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Amazing Former JET Interview on Youtube! (Part 3)

Amazing Former JET Interview on Youtube! (Part 2)

Amazing Former JET Interview on Youtube! (Part 1)

Wow! Laura and I just found this amazing interview about the JET Programme on Youtube! Be sure to check out parts 2 and 3 too!

Occupations, names, birthplaces

Man, I totally LOVE learning Japanese!

Six pounds and fifty pence...

...is what it cost to send my JET Application. Phew! Finally! I included a postcard of Manchester Town Hall with my application. Now, so say the forums, is when the waiting game begins.

Application Pack... done?

So far i've got...

1 completed and signed JET Programme Application Form	4 copies
1 completed and signed Self Assessment Medical Form	4 copies
1 signed and dated Authorisation and Release Form	4 copies
Statement of Physician Form (if applicable)	N/A
1 Personal Statement (double spaced)	4 copies
2 authenticated, original academic transcripts (stamped and signed)	4 copies of both
2 Proofs of Degree	4 copies
1 Proof of Nationality	4 copies
2 sealed references	1 copy of each
2 proof of study letters from college	4 copies of each

... but I can't be sure. Is that defnitely everything? It is, I know, but I really don't want to make any mistakes. I'll just check it all one more time...

We've bought a printer, just for our JET applications!

Yes, that's right, just to print off our applications. It isn't worth the stress of doing them at the library or at work, we've decided. I wonder if we can ship it to Japan to use once we get accepted.

JET Personal Statement - an extract

I think that my JET Application is going okay. Here's a blast of a chunk of my personal statement so far:

The JET Programme excites me because it offers an unsurpassed opportunity to experience life in Japan whilst working in a demanding and productive position as an ALT. I am fascinated by Japan, its culture, its history and its people. This interest began at University, where I took a module in Post-war Japanese Cinema within my Postgraduate Diploma in International Cinema. I became thoroughly captivated as I found out more about the country during my studies. A placement on the JET Programme would allow me to develop a profound understanding of Japan that a tourist would struggle to attain. My time working on a summer camp in America showed me that the best way to understand an unfamiliar culture is to live as part of it. The JET Programme offers me the chance to discover Japan first-hand.

- what do you think? Any good?

Months and Dates

Wow! These are tough. I thought that the numbers were hard, but the dates and months are full of irregularities. Repeating them at the start of the lesson will help, I'm sure.

Seb's blog - golf update!

If you haven't seen it yet, I'd definitely recommend checking out my friend Seb's blog. His latest entry is about golfing with his colleagues, and it's great stuff. Snip...

I don’t know how prestigious this course was but it was one of the plushest I’ve ever been to. You arrive and pull up in front of the club house. A valet takes your car and an army of middle aged women in day-glow attire take your clubs and disappear while you go and sign in. It’s at this point I’m informed I’m playing in a match day, so no pressure there! We sign in, I’m taken to the rentals dept for shoe fitting, quick toilet stop (where the ineffable charm of the club is somewhat diluted but the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine music playing in the toilets) and then out the back where a day-glow girl is waiting with our clubs on an electric cart and off we go.

Unsnip! Great stuff Seb! You can find more at http://englishgaijin.wordpress.com/

65 Years On – Remembering the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts

We went to the opening of the exhibition about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the People's History Museum. We heard about the day of the Nagasaki bomb from two survivors, both of whom had been children at the time. We saw terrible photographs that were particularly moving, including one of shards of melted glass in a poor man's back. The Lord Mayor of Manchester spoke, and we heard from Mr Tomihisa Taue, the Mayor of Nagasaki. It was a very moving exhibition.

JET Application Form - a first look, first thoughts

It's a long form, but not that long. Most of the questions are straightforward, and most of the answers should be too. The most challenging, I think, is the question about the relationship of the JET Programme to the participant's current career direction or intended future plans. Time to pull on the thinking cap! Maybe I'll not have much not much time to blog* about the application process, so I'll apologise in advance if the posting rate seems slower than normal. I'm applying for JET, so give me a break, okay!?! Hehehehe!

*or I'll just end up backdating a lot of posts, as per usual.

OMG! OMG! OMG!

I’m in the South of France, on holiday, when Laura texts to say that the JET application form is now online! Finally! Unfortunately, as I’m away from my computer and my notes, I’m not in a position to do any work on it. It looks like November’s going to be a busy month!

No news is... er... well, just no news, I guess...

