, which was the BEST map I had seen so far of the area. I told her this, she said she was surprised that most of the foreigners she met had very poor train maps, so she always handed out the best one. I still have this map. It is bright, colourful and very clear, but by the end up my trip in Japan it was all soft and a bit dirty and scuffed from all the folds I had made in it.
She took all my details down, took a photocopy of my passport, and then she gave me directions to go and meet the company CEO in a nearby coffee shop. I went downstairs and around the corner and met a Japanese man in his late 40s. He kind of looked like this Japanese actor:
I didn't really know if this was a secondary interview? I think he just liked to meet all the new tutors. He bought me a cup of tea, asked me a few quick questions about myself, and then he said I was "charming". It didn't come across as creepy, just nice. Then he started to tell me the method that I should use when tutoring students. The method was totally laughable but I listened politely. He recommended that I buy lots of Disney children's books, and then get my students to memorise the books, and learn English that way. Hmm don't know about that! Anyway, I had a good time talking to him anyway because the whole situation was a bit alien and new... and interesting to talk to different Japanese people.
After that I caught the subway/train back home and that's all I remember from that night.
I didn't end up getting that many students all up. My regulars were: Yuka, Takako, Atsuko and Saki.
I met Yuka every wednesday night in a very casual "french" cafe in Funabashi Station. The staff wore these kind of "french" maid type outfits. I got the impression that Yuka didn't usually go to such cheap type places, I think it was just a convenient place for her to meet me on her way home from work. I would say she was upper middle class.... fairly well off family, good job (I think in finance/bank/insurance? I don't remember), active social life. She was definitely one of those Japanese "achiever" types. Her English was very good. She kept a diary every day, which I checked each week. Although ultimately we were quite different people, I really liked Yuka and her enthusiasm. After meeting her every week for months, as my stay in Japan was drawing to a close, she asked me if I would go to a "maid cafe" in Akihabara with her. She explained that she was really curious about going to one, but she was too embarrassed to ask any of her Japanese friends to go with her. This is probably because maid cafes are considered to be a kind of "fetish" venue. So I met her one Saturday in Akihabara. It must have been cold because we were wearing coats. Oh, actually I have a photo of us together in Akihabara:
The last I heard, she had moved into a high rise apartment in Shinagawa. Sometimes I worry about this because if a massive earthquake ever hits Tokyo then high rise apartments in busy centres like Shinagawa might not be the best place to be.
Yuka was one of those people I really liked, but didn't have much in common with and after I left Japan we fell out of contact. I also got the impression that our relationship was definitely one of convenience, well, she was paying me after all. Her life was very full, and she wanted to have the experience of meeting foreigners and practising English.
I'll tell you more about my other night time students later.
I didn't actually work with the other ALTs, but we met each week at the Narashino City Board of Education. There was another (asian) Australian girl, from Brisbane. A few months into my stay in Japan, she told us about another company she was working for: IHC Way.
IHC Way is a kind of student/tutor matching service. Japanese people would go into the office and asked to be matched with a tutor. IHC Way was the middle man.
So the Australian girl gave me the contact details of the company, I called and made an appointment to go in and hopefully sign up as a tutor. The appointment was on a week-day night, I think around 8 or 8:30pm. The office was in an apartment block somewhere in the middle of Tokyo. I forget where. It was somewhere best accessed by subway. It must have taken me at least an hour and abit, plus several transfers to get there.
The instructions to find the office were pretty clear, I went up stairs, knocked, and was ushered into the apartment (that was being used as an office) by the sole occupant, an early 30's(?) Japanese woman in a bright yellow cardigan. I think her name was Kumiko. The bright yellow suited her perfectly and I told her so.
Hence followed a very easy and straightfoward "interview", which was more of just a "checking that I was a normal person" type clearance. You know the kind of interview you get when you have the job before you walk in, and the interview is just a matter of course, just explaining the job? She printed off a large A3 train map of Tokyo and surrounds for me, which was the BEST map I had seen so far of the area. I told her this, she said she was surprised that most of the foreigners she met had very poor train maps, so she always handed out the best one. I still have this map. It is bright, colourful and very clear, but by the end up my trip in Japan it was all soft and a bit dirty and scuffed from all the folds I had made in it.
She took all my details down, took a photocopy of my passport, and then she gave me directions to go and meet the company CEO in a nearby coffee shop. I went downstairs and around the corner and met a Japanese man in his late 40s. He kind of looked like this Japanese actor:
I didn't really know if this was a secondary interview? I think he just liked to meet all the new tutors. He bought me a cup of tea, asked me a few quick questions about myself, and then he said I was "charming". It didn't come across as creepy, just nice. Then he started to tell me the method that I should use when tutoring students. The method was totally laughable but I listened politely. He recommended that I buy lots of Disney children's books, and then get my students to memorise the books, and learn English that way. Hmm don't know about that! Anyway, I had a good time talking to him anyway because the whole situation was a bit alien and new... and interesting to talk to different Japanese people.
After that I caught the subway/train back home and that's all I remember from that night.
I didn't end up getting that many students all up. My regulars were: Yuka, Takako, Atsuko and Saki.
I met Yuka every wednesday night in a very casual "french" cafe in Funabashi Station. The staff wore these kind of "french" maid type outfits. I got the impression that Yuka didn't usually go to such cheap type places, I think it was just a convenient place for her to meet me on her way home from work. I would say she was upper middle class.... fairly well off family, good job (I think in finance/bank/insurance? I don't remember), active social life. She was definitely one of those Japanese "achiever" types. Her English was very good. She kept a diary every day, which I checked each week. Although ultimately we were quite different people, I really liked Yuka and her enthusiasm. After meeting her every week for months, as my stay in Japan was drawing to a close, she asked me if I would go to a "maid cafe" in Akihabara with her. She explained that she was really curious about going to one, but she was too embarrassed to ask any of her Japanese friends to go with her. This is probably because maid cafes are considered to be a kind of "fetish" venue. So I met her one Saturday in Akihabara. It must have been cold because we were wearing coats. Oh, actually I have a photo of us together in Akihabara:
The last I heard, she had moved into a high rise apartment in Shinagawa. Sometimes I worry about this because if a massive earthquake ever hits Tokyo then high rise apartments in busy centres like Shinagawa might not be the best place to be.
Yuka was one of those people I really liked, but didn't have much in common with and after I left Japan we fell out of contact. I also got the impression that our relationship was definitely one of convenience, well, she was paying me after all. Her life was very full, and she wanted to have the experience of meeting foreigners and practising English.
I'll tell you more about my other night time students later.