Training is intense; there’s so much stuff to learn and it all seems to be compacted into a tiny space of time: interviewing, lesson structure and teaching techniques, Business management, time management, corporate structures… it’s all interesting in its own way, but keeping up with the flow of information can be daunting at times. I guess I’ll just have to trust the manual which claims ‘everything will become second nature after a short while’.
We had our first ‘live-fire’ teaching practice today (that means we got to work with real Japanese students… ones that didn’t have to pay for the lesson). It mostly went well, although there are still some wrinkles to be smoothed out; I need to cut down on my ‘verbal static’ and learn to let the students take over more often, but overall the technique is there. I swear, this job will be the best public-speaking training exercise ever; challenges abound, but its nice to stand in front of a group of people who want to learn, and watch their eyes light up when they get something right. If I was half as motivated about learning Japanese as they are about mastering English then I’d probably be bi-lingual in no time at all.
Ok! It's Engrish! (or NESglish if you prefer) I wasn't brave enough to actually enter this establishment, but I'm still curious about the burger menu.
While my Japanese is still fairly shoddy (although I’ve learnt a new phrase every day) I’m slowly starting to culturally adapt; I don’t stop to stare at the individually shrink-wrapped bananas in the supermarket anymore, I’m getting accustomed to canned vending-machine coffee (endorsed by Tommy-Lee Jones!) and I’ve developed seriously awesome chopstick skills (one step away from Mr. Muyage, I swear!) Food is still fascinating; I had deep-fried pieces of cheese in broth today for lunch, yesterday I had tofu-ramen, as slurped (with gusto) by salarymen nation-wide. Big culinary horizon-broadening, yay!
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