Oh boy…

So, today I went to meet up with the guy who had that English teaching job I was possibly interested in. In my previous blog post, I said that I’d had a rather odd conversation with him on the phone, and that I was a bit concerned over how this would all work out — if at all. Today I met up with the guy and was in for a few surprises. Well, one big one at least.

I met with Mr. O outside McD’s as we had arranged. Well, I was there but he wasn’t, so when I called him up, he had mixed the times up. As I said yesterday, the class began at 3.30 pm and we were supposed to meet at 3 pm (30 minutes before class). Well, he somehow ended up thinking we were supposed to meet at 3.30 pm. In any case, he finally arrived and as we walked to the “school”, we talked a bit about what kind of school this is. And here’s the surprise.

Me: So, what is the name of this school anyway?
Him: Kyoto Kids’ Academy
Me: “Kids’”? So does that mean I will be teaching children?
Him: Yes.
Me: Uh, how old are they?
Him: Between… 1 and 12 years old.
Me: Wah.

Well, that was unexpected. I’d presumed this was a regular old fashioned “drill English to bored adults who, against their better judgment, decided to give ‘that english thing another shot’” but alas, not that easy.

When we arrived at the school, I noted that it was, well, not a school. It was more of a house, but it somehow fitted with the “daycare center” atmosphere that this whole thing was starting to take on. At the school, I was introduced to an American lad who was the head teacher of the facility. He was nice enough, and explained to me that basically, I wasn’t really supposed to do anything other than to make them speak English as much as possible. Now that may sound simple to the untrained ear……. In any case, there seem to be very loose “rules” regarding the teaching itself. No strict guidelines and such, since the school is just an outside regular school hours kind of thing. It’s basically the parents who place their kids in school in order to give them a headstart in the oh-so-important subject of English.

Personally I think it’s a great idea. I just wish it didn’t have the upper-class stamp on it that it appears to have.

Regardless, the pay is all right, but it’s only 2 hours and 40 minutes a week, so it doesn’t exactly pay the bills, and I will be spending 15% of what I make on train fares alone, unless I can muster up the energy to take the bicycle there and back (not impossible but then again, I doubt they’d approve of me arriving drenched in sweat from a 1+ hour bicycle-ride).

Dress code. Now there’s a mystery if there ever was one, but I’m not allowed to wear jeans. That’s it though, but unfortunately I don’t seem to have any non-jeans pants with me to Japan. I may have to go buy some, worst case.

The kids were actually cuties. There are two classes. The Thursday class has 4 kids, 3 girls and a boy, all of them between 7-8 years old. Actually, I didn’t realize until they pointed it out to me, but two of the girls are actually twins. You know, the “same-egg” kind of twins (I forgot the word for that in English). And they’re turning 8 next Thursday. Go them.

My biggest concern really is how to stop them from spazzing completely and not get anything done whatsoever during the 80 minutes I have them in class. Today, I was admittedly unprepared, but for the 40-something minutes that we were actually “teacher-student”y, I managed to make them do something useful for maybe half of that time. In between sporadic bursts of “running in circles around the table” or “making paper planes and tossing them at each other” and so on. I wasn’t too concerned, really, but instead tried to catch the attention of individuals as I got the chance. I will definitely have to figure stuff out to keep them focused in the future or people will probably wonder why my pups aren’t making any progress.

All in alll, I’m both pumped and concerned about this all. It’s been a long time since I was “caretaker” for kids so I may need some warming up on this one, but eventually it might actually become something I look forward to. (Then fast-forward to a month or two from now, and watch my angst as I whine about the little brats… )