The Teaching Bug

Sorry for the lack of posts the past week. I've been swamped with school work and my work term report. I havent had much time to do much else.

But yesterday I went to teach English. Basically this class is called Conversational English for Japanese students. There were three of us who were native English speakers teaching the class: Matt, a teacher in his late twenties from New Jersey, Anna (not Waterloo Ana, but another Anna) an earth sciences major also in her late twenties from Jamaica, and myself the undergrad engineering student from Canada. Basically we had to do a 20 minute presentation about each of our countries and discuss it with the Japanese students.

Anna and Matt went first since they had experience. So I had a chance to take some notes while observing their teaching techniques and I had also planned out what I was going to say. So by the time I went up, I was suprised how naturally it all came out. I knew exactly what to say, how to say it, and what to write on the blackboard. However, one bad habit I'm noticed I've picked up is that I'm starting to speak "Japanese English" to Japanese people, when I should be speaking proper English instead. I covered topics from Canadian geography, languages, multicultralism, food, sports, imports/exports, currency, animals, school system, weather/seasons, etc... I felt extremely invigorated on stage. This experience has really changed my perspective on possible career directions after graduation. I have defintely caught the teaching bug.