Job Discussion Forums

[purplelotus13]

I have an interview this weekend with Interac and part of the interview includes a three part presentation.
The first part is to simply greet an imaginary room of Jr High school students, as if I were there teacher and they knew me already.
This is to be done in English.
My question is, how do English teachers usually greet their Jr High Japanese classes?
This part should only be about 30 seconds.

The second part is to take a minute to introduce myself and say a few things about myself in Japanese. This part I pretty much have covered.

The last part is a 3 minute lesson for 5th graders. They gave us three topics to choose from: numbers 1-5, days of the week, or colors. I have chosen colors.
We are encouraged to use any method or media we like when giving the lesson. I was thinking about simply writing the English words on colored construction paper and doing a quick drill and then maybe making up a short song at the end (prepared in advance obviously).
Does this sound like a good idea?

[flyingkiwi]

For greetings, just say 'Good morning/afternoon' and 'How are you today' in a big, friendly voice. I don't know what else you can do that Junior high kids will understand, unless you taught them a new greeting/response, which I did with my high school kids, e.g. "How's it going"/"Good thanks, how about you?" I really hated the robotic, "I'm fine thank you and you".

For the 3 minute lesson, thankfully I never had an interview like that. I don't think any lesson is 3 minutes long. It takes 3 minutes to just do the pronunciation practice!

[markle]

Seriously, for Interac, make sure you have a pulse and you'll be fine. In fact if you speak English too well (let alone teach it) you might be overqualified.

[Quibby84]

you have to give a 3 min lesson? what kind of lesson is that?
As far as greetings go, we walk in and the japan. teacher says "good morning everyone" and the kids say "good morning mrs. hashosdfas" then I say "good morning everyone" and they say "good morning melissa sensei"...then I ask "how is the weather?" "what is the date today" "what is the day today?" and that is all...it seems like it would be hard to do though when you have no actual students...I guess you could always just pretend like you were all the students and run back and forth from the front of the class to a desk..hehe.

[purplelotus13]

that's encouraging:-)

Markle, would you say Interac has pretty low standards then? They were recommended to me from a friend of mine working in a high school in Tokyo (she has a masters in education so she has her own class and is not an ALT).

I also have an interview with AEON in February. I'm not sure which I'd prefer at this point since this is my first experience trying to teach in Japan. They both seem to have their good and bad points.

Thanks everyone!

[purplelotus13]

The email I got from them with the information for the interview said this:
Drill an imaginary group of 5th Year Elementary School Japanese students on ONE of the following topics:
1. Numbers 1-5
2. Days of the Week
3. Colours

It didn't give much more than that. It is going to be video taped though and I believe some of the Japanese staff will also be there.

[southofreality]

[purplelotus13]

well that is certainly interesting. I'll be sure to post about my experience this weekend.
If I'm offered a job with them, I suppose I don't have to take it if I don't feel good about it.

[flyingkiwi]

I would take Interac over AEON t.b.h.

With interact you are sent to a school and get to interact with the kids, go to culture days, work 'normal hours', etc. Things that you can't get working for an eikaiwa.

[southofreality]

[Quibby84]

Alt jobs also let you stay home when you are sick, you could be bleeding internally and externally and you couldnt take a day off in an eikawa...

[AgentMulderUK]

[purplelotus13]

I know dispatch companies are getting a bad rap, but waiting another year to apply with JET isn't really an option unfortunately. I got the ball rolling just a tad too late for that this year and I want to start grad school before I'm 30 (or at least right after I turn 30).

I posted a new topic with this, but thought I would post it here too:

I just had my interview with Interac in Houston on Saturday.
The first 3 hours (from 9am-noon) was a basic presentation about the company, living in Japan, and what to expect working as an ALT (including expenses, living situation, school arrangements, etc).
We also took a short grammar test (easy) and a personality test (interesting).
There were 2 other guys and a couple (the wife was actually applying to be a French teacher for Interac).

It was very informal and relaxed.

After the presentation we had our individual interviews. I went first. It was very much like all the other interviews I've ever had. The interviewer asked me work related questions and just got a general sense of why I wanted to go to Japan and how I would adjust to living there. We discussed my current ESL teaching position and how I had dealt with certain situations and how I had used creativity in creating my lesson plans.
After that came my 5 minute presentation which was video taped.
Only the recruiter was present, no Japanese staff.

The first part I simply had to pretend I was greeting a high school class that already knew me. This was about 30 seconds.

I then introduced myself to the camera as if I was introducing myself to a group of teachers I would be working with. I introduced myself in Japanese, said a few things about my teaching experience (in both Japanese and English since my Japanese is currently very basic), and then said a few things in Japanese about my hobbies and interests.
That took just over a minute.

Then finally I did a mock lesson plan for elementary school students.
I basically made some flash cards of 6 different colors and did a short drill, using hand gestures to indicate that the students should repeat what I said over and over again.

Then that was it and I had to drive back to Austin:-)

I think it went pretty well. The recruiter created a very relaxed environment and I found I actually had quite a few things in common with her.
She sent out emails to my work references yesterday and said I should know something either at the end of the month or right at the beginning of January.