Job Discussion Forums

[suki_monster]

I wrote this message in the ELT News Message board...perhaps some more of you can answer some of my questions:

I applied and got rejected by JET. Not sure why, exactly, felt pretty confident I would at least make it to the interview...but what can you do. Moving on!

I also applied and have heard back from AEON, Interac, Berlitz, and GEOS. As of right now, I have two upcoming interviews with both AEON and Interac, a phone interview with GEOS, and I have yet to hear back from Berlitz (just sent back the filled out questionaire yesterday). So I have some questions in regards to those organizations:

1. Has anyone had any experience with AEON, Interac, or Berlitz? If so, how was it?

2. I have read some pretty terrible things about Interac on Dave's ESL cafe, however, it seems like everyone has something terrible to say about all of the English-language organizations. Can anyone shed some as-unbiased-as-possible light onto the truths behind Interac?

3. As per many of the various language organizations, I have to do a lesson plan for the interview. Can anyone offer me some suggestions on things that work, or more specifically, what it is they are looking for? I was thinking of doing a mock-Jeopardy kind of game (yeah played out, I know, but I always thought it was a fun way to learn when I was learning a foreign language) with crayola marker flash cards. Does this seem like a good idea?

4. What is the general amount a person gets paid in language schools?

5. Do these organizations do a good job preparing/training you, or do they just sort of leave you "high and dry"?


OK! I can't think of any more questions right now, but any help on these would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks

[furiousmilksheikali]

I haven't read the whole of this thread properly but it looks like a good place to start regarding interviews for the Big Four and some tips for the lesson plans.

There seems to be quite a large amount of information lurking on this forum so my advice would be to search through the old files. Search for the specific company you are interested and type in "interview" or "lesson plans" and click the button for "search for all items".

Here's a thread to start you off.

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=13370&highlight=lesson+plan+ecc

[sethness]

4. Typical entry-level salaries: 250,000 yen per month is usual.

5. Four suggestions for sample lesson plans (for kids):

a) Ages 6 to 12:
Play a variation on gin-rummy using "silly sentences" (this is a set of playing-card sized flashcards, with pictures and text for several verbs, nouns, adjectives and conjunctions.) For extra spice, make your own preposition and adverb cards, and have students make cards for words they want to use. For kids, emphasize stuff kids WANT to know, like "run, stinky, greedy, unfair..."

b) Ages 8 to 80, particularly boys and adults
Dungeons and Dragons
Draw a 2x11"x17" sized map of a forest, bus/train center, shopping center, etc.
Kids have specific goals (like, finding money, food, a pet, and a bus ticket, then boarding a bus). YOU are a player too, and you are as unfair as possible.
All disputes (like whether a half-eaten hotdog can be used to tame a wild rat, to make it a pet) are decided by a coin-toss.
The players' avatars are those bottlecap/army-men sized figurines sold with plastic 500ml bottles of cola...or use your imagination and buy little figurines from a garage sale or thrift shop.
DO NOT make any actions unfair or limiting. Encourage kids to use a dictionary and be inventive. You can also give each player a different, secret goal: "You are a secret policeman, searching for a diamond thief." You are a thief, without a passport or money. You want to leave the country." Etc....
At the outset, give written and illustrated sample sentence structures that might help-- this is also something you can do as a player during the course of the game. For example, "I use a ____(log, dead alligator, friend, horse) as a ____ (boat, bridge, petfood, screwdriver, hammer, winter coat, forewood).
Kids take turns saying aloud what they want to do:
"I walk forward five steps" "I turn left" "I use a shell as a screwdriver" "I trade a shell for a log", "I take a fish", etc.

c) 3~7-year-olds
Pet shop.
If there's a big, big pile of plush animal toys, have some kids be "customers" and other kids be vet, cashier, and so on. Some customers will use cash, others credit cards; some pets will be bought, others fed, still others cured.
The game is aaaalllmost as fun for an older crowd if you play "McDonald's Restaurant", but make sure the kids understand some fixed sentence patterns before starting, and have some papers to read from if they forget.

d) 2~80
Here's one that SOUNDS horrible, but actually works amazingly well. It's a five-minute game used to encourage inventiveness, courage and blurting at the end of each lesson. The horrible-sounding part is, this involved using a TV and a DVD-player, which SOUNDs like you're letting the TV babysit for you, when in effect you're just doing edu-tainment.
Choose a good cartoon or live-action mime (Pingu, Mr. Bean, or the slightly-too-violent Tom-and-Jerry, for example) on DVD. Show the video, and halt it every few seconds. Point to parts of the action and say "What's this? What color is this? What happened? What will he do?"
Each time a kid answers, express approval and let the video advance a second or two before stopping again. The kids quickly understand that blurting is OK, that you NEVER say "That's wrong", just "That's good! That, or... what else is good?", and that advancing the video is the reward for their answers.
I've used this with kids still in diapers, all the way up to adults, and it's always been a huge hit. With adults, you can get creative, like saying "Always use 'get' in your answer. For example, 'get sick, get up, get help, get red..."

Remember also that kids are typically easily bored, so a good lesson plan will have from 3 to 5 sub-elements: e.g., start with a song or a kid must do a weather report including today's date, or a game to recall last week's new vocabulary, then introduce new vocab/sentences with a particular game, then practice with another game, etc. etc.

Other hints:
1) demonstrate your singing, if it's for young kids. Too many teachers are too shy to be singing around kids, so employers will be impressed if you volunteer to sing.

2) Whenever possible, use silly voices and mnemonic devices that appeal to kids. Hand gestures, particularly self-explanatory sign language, will help kids to retain the information. For example, wave as you say "hello", or do a hula while saying "How are you" (Hawaii-U) or make C and U shapes when saying "See you....!"

[Venti]

[suki_monster]

awesome, thanks very much for all of the help, especially the specific lesson plan ideas for certain age groups and that one particular link.

My next question is, can anyone recommend a fun game that would help practice English conversation? I was thinking of maybe 20 Questions, but that would not be enough to fill up a 30 min. lesson plan. Then I thought maybe a Jeopardy-type game would be fun, but I can't really think of how to make it simple enough for conversation.

[suki_monster]

thought i'd give an update post-interview:


Had the AEON and Interac interviews this past weekend, thought I did pretty well but one can never be too sure. Does anyone know what either company typically looks for in a successful applicant? Both liked my teaching demonstrations (or at least they seemed to!), and I was invited back to the AEON personal interview. I guess at this point I'm just counting down the days until I hear back. So any help to maybe ease my impatience (maybe because it might just make me even more impatient) would be great.