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...

First post, self, boingy on a jackhammer, stick figures spouting geekery

Welcome all. I'm Tem D'Mindu, and this is my blog. I'm young enough to care and old enough to not, so it'll be interesting to see how often I update. Given the title I've chosen, I can't keep doing it forever, unless I decide to feel like a twenty-something for the rest of my life. Which would be nice, and likely unnoticeable until the organs begin to fail and my long luxurious hair turns silvery white.

I want to note now that I'm creating this for a class at the University of Washington - class-related posts will be marked as "CLASS: insertscholarlytitlehereorsuffertheconsequences". I'm going to try to keep my personal life out of this (that's what livejournal, the internet equivalent of a tear-stained notebook filled with flowering penmanship, is for) unless it becomes relevant.

So. Right off the bat, I'm going to recommend some stuff. In this post and the next couple, to give you, the reader (all 0 of you so far), an idea of what I think is good.
First off, http://boingboing.net/. It's basically Cory Doctorow's stomping grounds, which ought to give some kind of indication as to its content. ...It doesn't? Okay, then... It's a news blog, I guess, and it's where I go to hear about anything regarding anything. The tag is "A Directory of Wonderful..." - before it gets cut off by the standard Firefox tab width, which I think describes it nicely. Generally, it's tech-oriented, with some egregious political (but not limited to it) news from time to time. Hell fears only the pissed-off blogger, and this is where people ought to go (first) to get their piss. There are enough readers that, if a web page gets boingboinged, it will need to find a bigger server.

Also: http://xkcd.com/ is the geekiest webcomic ever, and the best proof that good writing will always save lackadaisical art. This (http://xkcd.com/c54.html) and this (http://xkcd.com/c149.html) are probably the best examples, with the latter likely being the best-known.

That is all for now.