Training Week

Phew! It's been awhile! Sorry for the delay but my training center didn't have any internet! Anyway, here I am, in Japan! I was greeted by this sign at the airport:

Yay! I'm here!

Then, we took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Okayama.

I'm such a tourist, I even took a picture of the train.

There were 13 of us in our training group which is a HUGE amount of trainees. We all lived in a company dorm that was basically just an apartment building converted to have a common are and no kitchen in the rooms. We had two days off before training began and we took advantage of it! First we went to the Okayama castle and gardens.

The gardens as viewed from a hill

We spent the night by going to an Izakaya (a traditional Japanese bar) and karaoke!

Karaoke-ing it up!

  Then, training began. I was told to expect something horrible and intense. I actually found it quite enjoyable! Maybe it was because I already had a background in teaching. They did a fantastic job of explaining some pretty sound teaching methods. The hardest part for me was to learn their drilling structure. I'm sure that will come in time. We got to prepare and practice teaching 4-5 lessons and then at the end of the week, we got to teach some real Japanese kids. They were fantastic and I had a lot of fun! I can't wait to start planning some lessons of my own and meeting my students. The training week wasn't all work either. I got to meet some awesome people and we went out a couple of times to experience Japan together.

We cooked dinner together

 

 

 

 

We went to another Izakaya

On the last night, the trainers took us to a nice dinner!

All in all, my first week in Japan has been AMAZING! I hope it stays that way now that I'm by myself and actually teaching.