(This feels separate from the topic of the previous post, so I separated them)
Currently listening to Chou-wakusei Sentou Bokan Daileon, from Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion, sung by the ever-awesome Kushida Akira. The video uses clips of it in action, and even though it's all 25+ years old, the wirework and special effects are still pretty fun to watch - compared to the over-reliance on CG in giant-scale Tokusatsu sequences nowdays. I find it refreshing to see a time when live-action Giant Robots(tm) were agile enough that they could be expected to do an on-screen backflip. Most impressively, starting from 1:59, Daileon pretty convincingly throws a monster into the air and uppercuts it into an explodey end (the "Cosmic Crash" attack is normally the hover-dash double punch that starts at around 2:45).
Note that the post and comments are in Portuguese. Japanese shows often have a mix of commercialism and quality that allow for universal appreciation, and a number of Metal Hero shows were aired in Brazil. (To say nothing of Power Rangers in the US, and the various Anime aired in all corners of the world.) The bare minimum for these shows is to sell toys/merchandise/advertising time, and yet in the US, very few kid's shows (or TV shows in general) have soundtracks worth buying.
Also: 21 Accents. (Note that a few of them incorporate jokes about the culture. For example, the New Zealand accent: something about not really paying attention to minor things like your age, etc.) I tried to show this at work, but the computers we use aren't designed to project sound very well, so it didn't work too well.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thoughts on... Teaching English
I've been teaching English in Hiroshima since October 2008. It's impressive, apparently, that I found the job after arriving in Japan (August 2008) and settling down in Yoshida. (Yoshida, Akitakata City, is roughly 45 kilometers from Hiroshima, close enough to commute but still far enough out to surprise anyone living in the city. As the number of languages in the link might indicate, no one is too surprised to see a foreigner here - no more than "hey, a new guy.") The commute is anywhere from 75 minutes (train + taxi) to 90 minutes (train + bus on an average day), but on Friday evenings it's 110 minutes (train or wait time + the 9:45 bus from the bus center 20 minutes from the office). The one thing I really don't like about the job is the commute. I gave serious thought to living in Hiroshima City (rather than Hiroshima prefecture), and there's a few apartments in Kabe that would do, but then I'd have to live apart from Rachel. So I live in Yoshida.
(Kabe is the suburb that serves as a halfway point between here and there - it's technically in Asakita Ward, but given that Kabe Station has a longer Wikipedia entry, I find it easier to just call it all "Kabe". Which is inaccurate, but oh well.)
I find the job itself difficult, with a ridiculous commute that only makes my frequent stomach problems worse. No, the work itself isn't hard, and I can count on one hand the times I've had actual problems with students (and even then, they're my fault). I enjoy working with my coworkers, and talking to people/students from different walks of life. But I have trouble adjusting to another person's pace - their likes/dislikes and interests, their rates of speech, their ways of thinking, etc. - and so my lessons tend to vary wildly in usefulness when there's more people. I can adjust fine to 1 person, up to 3-person groups, but any more and it gets difficult. Throw in a spread between the abilities of the highest and lowest students in a group (this is, very occasionally, a large gap, through no fault of the students), and I tend to start lecturing or speaking faster, to try to cram in as much lesson as possible in 40 minutes. Result: one of the main complaints against me is that I speak too quickly, and this is the main reason used to fire me...
(The full story behind February 14th being my last day is: My performance isn't as high as it needs to be, and while my circumstances include good reasons to keep me on board, after a year of plateaued improvement, it's easier to cut me than continue to employ me. ...which should come as no surprise to anyone I've talked to in the last year or so. I was originally going to be fired, and my last day was going to be Jan. 31st, but I tendered my resignation at the same time. I wanted to end on Feb. 28th, they wanted to fire me on the 31st - we compromised, and my last day is Feb. 14th. No surprise, no acrimony; it's my best "firing/quitting" yet.)
