Applying For The First Time (Part II)
About a week after I made the initial application for the eikaiwa job, I got a phone call for an interview. Be there at 10.30am sharp, in the city.
I managed to get there at 10.45am.
Ooooh, how the Japanese lady at the reception desk looked down on me! Even though I was the one standing up…
Lesson #1: DO NOT ARRIVE LATE! The Japanese revere punctuality and the people who’ll be interviewing you will have at least lived in Japan for many years, if they aren’t Japanese themselves.
Fortunately I didn’t miss much, there was only a session explaining everything that was already on the website. It was almost pointless except for the interesting personal stories that the staff shared. You could also ask them questions that you couldn’t easily ask a website. The information session was basically a reiteration of “Please read this information before continuing”. Like I said before, eikaiwa like to cover themselves.
After the info session we had to sit a grammar test. I don’t think I had any problems with it but anyone who wasn’t particularly brilliant in their English classes may want to brush up a bit before they sit this.
Next was a one-on-one interview. It involved going over what you had written in your original application (eg: reasons for wanting to live in Japan) as well some very fast paced questions. That was interesting. You were asked a question that you had to answer within three seconds and using no more than 2 or 3 words. It’s to get you to say the first thing that comes to your mind, rather than a speech you had constructed earlier. Some of the questions I was asked were “How would your friends describe you?” and “What kind of people don’t you like?”. As you can see, they’re definitely questions you hope you have good honest answers for.
Finally there was a roleplay session. The interviewer was one of your Japanese students and you were teaching him or her just like you would in Japan. There was a textbook passage to read, then you had to make up questions about the passage to ensure the student had understood what they had read. You also had to field questions about definitions or scenarios in the passage.
The roleplaying was an eye opener. It made me realise that I’ll be on my toes all the time during classes. It doesn’t really compare with the homestay conversation classes I did a few weeks ago, but that was still worthwhile because it taught me how I would need to prepare for classes.
But after having described the interview process like that, I have to say that probably isn’t so hard to pass. I say this because a friend of mine who applied online but then decided against going to Japan was called up again 3 months after he turned them down, to ask if he would reconsider. It seems this eikaiwa need a lot of teachers for September (I think because it’s the start of the new school year then). Edit: Apparently the Japanese school year starts in April. So I have no idea why teachers are in such high demand in September.
So I guess the interview was really to make sure that you spoke fluent English and weren’t dribbling or shouting “Monkeys!” randomly.
Kinda depressing, after all the stress I went through waiting for a response.
Ah well.
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