Finally, the JET UK website has changed. It now says:

We are currently waiting for the final go-ahead to release the 2011 UK JET Programme application form and ask for your patience during this time. A link to the online application form will be posted on this page as soon as we are able to do so. The deadline for applications will remain as 6pm GMT on Friday 26th November 2010. In the meantime, we suggest that you prepare all other documents required in your application.

Sound familiar? Yup, that's right, it's more or less a re-tweet of the Twitter update from Friday 15th. Still no real news. get on with preparing those documents, I guess.

Dude, Where’s My Application Form?

Another day, another Twitter update. This one is from 15th October, at 6.37pm

We are now waiting for the final go-ahead before releasing the application form. We ask for your patience during this time.

It sounds like the form is almost almost almost ready to be released. Come on!

Just another Manic Thursday

“I’m not sure I’m looking forward to Sean’s teaching style,” said Laura. “He’s kind of manic, and I think that’ll annoy me.”

And it was true. Whirlwind! Speedy speedy speedy! We dashed through lots of information about approaches to English Language Teaching, which was rather confusing for me – we were using linguistic jargon that, whilst probably commonplace in the field, left me feeling like I was outside of the party looking in, rather than a part of it. Is a mechanic expected to know the names of the parts of an engine on his first day? “PPP… blah de blah… lexis… waffle waffle…”

Confusing, but not impossible. We worked in groups. We discussed. We summarised. We shared. We struggled to start with, but we got there. Taxing, but within our capacity. Stretching us. Testing us. Pushing us. A heavy lesson, but a good one too. As I left, my head was spinning, but a smile was on my lips.

Impatience rising

Is it just me, or is something not quite right with the JET Programme application schedule? Yes, that’s right, they *still* haven’t published the form on their website. I wonder why. I had a look at their Twitter Feed. Not particularly informative:

We are now making final amendments to the 2011 JET Programme application form and hope to upload it to our website by the end of this week.

At the same time, kind of reassuring. At least they’re working on it. At least it’s underway. I’m so impatient!

Our third lesson, and katakana were on the menu again. We practiced by trying to work out which pictures of foods went with which strings of kana. The names of most of the foods were relatively anglicised, and so it was quite straightforward to connect the images to the words once the first couple of syllables were in place: “su – pe – ge… was probably going to be spaghetti, for example.

I felt a bit disappointed in myself when I heard how well some of my classmates knew the kana. I’d only learned a handful of lines. “They’ve probably done some before,” said Laura, “don’t beat yourself up about it.”

To finish, we learned about numbers from 1 to 99. Next week, BINGO!

Magali

Paying for the course took nearly an hour. We spent part of the session getting to know each other, and part of it finding out more about the course. Magali has a very easy manner, and will – I think – turn out to be a great teacher. She is calm, measured, well-prepared, and soothing. I like her. Our reading list is long, but not all of it is compulsory. TESOL is a thrilling subject, and one with a lot of academic study around it. All three of us realised that the course is going to be a lot of work. I think we’re ready for that.

We shared the bus home with Magali. She shops at my supermarket, and rides past Kath and Laura’s on the way there. What a small world.

Crisis!

MMU are out of parchment paper! Laura can’t get her degree reprint!
Kath didn’t know she needed an academic transcript!
My referees haven’t got back to me to say “yes” yet!

Disaster! Disaster! Disaster!

Well, not exactly a disaster, but a good warning to us all nonetheless. How much of our individual application have we each sorted out? And how much more do we have to do? The application form hasn’t been released yet, but that’s no excuse for slacking.

We met, as normal, for our Tuesday night study group. We started with writing exercises, using some Post-it notes to practice our katakana. We then moved on to the Collins Easy Learning Japanese Audiobook for some speaking and listening practice. We covered:

watashi wa igirisujin desu - I am a British person
Brown-san wa, nujirandojin desu ka? - Mr Brown, are you a New Zealander?
hai, so desu - yes, that’s right
iie, chigiimasu - no, that’s incorrect

Lastly, so went the plan at least, was a session on the personal statement of the application. Unfortunately, that was when the crisis became apparent. And that was when the panic started! Well, not panic exactly… but we were quite concerned.

Hajimemashite Katakana!

The lesson today was partly fun, and partly terrifying.

The fun part came first. We learned hajimemashite! and we learned douzo youroshku! and then we practiced them by introducing ourselves to every single other member of the class. All nineteen of them. It felt like being in a room with a colossal echo, hajimemashite! douzo youroshku! hajimemashite! douzo youroshku! hajimemashite! douzo youroshku! hajimemashite! douzo youroshku! We started to learn bowing too. I wonder how long it will take to be able to do it solemnly, and without wanting to giggle.

