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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!