Andrew + Japan = Awesome

I meant to write this sooner, but never got around to it. I’ve now been working at Nova for a week and a half, and like any job there are a few annoyances, but overall it’s a job I’m enjoying.

Neil and myself had three days of training last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The training was held at Takarazuka (which is the branch Neil is working at), and our trainer was a man known as Hawaiian Brian. At the end of the first day we had to teach half a lesson, and at the end of the second day we had to teach a whole lesson. I felt that the training was drawn out, and wish they’d just spent a day going over everything (instead of just half the material in the first day) and then got us to teach a few classes on the second day. There was lots of repetition and information that wasnt entirely useful.

Aside from that, the training went alright. Takarazuka seems a nice place to work, they’ve got a nice sized staff room, the students I taught all seemed keen to learn and not too much work, and the other teachers there are friendly, if a little weird.

After the three days of training, we had one day off, then I started work at Flower Town here in Sanda. Flower Town is where my flatmate works, as well as Neil’s two flatmates. Nova was easy enough to find, the map they gave me was good. Flower Town has a much smaller staff room to the one at Takarazuka, but slightly bigger classrooms, and a much bigger voice room. It also has the kids lessons in the same area, whereas at Takarazuka they’re down the hall a little, whether thats good or bad depends on if you like kids running around or not.

My first week at Flower Town has gone well, nice students, nice staff, not too many hard lessons. The other bonus of Flower Town is that it’s in a mall, so theres a supermarket and a food court that has a McDonalds and an Indian place, among others, right underneath us, which makes getting lunch no problem.

Neil takes issue with the Nova Smile they insist we wear while at work. The Japanese students expect a high level of service, because they are paying quite a lot, and one thing they expect is for their teacher to be smiling and happy to be teaching them. (Another thing is that they dont expect their teacher to yawn during class) I don’t have any problems with having to smile all the time, it’s not like theres any shortage of things to smile about, I’m in Japan, I’ve met a bunch of cool people who speak english, and I’m having a great time.