Sequoia Wild

Greetings! it’s been a while since I’ve updated and a lot has happened. This week i started training at my new English teacher job and so far I am both pretty impressed with the job description details and the support and training we have received. The company I am working for has several “luxuries” that have never been present in my other full-time teaching positions: training and observation, a pre-existing teaching system, and COURSEWARE! I cannot even tell you how excited I am that the most I will need to do in terms of writing new courseware is look up activity variations and fit them into the existing textbook lesson structure! (more…)

I had my second interview with American Language Schools and my interviewer said that he was recommending me for the position, and at the location I wanted. I don’t know for sure if I have the job yet, but it sounds likely! Based on my contact with the staff there, it sounds like an organized, professional, but also student-first business. I suppose only time will tell, but the teachers, at least, seem to have their heart in the right place. I was really pleased with how I interviewed, too- I was able to be myself and not just say what they wanted to hear, so I think I presented myself authentically, complete with ways I am awesome and ongoing learning projects. One question took me aback though, as he described my impressive resume and experience in education/human services, he said, “Don’t you think you’re out of our league? What should I tell my supervisor if he is worried about someone with your qualifications settling for this job? ” I didn’t know what to say for a minute, because I had been told so many times that TEFL in Japan is so competitive that I might not even be able t get a job at all. I figured having the Masters was an advantage, but with this question I am wondering if that is why I have not been getting many return queries.  I ended up saying something distinguishing teaching TEFL as a different field that I had worked in directly before (aka I was a beginner; not sure if this was a good idea, but it’s what I came up with on the spot), and the basic fact that I really wanted to do it. I don’t think I exactly answered his question, since I think what he was getting at was “What’s going to keep you from leaving when a position that pays to your qualifications offers you a job?”. And I have to admit that, if someone offered me WAY above what they were paying, of course I would consider it, but if my experience is a quality one, and the salary is enough to cover my expenses, why change? Changing would keep me from getting deeper into the expertise and relationships that I had already begun to build, and depth is the main quality I am hoping to get from my experience in Japan. So I don’t know if I was really able to communicate that in the interview, but I think my overall attitude points toward this sort of conclusion anyway, so maybe he picked up on it. He did say that several of my answers were what he was looking for, and he said he was recommending me, so I suppose it was good enough, if fumbly. But it also gave me the confidence to act with confidence in the position because my experience is valued and they are counting on me to use what I know, which is refreshing from other positions I’ve had.

The location is, I think, ideal, based on my calculations. I wanted to be close to both Tokyo (or another major city) and a beach with big waves. Well, the waves that the surfers advised are on the pacific side, but Tokyo itself is in a bay behind a peninsula, so quite far away from the beaches. So, the city the job is in, Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, is almost exactly half way between Tokyo and the beach! It takes about an hour to get to either, so it is possible to do weekends, for sure, and even part of the day. I will have to get some kind of transportation, probably a scooter, to hail back to my latter UCSC days if I want to go into the city for late night dancing, because my daily schedule sounds like it will be 1pm to 9pm (perfect for sleeping!) and the subway closes at midnight. Also the train stops short of the beaches, so having my own beach scooter would be ideal! And Chiba is the city that I have had the most comfort in, actually, being stranded there twice on the way to and from Kamogawa forced me to get to know the area!

The location is here!

The job would start with training mid_august and I would be teaching Sept 1st, to get my first paycheck Oct 1st, so I will be WWOOFing until I start to save my cash. This is starting to look like it is going to work out!