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Published: April 15th 2007
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One week back in Japan and it has flown by. It's wierd to think that going back home was actually only a holiday, as Japan is my home at the moment. But as I said it was great to be back if only for a little while.
I've been so unbelievably busy in the last week, it feels like I've been here for ages. I arrived back in Japan on Sunday night, and what with the time it took me to clear customs, get my luggage and catch the bullet train to Nagoya, I didn't get into the hotel until 11.30pm. I was exhausted. And Aeon had left a nice little package for me at the front desk: a training manual of which they wanted me to read the first couple of sections before training started at 10.00am the following morning. So needless to say it was a late night. I did training with 7 other people, one other Australian guy, a Canadian guy and the rest are American. But a nice bunch of people. And from all walks of life, the other Aussie (Keith) is in his 50's I'd say, but no teaching experience; the Canadian (Brad) is
35 and used to be a mechanic before becoming a teacher at a technical school where he now teaches training mechanics; Chris is about 29?? and has been teaching high school in America and even taught English in Japan for a year already with a different company; Lauren just graduated from college where she studied teaching; Krysten also just graduated but she studied Histroy I think; and Mel and Kyle around 25?? have never had teaching experience either. So some people have some teaching experience and others not, but as we found out this week Aeon have their own way of doing things and really everyone was in the same boat and starting from scratch.
So our first week of training is over and only 3 days left! Aeon have two different types of schools: all Adult schools and combined Adult and Kids schools. The branch school where I have been located is an Adult and Kids school therefore I have to do both the Adult and Kids trainings. Last week was the Adult training. It went for 6 days, 8 hours each day and it was very intensive to say the least. There is so much information that
we have to remember that we didn't have time to relax at all really. Every day was crazy busy. The first day was drilling us with information about Aeon and the company and how good they are (eh, what can you expect?) and the other days were all focused on the teaching method. We had to do 4 different demo lessons in front of everyone, teaching from the textbooks, and I was extremely nervous but got through. Basically one day they go through one of the types of textbooks and how to teach it and the next we had to teach it. Two of the times we only did it in front of each other and our Trainer, but the other two were with real Japanese students, so that was a lot more scary. But good practice beacause in 2 weeks I'll be on my own. We didn't even have much time to get out, as we all had to go back to the hotel to prepare our lesson plans for the next day, and then we would go in early the following day to make posters and cards and all that fun stuff for our lessons. We did manage
to get out last night (Saturday) as we had finished for the week and had today off.
So Kyle, Keith, Brad and Krysten are all at Adult only schools therefore they have finished their training and will be going to their branch schools to start work tomorrow. It's a little sad to think we will all be split up, but we're all within an hour of each other so it'll be easy to catch up. We actually had a "graduation ceremony" on Saturday night after we had finished and we got our Aeon pins, which we have to pin to our suits at work- it basically means we are qualified Aeon teachers now; and we also got our business cards, which I am actually extremely excited about. It's the first time I've had my own business cards, and they look pretty cool with my name and position (Foreign Teaching Staff) and branch school address/phone number. I'm going to send some home to my family so they can show everyone 😉 haha. No really I am. And just so you all know (cos this information blew me away!) when I teach a private lesson, so one-on-one with a student, they
are paying the equivalent of $120 an hour for my services!!! Can you believe that? My group lessons are the equivalent of about $50, but even that is pretty expensive. So I've been making a point and telling people that my going rate is $120, to teach English that is!!! It'll probably never be that again once I get home. It's amazing what the Japanese pay for English lessons.
So Kids training starts tomorrow which I'm looking forward to as it seems like it will be a bit more fun, cos we will have to sing and dance and run around with our shoes off, and well play silly buggers really. Half of my lessons will be with kids so that should be fun, it's mostly singing and playing games with them in English. I'll have to learn all my nursery rhymes again and songs like If you're happy and you know it... haha fingers crossed that I don't have any brats though.
Aeon has been occupying almost every minute of the day for the past week but we had the day off today so Kyle, Lauren and I went and did some shopping and sightseeing of Nagoya
and surrounds. It was a nice relaxing day and the sun was shining so it was perfect. And the best thing happened! I experienced my first earthquake in Japan! I was in my hotel room getting ready to go out and standing in front of my mirror, when I saw in the reflection the hairdryer cord on the wall behind me swaying and then
I started swaying. It was unreal. Quite a good one too as when I walked over to the window to see if I could see anything outside I couldn't keep a straight line. It was really exciting! Haha, of course Mum will just worry now constantly but I thought it was cool, especially since I have lived in Japan for a while now and never felt one. So an interesting experience.
I move down to my town next week so I'll keep you posted on how that goes, miss you all. x
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GJW147
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Cumme
Love it! So you have two degrees now? Well done! Hope everything is well, i'll talk to you soon. Take care pincess xo