It also became a worry of mine that students weren't actually learning anything new in my lessons. About 6 months or so into the job, I started making an effort to make sure everyone learned something new. (Correcting pronunciation/sentence structure/etc. when possible, explaining the use of language in the textbooks rather than just teach it straight or through repetition, write and leave lesson notes with as much detail I can manage - the theory being that, even if I speak too quickly, someone can learn something from what I wrote... Whether or not the notes work isn't clear to me, but it's something no one's ever complained about - my handwriting notwithstanding.) People paid money to talk to me; I have to try and make sure I'm worth it.
Bearing in mind that I'm usually not very good at social things, I think I've done pretty well overall. The job has forced me to work with people, and I think I've grown considerably because of it. I look back fondly at the people I've met, and while I've always had trouble finding past successes (I can find my failures with ease, however), I at least know they're there. I have improved as an English Instructor in the time I've worked there, but I realize I don't have the innate talent to be a good teacher. I doubt if I'm a bad teacher, though.
It's actually started snowing as I write this. About what you'd expect for a town in the mountains (altitude: 120 meters?), but it's been unseasonably warm this past week. One more post coming up soon...
(Kabe is the suburb that serves as a halfway point between here and there - it's technically in Asakita Ward, but given that Kabe Station has a longer Wikipedia entry, I find it easier to just call it all "Kabe". Which is inaccurate, but oh well.)
I find the job itself difficult, with a ridiculous commute that only makes my frequent stomach problems worse. No, the work itself isn't hard, and I can count on one hand the times I've had actual problems with students (and even then, they're my fault). I enjoy working with my coworkers, and talking to people/students from different walks of life. But I have trouble adjusting to another person's pace - their likes/dislikes and interests, their rates of speech, their ways of thinking, etc. - and so my lessons tend to vary wildly in usefulness when there's more people. I can adjust fine to 1 person, up to 3-person groups, but any more and it gets difficult. Throw in a spread between the abilities of the highest and lowest students in a group (this is, very occasionally, a large gap, through no fault of the students), and I tend to start lecturing or speaking faster, to try to cram in as much lesson as possible in 40 minutes. Result: one of the main complaints against me is that I speak too quickly, and this is the main reason used to fire me...
(The full story behind February 14th being my last day is: My performance isn't as high as it needs to be, and while my circumstances include good reasons to keep me on board, after a year of plateaued improvement, it's easier to cut me than continue to employ me. ...which should come as no surprise to anyone I've talked to in the last year or so. I was originally going to be fired, and my last day was going to be Jan. 31st, but I tendered my resignation at the same time. I wanted to end on Feb. 28th, they wanted to fire me on the 31st - we compromised, and my last day is Feb. 14th. No surprise, no acrimony; it's my best "firing/quitting" yet.)
It also became a worry of mine that students weren't actually learning anything new in my lessons. About 6 months or so into the job, I started making an effort to make sure everyone learned something new. (Correcting pronunciation/sentence structure/etc. when possible, explaining the use of language in the textbooks rather than just teach it straight or through repetition, write and leave lesson notes with as much detail I can manage - the theory being that, even if I speak too quickly, someone can learn something from what I wrote... Whether or not the notes work isn't clear to me, but it's something no one's ever complained about - my handwriting notwithstanding.) People paid money to talk to me; I have to try and make sure I'm worth it.
Bearing in mind that I'm usually not very good at social things, I think I've done pretty well overall. The job has forced me to work with people, and I think I've grown considerably because of it. I look back fondly at the people I've met, and while I've always had trouble finding past successes (I can find my failures with ease, however), I at least know they're there. I have improved as an English Instructor in the time I've worked there, but I realize I don't have the innate talent to be a good teacher. I doubt if I'm a bad teacher, though.
It's actually started snowing as I write this. About what you'd expect for a town in the mountains (altitude: 120 meters?), but it's been unseasonably warm this past week. One more post coming up soon...
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