The terrifying part came when we wrote out the forty-six katakana characters that make up the basic – basic only – katakana syllablery. Overwhelming? Yes. Humbling? Yes. Challenging? Undoubtedly, yes. Impossible? No. Not much is.

JET website update

The JET UK website has been updated. Here's the latest:

The application period for the 2011 JET Programme is expected to start from around early October 2010. The deadline for applications will be 6pm GMT on Friday 26th November 2010. A link to the online application form will be posted here at the beginning of the application period - please visit this page regularly for updates.

I've RSS-ed their Twitter Feed - check out the sidebar for a peek.

Did Kath and Laura pass their TESOL interview?

Yes, of course they did! And in their test, they both got the stationary / stationery distinction wrong at first, but then corrected it. Weird!

"You're the third person on the course who's also doing Japanese at Aquinas," Sean said to Laura, "what an odd coincidence." Hardly Sean! We're all friends!

TESOL Interview

"It's not a formal interview... there's just a little test..."

How do you prepare for an interview if you're not even sure what to wear? Kath and Laura and I had practiced some grammar - mostly parts of speech - but we had no idea of the level of the test, nor of the intensity of the interview. Luckily for Kath and Laura, I got to go first...

And it wasn't that bad at all, really. Sean, the tutor, spent a lot of time talking about the course. The assessments seem really interesting - for example, we spend time observing lessons for a language we don't speak (Russian, say), which we then have to write a critical appraisal of. Sean's kind of manic - or was in the interview, at least. But I liked him. He's been to Japan to teach English too. Another information source, that's good.

The interview was simple, pretty much. We talked about why I wanted to do the course, what I thought made a good teacher, and what other languages I knew. Mostly it was Sean getting excited about his subject. Enthusiasm to spare! There was a test, and it was "just a little test" too - correcting some sentences, choosing some spellings, and a short written piece about teaching the differences between two types of English.

Yes, I passed. We start next Thursday. Yahoo!

Is "boring" an adjective?

Yes, in the main, I suppose it is. But it could also be a regular verb - "termites are boring through the floorboards" - and subsequently a derived gerund too - "We estimate that boring occupies four-fifths of the termite's waking life."

Kath, Laura and I went through the seven main parts of speech in my classroom bedroom. Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Prepostion, Conjunction, Interjection, Adverb, Adjective. I gave examples, and then invited Kath and Laura to complete a couple of exercises. The lesson went well, but it went on and on too. We stopped for chips.

Hopefully the grammar will equip us well for our TESOL interviews. It's me on Thursday, and then the ladies on Friday. Good luck to us all!

Emi-san! Konbanwa!

Our first Japanese lesson was today. Our teacher, Emi, is very good: lively, enthusiastic, smiley. Is this what Seb meant when he said that most of all we need to be genki? We covered the aims of the course, and learned some phrases - konnichiwa; konbanwa; ohiyo gozaimasu; arigato - and a little bit about grammar - introduction to particles o; wa; ka.

We were given our names in katakana, and asked to learn numbers one to ten as our homework: ichi, ni, san, yon, go, rocku, nana, hachi, cu, jui. Laura's colleague Kris came with us. That makes yon of us. How exciting!

Clare's blog

Laura’s friend Clare is a JET in Hokkaido. She’s on the scheme with her husband Andy, and they’re based near to Iwazizama. It was a conversation with Clare and Andy that led Laura to ask me if I’d be up for participating in the JET scheme. And, as avid readers might recall, Clare and Andy know Seb, who just happened to go to my school. Small world, eh? It turns out that Clare has a blog too. It’s in the blogroll, and it’s available here.

As you can see from this post, their flat is really spacious. It looks very nice!

Seb's Blog

Do you remember my post A Strange Coincidence? From a few weeks ago? Well, Seb got in touch earlier this week and has given me lots of information about his JET experience so far. I'll post some of what he's said once I've asked his permission to blog about it, but rest assured, it's very interesting stuff! He's written about his application process, about his interview, and about his first experiences of the scheme. Keep your eyes peeled for more of what he's said.

He has also been writing a blog about his JET experiences. It's really well written, and would make for a very enjoyable read, even if you're not interested in the JET Programme yourself. I'd heartily recommend taking a look - you can read it here, and it's also available in the blogroll too. Check it out!

Kath's got an interview too!

Kath has heard from Magali, and she's got an interview. 30th September. Great news!

