Working Girl

I've officially had 2 days of work now so I guess it's time for an update.

Day 1 was overwhelming but seemed fairly simple.  Lots of information and lots of people to meet.  However it all seemed very straightforward and is a good system for teaching.  I observed a couple lessons and tried to orient myself with the materials available.  Once I got back to the house I was able to meet the other tenants here, including the other girl who is training with me.  Everyone I've met so far as been really kind and I've enjoyed getting to know everyone.

Day 2 (yesterday) was much tougher than the first day and was a roller coaster of 'What am I doing, I should go home' and 'THIS IS AMAZING'.  It started out fine, walked to school with my fellow trainee, and had some more training for an hour.  Then I had to teach my first lesson....which went about as well as you'd expect...which is terrible.  Thankfully the student had excellent English and I was able to keep her entertained and focused during class...but everything else was horrible.  Therefore, when it came time for my second lesson alone I completely blanked, went all 'deer in headlights', and even began to cry in front of the head teacher.  Not my proudest moment.

Thankfully he was incredibly understanding, and when I apologized to him afterwards we discussed what we could do to help get my confidence up in teaching (I'm an observer, so I'll be observing more lessons to learn).  The owner was surprisingly happy with my first (and only) lesson of the day and thought that for having no experience and only day 2 that I did fine.  The head teacher thinks some more detailed lesson planning at first will be helpful for us new trainees so we're doing 2 hrs of that for our 2 lessons today.  I'm feeling MUCH more confident about these, as I'm extremely prepared and have seen a few more lessons.

After work we were invited out for a drink with some of the other teachers and had a great time getting to know each other, eating new foods (pig intestine is not that bad!!), and encouraging one another.  In fact, the girl who evaluated my fail of a first lesson was there and was very encouraging that I can only get better with practice.

FUN STORY OF THE DAY:

While we were in the little bar having drinks and food the Japanese patrons were very curious about us and were having a good time watching us 'gaijin's.  They had our friend relay a message to Denver (fellow trainee) and I that we looked like Barbie's :):)  My blog name has been approved!!!