Initial Certification at GABA
In my first ‘real’ week of work, I spent 3 days on the initial certification training at GABA, called ‘bootcamp’ by the instructors. The training was a mixture of learning GABA policy, proficiency levels, learning materials, lesson flows etc and what everyone dreads: observed lessons. Each day was 9 hours long and it was really tough, there were 12 of us altogether in my group.
Everyone was super friendly and the certifier did his best to keep things lighthearted and to keep us awake through those long days. In the last two days we taught 4 full observed lessons, with a few other shorter ‘test lessons’ dotted throughout the course.
Although it was 3 days, overall I felt pretty confident with the training, and then spent my 4th day at my home LS of Shinjuku.
Starting Work
On my first day of induction in my LS I decided to open up 3 lessons in the evening – all of which booked up. Perhaps a little pressure by my ISL (instructor support leader) had something to do with it. I then taught 6 lessons on Saturday and 7 on Sunday. So far my lessons have been rated as 5 out of 5 (that’s good!) by my students so I’m happy with how things are going. Here’s a picture of me in my booth, I teach students one-to-one in these.
Jennie sensei
Yesterday after work (at 11pm!) I messed around with my friend Jamie from Initial Cert, we were lucky to have someone else from our LS in our training sessions.
Jamie and I after teaching until 10:40pm
We had to be quick to take these! Not sure if it was really allowed…
Gaba Posterchild
Living in Okubo is still great fun, as long as I can keep booking lessons I’ll be able to stay here a while. I live around 4 minutes from Shin-Okubo station. It would probably take 2 minutes usually, but Okubo is so crowded that you can never walk at your own pace. I live on a turning off this main road.
Okubo
Other than work, what else have I been doing? On one of my first nights in Tokyo I met up with an old friend from the UK, Aleister. Although it’s probably a little shallow, karaoke is possibly one of my favourite things about Japan. Here’s how it usually goes down after selecting your karaoke venue.
1. Get on the booze phone
2. Enjoy some tequila shotto
3. Take photos while waiting for the last train home
On this fateful sauza-filled night, we discussed ‘losing the magic’ in Tokyo. After a while living as a gaikokujin in Tokyo, it’s very easy to become complacent and live your life as normal. This is great and may work for some people, but being a foreigner in Tokyo can open you up to come wonderful spontaneous events. Taking Aleister’s advice after my tough first week in Japan, I went to find the magic.
First I went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. I found my magic stepping out onto the 45th floor.
I love this city
On a clear day you can see Mt. Fuji behind the skyscrapers. This building is located in Shinjuku and it’s free to go up to the observation towers on the 45th floor – a great cheap alternative to going up Tokyo Tower. The large green area in the centre is Meiji Jingu and its grounds. I went there next.
Meiji Jingu
At most shrines in Japan, you can buy an ‘ema’ – a votive tablet upon which you write prayers. They are then offered to the deities of the shrine at ‘mikasei’, the morning ceremony held every day. I decided to write my own.
My Ema
My ema joined the many others that had been written that day. There are hundreds written in many different languages.
Ema
I’ll write about this in my next blog, but yesterday I went to Ueno and saw an ema that I really liked. While we’re on the subject, I’ll leave you with it.
