Thoughts After a Month

It has been over a month since I started teaching English in Japan, so what are my impressions so far? To be honest, aside from bouts of stress here and there, my overall experience is not that bad at all. Based on the feedback that the company has given to me, the teachers have no problems with me, and are happy with my work, and the children generally like me. Up to this point, I have found that the company has been pretty hands off in the way it does things. They usually only notify me of anything important, such as upcoming events for the schools, or if they need some information from me.

I do have to admit, compared to working in IT and hospitality, this type of work almost feels like a walk in the park (but not quite). I don't have to deal with drunken guests or any kind of troublesome customers like hospitality, and I do not have to worry about any type of rush hour, as the number of students I deal with at any one time is constant. Furthermore, unlike my time in IT, I don't have to sit behind a computer all day wracking my brain on how to solve a client's problem, something which could take days, and the customer can get snippy about how their company is losing millions a day whenever their required application is not working, nor do I have to worry about work following me home - the only time I will do work related stuff outside of school is when I have to print something in colour, as the schools' printers only in print in black and white - which is fine most of the time.

Also, I have an upcoming observation lesson coming up on Thursday. From what I have been told, the teachers observing me will only be doing it for 5-10 minutes, but it is enough to warrant preparing a special lesson for that time. I have already submitted a lesson plan to my coordinator, and the topic itself is easy. The trick for me is time management. I can usually accomplish most of what I need to do for a lesson - the only exception being the review portion at the end of the lesson. Usually the games that are played in class take up a bit of time, especially when factoring in explaining and demonstrating the game (as I am not allowed to explain it in Japanese). In any case, the teachers are apparently happy with the way my lessons are structured, so I'm trying not to worry too much about it.
In addition, I need to try and plan a special Halloween lesson for some of my classes. In Australia, Halloween is not all that popular, thought it has started to slowly gain popularity over the years. However, it is still nowhere near as popular as in America. I can try and teach it to some extent based on what I have heard and picked up though the media and pop culture, but I can't really say that I know much about the celebration. Well, I just need to keep it simple for the kids and come up with some related activities for them to do - I do have some ideas in mind, though I will need to look in to it a little further.

It is halfway through October now, and it won't be too long until I finally get paid. It will certainly take some of the edge off from living day to day, but it will also be the first step in saving money to go to Kyoto during the winter break.