All good, your family comes first.
They're gone now though, hooray. I mean, they're awesome as hell, but when you're the host for days at a time you just want a little peace and quiet. To play fallout 4.
The closest thing would be working with seniors that were 18 in the US or when I was in Georgia.
That's perfect. I'd not go with 'the closet' in this situation. They are legit adults, you HAVE experience. Make sure you tell yourself that. You seem a really good dude, for sure, but I'd say (correct me if I'm wrong) confidence is not your strong suit. But it should be. Fake it til you make it man. In reality, you're like 99% more qualified than other schmucks who walk in the door. The only thing that I can see working against you? You not backing yourself, versus some 19 year old prick who thinks he's king of the work and oozes confidence even thought it's FALSE. The dude isn't experienced enough to actually know that he doesn't know shit. You on the other hand, you've done a ton of stuff but you doubt your own worth in these situations. Sorry to be arm chair psychology here, but if you backed yourself, mate you could take over the fucking eikaiwa world! Honest!
since the class only had 5 students and my host mother usually just had me read with them from the text book.
You've therein PERFECTLY DESCRIBED AN EIKAIWA LESSON. You're practically returning for round two. It'll be 4 or 5 students and 'reading from the textbook'. Obviously an experienced teacher will be able to get a lot OUT of the textbook and change shit up to suit the students needs, but from the company point of view, they want you to follow it by the letter to reduce the chance of fuck ups. It's lessons on rails, right? You know?
Some pointers would be good. I am assuming with adults though you have a bit more freedom?
Absolutely. As much freedom as you need. Some techers just did the text book to the letter. Like a robot. I prefered to mix things up. Once I'd taught each lesson 2,3,10 times and I was confident with the material myself, I knew what parts of it the students found easy, what parts tripped them up, I could focus more or less on those partiuclar parts. Invent games and - what I found the most fun and rewarding - invent situations to make them talk to each other. It's all very well sitting around but the last thing they want is the teacher to sit there talking at them. And if they take turns talking to YOU during an exercise they only get to talk 25% of the time. The other 75% they are waiting their turn (assuming 4 students). Right?
So what to do? You team them up. Two pairs of 2. Get them to practise shit with each other. That way they get to talk waaaaay more (which is the goal right, practise does make perfect), plus you get to sit back and do less work because they are doing pair work. That's a good thing. You can listen and then review after and fix mistakes etc etc.
So one student (A) will have to, for example, describe their weekend plans to the other student B, while B has to listen and then afterwards repeat back to the class what Student A said. Then change roles. That way everyone gets a couple of chances to speak, some listening practise and you don't have to open your mouth.
That kinda thing.
There's an example of how mixing it up from the book makes things more interesting (they have waaaay more fun that way too), and the students get more practise and you get to be a teacher rather than just a text book narrator.
I really hope so. I am stressing out too much over not getting chosen.
Yeah. Easier said than done, but don't. Remember, there are 1000s of fucking schools in Japan. If you want to work there, just FIND work there. It's NOT the end of the word if for some reason the planets don't line up and you miss out this time, there are other options which we haven't even talked about. Have you looked at Interact? They don't pay quite as well and you're likely to get placed a bit more rural but as we spoke of earlier, it gives you a chance to get the visa you need and then get to Japan where you can then in your own sweet time hunt down the gig of your dreams. There's more than one way to skin a cat Todd!!
Would arriving in September be a good time to start do you think?
How long is a piece of string? There's never a bad time to arrive there. It doesn't make any difference, honest, it'll all be so new I bet you probably won't even notice the weather/temperature etc. Plus you'll be there for a while yeah? You'll see many many many cherry blossom seasons and many many summer beer gardens and many many winter illuminations.
Is it hard to have sex in a Japanese house once you have kids?
Haha, you crack me up. I think...you're putting the horse before the cart here dude. :-) You still need to MEET this girl, court her, spend years with her to decide she's the one, get her knocked up, wait 9 months til the baby then another 6 months until she's not even too sore to HAVE sex, this is something that I reckon you'll be looking into in the year 2021.
But, as I know you're genuinely curious, let me answer that one. I have a 4 year old. Adults fuck when adults want to fuck. And no kid sleeping in another room will stop that. PLus, you'll find from experience you can make sex as loud or as quiet as you want. Unless the kid is sleeping in the very same room as you it doesn't even matter. You just...have sex. The kid is sleeping. Done. Kids sleep through anything anyways.
I have heard about how walls are paper think over there and while I don't remember how thin or thick they were from my stay over there I would hate the idea of always having to go to a love hotel to do my wife if the kids were around lol.
If you're at the love hotel? Who is looking after the kid. And at 10,000yen a pop you'll be having to lay down a pretty penny every time you want to go at it, I'd suggest this would never be a viable option unless you were living with your girlfriend at her parents place and needed some privacy occasionally.
Also the walls are paper thing in traditional japanese houses which use....paper walls. The apartments are just....regular apartments. Doors. Walls. No different really from anywhere else except probably more snug that you are used to. This won't be an issue.
What's hard about having sex once you have kids? That both you and your partner are tired from working full time and....raising bloody kids!. It's tiring. You'll have less sex naturally because you'll have less time and energy, but that's not specific to Japan. That's called the natural order of things and growing old hahaha!
I am currently working on my essay for AEON so I will have it to show you in the next message.
Please do mate, please do. I'm keen to have a little look and provide some guidance there. I know I talk a LOT of shit, but I really think I can be helpful to you here.
I am also going to have an English teacher at work look over it too so hopefully it will look pretty good.
Yep - get them to make sure the English is up to par and I'll make sure the content is appropriate for what AEON is looking for. Together, we go this!
Rufus