ETJ
Today, an ETJ conference (English Teachers Japan) was held at Chukyo University, in Nagoya. Eri and I went, as did my boss because he was presenting (although he would have gone even if he wasn’t).
It’s basically just a variety of presentations from people who have experience with teaching English in Japan, and you can choose which presentations you want to attend.
Eri and I went to three. The first one, the presenter didn’t show up. But, the representative from the company that publishes the book she was going to be talking about was there, and he talked for a good while instead. He was great, funny and easy going. I talked to him later, and he was really nice.
They also had a great book that we’re thinking of using in some of our classes, so I’m excited about that. It’s a writing journal, and it has 90 different prompts to start kids off. Basically, they can write as much or as little as they want. My boss seemed to like it too, so we’ll see if we get it or not, haha.
The next presentation was all about phonics, and how EFL learners learn to read, and how they are generally, currently taught. Honestly, it was a lot like being back in school, haha. It was obvously quite linguistic based, so it had a lot of overlap with the courses I used to take. I enjoyed it a lot, and it made me want to start getting back into studying more linguistic stuff.
Especially and socio-ling. I really loved socio-ling.
I wish I still had access to my university’s online database so I could read articles for free, haha.
After that we headed to lunch, at an Indian place and had curry. CHEESE CHICKEN CURRY FTW. It was fun though, Sean came too (he actually invited us) and he paid, which was super sweet because he didn’t have to at all. Eri and I were surprised.
His presentation was that afternoon, and he needed some more photocopies, so Eri and I offered to go make them. Oddly enough, I had a stapler in my purse, so that worked out well for stapling them together. Yes, I have weird things in my purse. A fork, included.
So yes… we watched Sean’s presentation which seemed to go well. He talked about 5 good games that get 100% participation in the classroom. Of course, these are games we use at school, so it was cool to see him teaching other people about them.
I feel really lucky to have a really great boss, and awesome co-workers. I think I can definitely say I lucked out on this job… well, all my jobs really.
And speaking of other jobs, the next post is memories from the campground.
Why? Because I can.
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