Brian's Japan Adventure

Finally, the TEFL training classes have begun! My schedule is pretty packed, but I have it easier than some. At my University, TEFL courses start at 8:00am and continue until 4:00pm with an hour off for lunch and 10 minute breaks in-between classes. That’s a lot of class time. There are four classes in the program, each one running about an hour and forty minutes every day: TEFL Practices & Materials, Workshop in TEFL, TEFL Theory & Culture, and Linguistics. The classes meet every day for five weeks, so it’s a tough load, but it’s over pretty fast.

Fortunately for me, I took the course in Linguistics last quarter, so I can skip the last class and leave at 2:00pm. It’s a lucky break, because the Linguistics class from last quarter was not a requirement and I had no idea that I would be needing it for this program. It just sounded interesting at the time, so I took it. I didn’t realize it would make y life easier so soon. More time to work on the mountain of reading!

Now, on to details about today’s classes:

The TEFL Practice & Materials and the TEFL Workshop are both taught by a new character in our story, ”Dr. C.” Since all the same students are in both of these classes and both classes are taught by the same professor, much of these classes appear to overlap and blur together. I suspect that in the future, I’ll be referring to Dr. C’s and Dr. M’s classes as if there were only two. We didn’t do much in the way of heavy “learning” today, but did all the usual introductory talking about what we would be doing in the future and requirements and so forth. Already starting tomorrow we will be meeting with ESL students that we will be tutoring on a (mostly) one-on-one basis. I have done some of this in the past, so I’m not too worried about it; it’ll be fun.

The Theory & Culture class is taught by Dr. M. who we’ve encountered in previous posts. Basically today was a fairly standard introductory session; there was an activity to get to know each other, and then we discussed the syllabus and requirements for the class. About the only non-administrative thing we discussed today was a discussion about the differences between ESL (English as a Second Language) vs. EFL (English as a Foreign Language). That is, ESL is all about teaching English in America (or other English-speaking country) to foreign students, while EFL is what I will be doing– going to a far-off non-English-speaking country to teach English. Thee are some important differences between the two.

Overall, today was mostly syllabuses and administrative stuff; no great excitement here yet. But there is a ton of reading to do, so I’m sure we’ll be getting into it pretty heavily tomorrow. I know the ESL students will be fun. Overall everything went well, and both professors seem very nice and knowledgeable, so I think it’ll be fun overall, even if the workload looks insane.

More tomorrow!

Don’t get me wrong, this has not been a complicated procedure, except for the begging, pleading, and outright lying to the Passport people.

Overall, everything has gone smoothly and easily. Today’s adventure is a little more paperwork related, but since it’s part of the process, I’m going to include it here. Since my Passport still might not arrive in time to get a visa, the Professor (Who I am now going to call “Dr. M.” from now on, just so we can keep our characters straight), asked me for some things to forward to her contact person in Japan. Hopefully this will shave off some of the time for the visa.  There really isn’t anything unexpected here, so I assume everyone has to submit the same things, I guess I am just doing it a little early.

• 500 Word essay on “Why I want to participate in the Japan TESOL Internship Program.”
• A resume including all the usual stuff, focusing on my academic and teaching experiences.
• University transcripts
• A “Statement of Understanding” containing lots of disclaimers, but nothing unusual or oppressive.
• Personal information sheet with lots of questions, including medical history, next of kin, etc.
• 4 Photographs of me.

OK, this is all pretty straightforward stuff. The four photos were a little inconvenient, since the post office took my passport photos and kept everything. Basically I did this batch of photos myself with my digital camera and had them developed at Walgreens. They look acceptable in my opinion, and not a bad shot of me if I do say so myself.

Actually the hardest thing for me was the essay on why I want to do this. I will paraphrase:  “I’ve always been fascintated with Japan and this is the perfect opportunity to go for an extended time as well as gain valuable working experience for a potential career as an overseas English teacher.” Which I then extended into a 500 word word essay. Ouch.

Nothing major to report right now, but I want to thank Fenix, a friend from one of the message boards I frequent for designing the neat banner you now see up above.

The building in the picture is Okayama Castle, also known as Crow Castle because of its unique black color. Here is a brief article about the castle at Wikipedia. This castle is very close to where I will be staying when I finally make the trip.

So anyway, the day after talking to the professor in charge of the program, I rushed right out and applied for my Passport. I’ve never traveled overseas, so I never bothered getting one before. That was on May 18th. The clerk at the post office said that passports usually take about 2-3 weeks if I paid extra to have it expedited (another $60) and 4-6 weeks without the expediting. Since I am not leaving till September, I figured why waste the extra money and went with the slower, cheaper option. Strike Two!

Well, that may have been a big mistake. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Japan folks need my passport information to get me a visa. That can take up to TEN weeks. So here I am three months away from the trip itself and I’m already in a time crunch. I learned this about a DAY after applying for the passport. So I immediately called the passport agency and they say there isn’t anything they can do until the paperwork gets entered into their system, which could take up to three weeks. Finally, this Friday (June 1st), the online tracking system showed me that they finally have entered the paperwork. That was only two weeks to the day since I applied, and they predicted three, so I can’t complain too much about that. Next, I spent the entire weekend trying to get through their incredibly backed-up phone support hotline. Today, Sunday, I finally got through and was able to “upgrade” the application to expedited. Yes, I ended up paying the $60 anyway.

Overall, it looks like I lost two weeks, probably less really, since it would have taken some time to process the thing even if I had chosen expedited from the beginning. The two weeks probably won’t hurt anything in the long run, but it would have been worth the $60 several times over not to have to worry about it. They tell me I should have it in about another two weeks. My professor won’t be happy to hear that, but at this point, I think I’ve done about all that there is that can be done. It’s wait-and-see time. Oh Joy.

Bottom line: if you don’t have a passport, just go with the expedited option regardless of what the clerks tell you or what you think you need. Just do it.

Next time: More applications, essays, and paperwork.

OK, Let’s start in the beginning. My TEFL training doesn’t begin for another week, so I guess this is a good time to bring you guys up to speed on the story so far:

This all began about three weeks ago when one of my professors (who doesn’t even teach English) sent me an email about teaching English in Japan. I followed-up with another email and found out how it works. My university has an arrangement with a university in Japan and twice a year they send over two students to teach English. No one had shown any interest yet, and I was told that if I wanted in, no problem. I had always assumed these things were very competitive. I mean who wouldn’t want to teach overseas? Well, I guess a lot of people weren’t interested, since they were having trouble finding someone this time.

I thought about it for all of five minutes and fell in love with the idea. I’ve always been a bit of a Japan-o-phile, and I even took a conversational Japanese course way back in community college. I like to play Go. I even don’t hate anime too badly, although I do draw the line at martial-arts films. I had considered visiting Japan about 20 years ago, but gave it up as a dream that was too expensive to ever really happen. Well, here was my big chance, not just to visit but to live and work there for half a year. The ultimate working vacation.

Besides, I spend most of my time on the Internet, most of my friends are on the Internet, I can train my family to be on the Internet, so what’s the big deal? No problem, right? Wrong. I quickly found out that the Internet is not everywhere, and that net access is notoriously difficult to get in Japan. I’m still not sure that I absolutely believe it, but I have to assume that it will at least be inconvenient. Strike one.