Forty pounds! For two sheets of paper! Outrageous!

I have just paid £40 for two sheets of paper. Yes, that's right. Forty pounds. Forty whole pounds. And what, pray, are these amazing expensive pieces of paper?

Academic Transcripts.

Not a transcript of every word I've ever submitted for my degree. No! Far more modest than that, despite the lofty price.

A list of modules I took at Uni, with grades.

Yup, that's all they are. I know that there's a funding crisis in the education sector. But blimey, what a whack in the pocket!

Still, can't be helped, right - it's part of the JET application process. Bite your tounge Dave, and fork out your cash. you know it's going to be worth it.

Yuzu

Yuzu is a new Japanese restaurant in town. I’d read a couple of reviews (Manchester Confidential here, and Taste of Manchester here), and I was keen to try it. Laura and I popped in after work, and before the cinema.

Sushi and teppanyaki are the glamourous and famous side of Japanese cuisine, but Yuzu offers something else entirely. The menu is short, and focuses on home-style cooking. The food’s presentation, however, was precise and beautiful – very typically Japanese – our meals were laid out with care in understated, harmonious silverware. We had: -

• Teriyaki salmon set meal, with rice and miso soup
• Tempura prawns and vegetables, with udon soup
• Chicken yakitori 

The food was good. My tempura prawns were lovely, in a delicate batter. The udon soup was lightly flavoured. Laura’s salmon tasted bold in comparison. One review had talked about the proprietor’s fears about having to offer “more strong taste” for British mouths. Cultural differences, I suppose. Whilst the subtle flavours were unusual, Laura and I both enjoyed our meal.

“It’s nice, but the menu is too small,” thought Laura. I agree. I really liked the restaurant. I hope it does well.

Two out of three ain't bad

I’ve been offered an interview to get onto the TESOL course! And so has Laura! No news yet for Kath though. Fingers crossed Kath!

My interview is on the 30th of September, which suits me fine. Laura's is scheduled for then too, but she's in London for a conference, so she'll have to rearrange for another day.

Goosebumps!

False Alarm, Real Warning

“Dave, Dave, Dave, the JET application is online!”
“What? Isn’t it from late September that the forms go up?”
“It’s online! Have a look!”

My heart leapt! I rushed on to the JET UK page, as Laura had directed me, and looked around. My forehead creased. I couldn’t see it. Where, I wondered, was I supposed to be looking? I called her back to ask.

“Yeah… erm… turns out it isn’t up there actually. But there is lots of good stuff! Including a checklist of what we need to do for the application.”

Oh no! But Laura’s right about the JET UK site. Full of important information about the application process. Especially about references and academic transcripts.

To prepare your application you will need the following documents:

• 1 completed and signed JET Programme Application Form
• 1 completed and signed Self Assessment Medical Form
• 1 signed and dated Authorisation and Release Form
• 1 Statement of Physician Form (if applicable)
• 1 Personal Statement (double spaced)
• 1 authenticated, original academic transcript (stamped and signed)
• 1 Proof of Degree
• 1 Proof of Nationality
• 2 sealed references

There's a lot to be getting on with, even before the application form comes online. And with so much to sort out, it's time to get started! O-kay, let’s-a go!

Applying for the TESOL Course - applications received

Laura and I have submitted our applications for the TESOL Course! Magali, who we hope will be our tutor, has acknowledged receipt of our forms! Yahoo!

Applying for the TESOL Course - the essay

Laura and I spent the evening planning the essay question for our TESOL course application. The question is below:

Please HANDWRITE 500 words on a recent learning experience you have had; this could be academic / practical / personal / other. Describe the learning situation, methods, activities and techniques through which you learned and evaluate the outcome of the experience.

Laura chose to write about our the sushi-making course we attended a couple of weeks ago. I decided to write about the residential weekend for the college course I’d studied last year. Keeping to a 500-word limit wasn’t easy, nor was handwriting it. It wasn’t so much the physical act of writing that was challenging, it was the permanence that putting pen to paper implied. A word-processed world of CTRL + Z, or X, of C and V makes it very easy to write in a disorganised fashion, and then edit coherently. Paper is much less forgiving.

We ended the evening with two good drafts. Wearily, we agreed to stop, and to write up our work tomorrow. And then we slept.

