After a sometimes gruelling week of training for my new job as an English Language Teacher, I have arrived in Akashi, my new home for the next year! Judging from my reaction of sheer giddy laughter upon spying the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge on the train ride into town, I was very excited to see Akashi in person for the first time.
Before I get into the details of my new home, I will briefly recap my busy week of training. Busy hardly seems to encompass the quantity of work, planning, teaching, revising, and self-assessment involved in the training process. At times it definitely felt like being back in university, but with a distinctly accelerated pace to most of my Education classes. Besides the lesson prep, I also had to become accustomed to a lot of rules of the Japanese office/English classroom. Here are a sampling: no crossed legs (especially for women), no crossed arms, no elbows on the table, no sitting/leaning on furniture, no sitting sideways in chairs, nothing goes on the floor (it’s dirty), no pointing (only whole hand gesturing), no whistling (you will be attacked by snakes), and no slouching. Some of these may take longer than others to get out of my system.
I think my turn around point during the week was on Wednesday when we finally got to teach actual Japanese students. We had become familiar with teaching each other, but teaching Japanese students is the reason we’re all here and it was exciting and a bit nerve-wracking. The students were all really kind and it was good to see a sample of what levels we would be working with in the real classrooms. However, I mistakenly broke one of the rules of the classroom and realized it pretty quickly. When I asked my students to put some scrap paper they had used earlier onto the floor, the looks on their faces said it all. By the reaction, you’d have thought I’d asked them to rub their faces on the “dirty” floor. Thankfully, I recovered quickly from this mistake and carried on with a productive lesson.
Altogether, from the training process one thing became apparent; mutual suffering leads to friendship. In the case of my training group, we definitely grew closer during the more intense moments of training and we all have plans to meet up throughout the year.
Now for Akashi! Akashi is a fairly quiet city right by the water, and I am looking forward to checking out all the beaches and spending lots of time near the water. Plus, there’s a castle here! How cool is that? I think the best way to tell you about Akashi right now is with the pictures I took on my first afternoon here.
