Interview over
Well how about that, no blogging for a week then two posts in the space of an hour!!I’ve just had my interview and though I’d document how it went before it all slipped from the rather murky depths of my mind. I’ve got be quick tho cause I need to finish my last university assignment and hand it in today. Then I’m freeeeeeeeeeeee!
I got a call from the school. It seemed to go well. The phone line was good, the interviewees English wasn’t great – needs a bit of work on pronunciation (I sound like an English teacher already!) – but I could comprehend pretty much everything he was saying to me.He told me I’d be teaching Elementary or Middle school children, which sounds fine to me because it means I don’t need to get into complicated grammar etc with them – which for the record I need to learn cause as a native English speaker you don’t learn about past present simple and past perfect continuous tenses or whatever they were called!!
He began by telling me that children are children and they play up occasionally, which is to be expected I suppose. He warned me that I would have to have a lot of patients. Then he asked me if I liked children – I don’t think my standard answer of I hate children would have gone down well here – so I told him that it’s amazing watching kids grow and I was really excited about teaching them English!!! It’s not a total lie – I’ve come to the conclusion of late that children are actually quite nice so long as you can give them back at the end of the day. Which is exactly what you do when you are teaching. I had a bit of a bonding experience with my godson Jak when I went for lunch with his mum, Laura a couple of months ago. I even took Jak to play on the swings, Laura was gobsmacked!!!
Anyone fancy an interview
Not a good start. I’ve been meaning to update this for a while but haven’t got round to it.As it happens I never had the interview for the teaching position that day. I’m still not sure why but I think it had something to do with the dates I could leave England.
Anyway as I write this I am once again waiting for a Koren school to call and interview me. I have got one step further this time the Koren coordinator has called me and given me some interview tips – well to be friendly – was all he said. And told me the school would call in about five minutes.
I’m kind of going with two friends (more on that in a later post). One of my friends, Emily, had her interview the other week and she has told me what questions they asked her so this time I’m semi prepared. But for some reason that is just making me more nervous. However it seems almost impossible not to get a job!!! Now I’ve said that watch this space for the bad news!!!!
Emily said her interview went really badly, firstly because of a really bad phone line and a massive time delay on the line, and secondly because she couldn’t understand a word of what the interviewer was saying to her – no a good start. She did however get the position so she must have been doing something right.
Anyway, that me for now. I'll check back with details of how the interview went.
The journey begins
I am sat here waiting for the phone to ring and there to be a Korean person on the other end ready to interview me for a teaching job! Strangely I’m not that nervous, maybe because I know it will only be a five minute interview or maybe because I know there is nothing I can prepare and I know I just need to do my best and hope it’s enough.
So, I guess the journey begins here.
I spent last weekend sat in a very hot hotel room in Leeds learning how to teach English. I am now equipped to walk into a classroom, take charge and actually pass my knowledge on to others – or at least I’m supposed to be! It’s a scary thought that someone is going to leave me in charge of a class of children. The course was good and I’ve come away understanding the basics of teaching English, I have an idea of how to plan a lesson, how to decided what to teach and how to do it in a way that will keep the children entertained – hopefully! So maybe I am equipped for my first day working as an English teacher.
I’d never though about teaching before this opportunity came up and I’ve never been fond of children, so even to me it seems like a very odd thing to be doing. A friend of mine who taught in Taiwan for two years assures me that I will grow to love the children – as she did during her time as a teacher.
The thing that really scares me is that I am going to in a country where I can’t even comprehend the alphabet let alone speak the language. And from what I’ve been told so far I am likely to be the only native English speaker at the school, and possibly one of only two people at the school who can speak any English – that could make for some very lonely break times – if I get any that is!