TESOL Course - application process

After what felt like a hundred attempts, I finally got through to the course convenor for the Trinty Cert. TESOL course at the Manchester College. Yahoo! Here's what I found out:

• The course runs on Thursday nights, from 6pm until 9pm. Brilliant! No need to get flustered about fitting in a day-time course around work commitments! 
• It's going to be a bit more expensive than we'd thought. Quite a lot more, actually. Not £300, but £1,300. Yikes!
• It turns out we don't have to register on 31st August as we'd thought. Instead, there's a three-part application process - 

1. A two-page application form
2. A 500-word, handwritten essay

Please HANDWRITE 500 words on a recent learning experience you have had; this could be academic / practical / personal / other. Describe the learning situation, methods, activities and techniques through which you learned and evaluate the outcome of the experience.

3. An interview, including a written task under supervision

Candidates will be invited for an interview and will be asked to complete a writing task under supervision. During the interview the task will be discussed. In the interview account will be taken of speaking voice, self-awareness, presentation and potential professionalism / employment.

• Applications are on a first come, first served basis. This means we need to pull our fingers out and get applying as soon as we can! 
• The course lasts for 32 weeks, starting in October and running until June 

It looks complicated. It looks challenging. It looks like hard work. Then again, nobody ever said it was going to be easy!

A strange coincidence

We were very surprised! Why? Well, it turns out that Laura’s friends who are JETs, Clare and Andy, have become friends with my old schoolmate Sebastian, who is also a JET. Laura was showing me the photos that Clare and Andy had uploaded, and I happened to spot that Seb was included in Clare’s list of friends. That’s right, Laura’s JET friends are friends with my JET friend! What a shock! It turns out that they all went on their orientation together, and they’re staying in touch with each other during their year. Wow!

The photos that we looked at were very exciting. Clare and Andy are based in Hokkaido in the far north of Japan. One set of photos took us through the fun and games that went on during their initial ice-breaking activities, camping on the shore of a lake with lots of other JETs. Sock war! Chubby bunnies! It looks like a right hoot. We also saw some photos around their home in Asahikawa Their accommodation looks great. I expect we’ll get plenty more updates from them as we continue our preparations.

Sushi-making lesson

Laura was given a sushi-making lesson as part of her birthday gift from work. The course was at Samsi, in Spinningfields, a new branch in the family of the best Japanese restaurant chain in Manchester. We arrived, and were sat in front of My Neighbour Totoro until ate our starter arrived: miso soup; vegetable gyoza; chicken yakitori. Lovely!

The lesson began with a description of how sushi rice is prepared and cooked. The properties that this imbues the rice with – stickiness most of all – are essential for making sushi. Sushi rice is short and fat, like pudding rice, or risotto rice. We learned how to wet our hands when handling the rice: enough that the rice wouldn’t stick too much, not so much that the rice balls would fall apart.

We started with cucumber maki, spreading rice over the seaweed, adding the filling, and then rolling it up using a mat (maybe made of bamboo?). Next up were avocado and salmon California rolls, inside out maki with more rice, and more filling. Much the same process as the maki, but for some reason – my own clumsiness? – I managed to leave a big piece of salmon hanging out of one end. Oops! Laura’s California roll was much neater. Clearly she had the hang of it far better than me!

The size of the rice blocks for our nigiri also caused me a few issues – I kept making them far too big. That’s my greedy guts getting me into trouble again! We made a pair of salmon nigiri each, and then one with tuna. I struggled with getting the salmon to stick to the top of the rice. “If you hold the fish too long, the temperature of your hand starts to cook it,” said the instructor. Blimey!

We finished with two cone-shaped temaki, one with avocado and salmon, and one with cucumber. The wrapping for this was all done in hand, rather than with a mat. We smeared rice on part of the nori, added the fillings diagonally, then tucked in and rolled up the cone, sealing it with a little sticky rice. The avocado and salmon temaki looked like a bouquet of pink flowers.

To wrap up, we chopped and prepared the maki and California rolls, and laid them on the plate. The finishing touch was to sculpt a leaf from wasabi paste to decorate the plate. I was terrible at this, and ended up settling for a quasi-diamond-ish lump. Laura’s leaf was much better.

“How do you say ‘Thank you’ in Japanese?” Laura asked me.
“I think it’s arigato gozaimasu, but I’m not sure of the pronounciation, nor of the etiquette around bowing.”
“Okay. We’ll just say it in English then,”

As for the taste? I loved it. And Laura? “I liked making it, but I don’t really like eating sushi.”

Registration

Laura, Kath and I have registered for the Beginners Japanese course at Aquinas College Stockport. We start on Monday 27th of September. This is in addition to the work we’ve been putting into the Collins Easy Learning Japanese audiobook. That’s quite exciting!