To begin with, I do find the course interesting. I like learning about teaching methodologies and such; and we've been going over English grammar, which I find surprisingly fun. I have a strange relationship with grammar: I enjoy learning about it, and I sometimes take a small amount of pride in knowing how to phrase and write certain things "properly", but other times I get really irritated by some of the ridiculous and arbitrary rules. (Ending a sentence with a preposition is perfectly okay, people! Sometimes it can even enhance the clarity of a sentence.) I guess you could say I like learning about language descriptively as opposed to prescriptively.
Anyhow, the course is jointly taught by two instructors; they teach together on Mondays but alternate for the other days. So far that hasn't been a lot of homework immediately due, but we have some big projects coming up in the near future. It can also be a bit exhausting being in class that effectively covers the same subject for ~7 hours at a time. (On the plus side, we do get breaks and at least change topics within the subject. We might, e.g., study grammar for the first half of the day and then teaching techniques for the remainder).
In the upcoming week, each of us TEFL trainees will be meeting with someone from outside our class to give a one-on-one practice lesson. To be more precise, we'll have two such meetings with our "students", the first largely to get a feel for what areas the student needs to focus on, and the second to do the actual teaching. Most of us will be giving lessons to the secretarial staff of the building that TEFL's renting, which may turn out a bit difficult since they already speak English competently. The one that I will meet with is particularly proficient--she taught English herself, at one point, though she is not a native speaker--which is frankly a bit intimidating, making me uncertain about how much she'll be able to learn from me. But at the least, I can probably help with some of her pronunciation, as that does have noticeable "anomalies". (Incidentally, she said she spent about 7 months living in Seattle for some school-related thing; I don't remember whether she was taking classes or if that was when she was teaching English herself. I wonder if it was at UW?)
So who knows how that will go.
Now for pictures! After the first day, one of the teachers led us trainees to a nearby bookstore, which had a surprisingly large English section. (Still overwhelmingly Japanese, though.) Relevant to our pursuits, they had a pretty decent selection of English-teaching workbooks and supplementary material for sale; but they also had little sub-categories for other subjects, as well as a general division between fiction and non-fiction. Here's a view pointing downward as I ascend an escalator. (Or... escalate via escalator. Whatever.)
A few assorted pictures:
Some European art books: (everything from here on out was in the English section, for future reference)
I think this was in the "contemporary fiction" category, although that wouldn't explain what the Illiad is doing there. Did someone write a wholly different book with the same title? Sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't remember.
English versions of Japanese manga (AKA comic books in the Japanese style):
Philosophy books! They had some interesting selections, but everything was pretty pricey; maybe I'll take a look again some time.
Japanese literature:
Speaking of, there was also these books, which were either in the Japanese Literature section or the neighboring Japanese Culture section:
Here's a slightly blurry picture from about the fourth floor or so; this bookstore is part of a larger shopping center that itself has underground stairs and tunnels that meet up with the Tokyo station. (The bookstore itself is multi-leveled, I might add: you might have guessed from the escalator shot earlier.)
Ah yes, this. This was a real oddity: a bizarre doll placed in a display window. The display window was off to the side of an in-store café; I have no idea what it was put there for. I do like this doll/display, though it is creepy.
Back in the non-English books section, this was a magazine rack/stand that was visible from one of the descending escalators.
Journey completed, this is Tokyo at night, on my way back to the station. There was a really neat-looking mist, smoke, dust, or fog of some sort in the air, though I don't think you can tell from this photo. It might have been caused by pollution--even though Tokyo is an extremely eco-conscious city--but it looked really rad regardless:
The Tokyo station boarding platform for my train line:
A little ways out from where I live, Harajuku, atop a bridge that crosses over traffic:
Ah, now I'm disrupting the chronological unfolding of events. This is a view of the water that surrounds the emperor's palace, quite nearby my TEFL course's building--which is to say, in Chiyoda, near the Tokyo station. I love how the light reflects off the water here.
More Tokyo at night...
Last photo for now, and back to daytime. During our lunch break, we TEFL trainees tend to walk to a nearby convenience store for food. I was snapping a photo of the traffic alongside when one of the other trainees unexpectedly ran in front of me, jumping and waving, which made me laugh. He came out weirdly stretched or flat looking, something to do with how my camera auto-focuses, I guess, and how it reacted to a fast moving object appearing right as the photo was taken.
Whoof, long post. Next I'll try to post about Friday night's adventures when I can. For now, suffice it to say that I had a lot of fun.
(Huh, someone's playing (or listening to) jazz somewhere near by. I hear a saxophone improvising. Wonder what that's about?)
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