OJT Day 1

Today was the first day of OJT (on the job training). I started at about 1:30.

Its a pretty nerve-wracking experience. Getting ready to teach your first class. Basically, I talked with my trainer, who is an AT (Assistant Teacher). His name was Daniel, a guy from the US; really nice guy, soft-spoken, looks exactly like Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, for those of you who may have seen it.

We talked about student expectations first, and how we should meet them (nonsense), then we got to the real meat, like looking at student files (after seeing which students I would be teaching in one lesson) and choosing a lesson that none of them had done before. I was preparing to teach a group of 4 students, level 7A, which is the high of the low. The level system in NOVA works like this:
Best...1 2 3 4 5 6 7A 7B 7C..Worst

So these 7A's could speak English ok, and I could communicate with them quite comfortably. Their biggest problems at this stage seemed to be pronunciation and fluency, since some of them struggled to make sentences. They're really good at reading and writing though, I guess they've been taught in school.

Anyway, before I taught the lesson, Daniel suggested I should do this lesson which comprised of ordering a pizza by phone. So basically, there's all this vocab and main language that the students should learn in this lesson, like "Yes, I would like a medium margherita please," and maybe "Can you hold the onions" (no onions...hehehe). The lesson is broken up into different sections, but its a bit boring describing all this.

All you need to know is that I was pretty nervous going into the lesson for the first time, I taught the first half (20 mins) and then Daniel took over. I managed to do alright, thank goodness. The students are really nice too, they're there to learn and are really eager and friendly.

Day 1 of OJT complete, 9:00pm.

I went to a Thai place just near our building in Kawasaki (name of the station area) with Jody (close right), Chris (far right, Melbourne guy!), Kristen (centre) and Sarah (left). We're all NOVA-employed except for Sarah, she's Kristen's best friend from back in Portland, Oregon; just visiting. Pretty good day, good food at night, goodnight...