Location:
Airport hotel, miles from anywhere enjoyable. Decent hotel rooms. Maybe one Japanese person in the building.
Duration:
5 days. 5 long grueling days. 1 of which dedicated to an 'exam' sudden-death hell-consumes you performance of a demo lesson infront of a panel.
Content:
Put it this way; the very first session of the training week was 'sudden immersion' where they pulled random people up to do their pre-prepared demo lesson in front of everyone (180+ppl). And as soon as they made a mistake, the MC would yell at them and make them feel stupid.
"NO! NO! NO! You do NOT ask the students how they are yet! Do you WANT them to hate you before you even get into the lesson?! Get off the stage now!"
"NO! You lost me as soon as you said hello! Your students will punish you for this! Get off! Next! Lets hope someone else knows what the hell they're doing"
"Terrible! Do you think this is a game? Why are you wasting my time? If you do not have passion and are not enjoying it up here, then maybe it is time for you to leave!"
Needless to say, the entire atmosphere in the room had changed from one of excitement and anticipation to one of doubt and insecurity. Have I made the right decision? Is Interac really like this? Is this a joke? Is he going to start laughing soon? What the hell have I gotten myself into? Is this guy serious? OMG please don't call me up. Shared sentiments.
The session ended with an ultimatum: "If tomorrow's sudden immersion is as bad as today I am going to be very disappointed. Today I was nice to you.". Well......fuck.
"NO! You lost me as soon as you said hello! Your students will punish you for this! Get off! Next! Lets hope someone else knows what the hell they're doing"
"Terrible! Do you think this is a game? Why are you wasting my time? If you do not have passion and are not enjoying it up here, then maybe it is time for you to leave!"
Needless to say, the entire atmosphere in the room had changed from one of excitement and anticipation to one of doubt and insecurity. Have I made the right decision? Is Interac really like this? Is this a joke? Is he going to start laughing soon? What the hell have I gotten myself into? Is this guy serious? OMG please don't call me up. Shared sentiments.
The session ended with an ultimatum: "If tomorrow's sudden immersion is as bad as today I am going to be very disappointed. Today I was nice to you.". Well......fuck.
This was followed by the real 'training' where it was watching 'good' teachers do a demo class and stop to break it down & point out things they do. Breaking off into smaller groups to practice things too. Lot's of emphasis on being overly excited and overly happy to be there, rather than any real teaching skills like preparing lessons or teaching english.
Each day followed pretty much the same formulae. Sudden immersion -> confidences shattered -> demo lessons on how to be a rainbow unicorn -> end of day feeling like you hadn't learnt anything.
But then probably around day 4 it clicked what they were doing. They were giving us the tools and the training to be a 'fun' teacher regardless of how stressful it was. That was their primary goal. It seemed the intention was not to teach teaching, but to teach fun and enjoyment of english. After that point things got easier. I don't entirely agree with the methodology but that was what it was. Means to an end.
But then probably around day 4 it clicked what they were doing. They were giving us the tools and the training to be a 'fun' teacher regardless of how stressful it was. That was their primary goal. It seemed the intention was not to teach teaching, but to teach fun and enjoyment of english. After that point things got easier. I don't entirely agree with the methodology but that was what it was. Means to an end.
After training, I got moved to an apartment in Tokyo to chill out & await news of a placement. Nice place & got to see some other parts of Tokyo I hadn't been to before.
