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cordial shit as i got so rattled by this disconnect between my expectations and the reality that my hands shook and i hastily cut short my self introduction so as to steady my nerves so be prepared to interact with people who are polite but not exactly warm these usual suspects would surface during your interview so make sure you have good answers for them 1 why do you want to do the jet programme 2 how long do you want to be in the jet programme 3 what are your plans after your jet stint 4 how would you feel if you are posted to an area with no internet access 5 have you ever been to japan for what purpose 6 why did you choose your first choice in my case it was kumamoto 7 how would you feel if you are not given any of your three choices after reaffirming them that i would leave it to fate regarding whether i got posted to kumamoto the american looked up from my statement of purpose and here s when the real grilling began 1 you must have taught many foreign students throughout your career how do you address their needs 2 in the japanese classroom the japanese teacher will be the one transmitting the finer points on grammer how do you see your role as an alt 3 how will you measure the success of your involvement in the classroom 4 it seems that you have taught two weeks in vietnam before how will you translate this experience into the japanese classroom 5 what technological trends will you harness to teach english to the japanese 6 are you fond of japanese pop culture question 3 really stumped me given that the emphasis of the jet programme seems centered on cultural interaction i didn t expect to have to justify my presence in the stint so i hesitantly bit the bullet and said i don t think it s easy to produce quantifiable outcomes but if the children open up and be more forthcoming then i would say that i am doing good all the while trying to quell the voice in my mind that screamed he will think that you re not answering the question luckily i thought of one of myargonauts videos incidentally his youtube vlogs detailing how you should prepare for jet application are a must watch that illustrated how he conducted an oral test with his students i then abruptly switched tone to say how i would conduct an oral test to determine if i was indeed effective haha i can t remember my full response to question 4 i said something like how my students and i used picture description to polish the vietnamese children s oral presentation skills and how i would get my japanese students to prepare answers to various questions so that i would have more time for discussion in the classroom for question 5 another question that surprised me since i thought japanese teachers still predominantly use the chalkboard i brought up how i would get students to post journal entries on lang 8 com a social networking site that allows your entries to be corrected by native speakers upon seeing the american s deadpan expression which set the alarm bells ringing impossibly louder in my head i stated that i would set a twitter account for the entire class if students are scared to have their entries corrected in a public forum i share my answers to these questions in detail because i left the interview feeling absolutely shitty about my chances jets are rotated among several schools so it is not unusual if you meet your students once a fortnight or month i was so busy trying to control my nerves and thinking of sensible answers quickly to avoid awkward silences that i didn t have the presence of mind to articulate how feasible my suggestions would be on hindsight i could have simply prefaced my answer with a i understand that jets do not just work in one school so if i meet my students once a fortnight this is what i would do and tried to explain how the class twitter would work so hopefully this insight helps you to sound more intelligent lol you will have to stoically endure the longest and most agonising wait of your life after the interview coupled by the fact that you will be second guessing your answers and cursing at yourself for screwing up i m not being melodramatic every other day i thought about how simplistic i had come across and prayed that it was indeed true that the interview wasn t the sole determinant to secure the job you just have to live the next two months of your life as best and dignified as you can the thing that really helped me get through this period was reading how a fellow singaporean secured an alt job on his own by flying to japan on a student visa and securing the job there http gaijinhan wordpress com 2010 11 27 a singaporean alt in japan the old adage when there s a will there s a way never resounded so definitively for me before good luck for your upcoming interview and i hope it works out posted by heng at 3 59 am 0 comments thursday january 28 2010 before the big 3 0 ii i never had the appetite for business to be honest i don t think male teachers get a lot of respect in singapore if i can generalise what my student once uttered to be a sentiment held commonly like you meh still teach in yjc i never did let him finish that thought because i hastily interrupted excuse me i am moving on to sp ha now he wasn t being malicious i think he thinks that teachers don t actually amount to much a sentiment shared by ricky my kor from ns days who once tried very hard to make me think about setting up my own business using himself the o level graduate who earns a five figure sum as an example and volunteering to find me contacts he said bluntly that he thought i was a little selfish for not wanting to aspire to a greater life how can my mum hold her head up high when her son is just a teacher now he wasn t being malicious but since i have always wanted to have a job that allows me to interact with people from all walks of life i am quite happy to be a salaried employee for if i become my own boss won t my contacts be limited to people working in the same industry how will i gain wisdom from people who are living lives so drastic from mine i don t really care if people feel that i am not living up to my potential whatever that means as long as i am learning stuff and doing cool stuff in my job something however stirred in me while i was finishing up chem tuition this tuesday it suddenly seemed to me so ridiculous that the happiest part of the day 7 9pm be darned was my cca i do like my work at sp it s just that over the past year i have grown to realise that the way i function best is with small groups of students who have devoted single mindedly to learning from me for that period no need for classroom discipline no need to strategise about the best time to give breaks so that the lesson won t be disrupted solid intensive work for 1 2 hours straight po bronson once wrote that when he was starting out as a writer he was very humbled that his professor a dying aids patient steadfastly invested 2 hours every week painstakingly going through his every sentence and imparting to him the mechanics of good writing i thought it was awfully noble of that professor but now i am not so sure it s very gratifying and flattering to realise that i am the one who is opening their eyes to the fundamentals of chemistry that i am setting their foundation right something that they can tap on regardless of the educational route they undertake in the future and with the hindsight of age and experience i can confidently lead the reins and guide students on a journey showing them how the chemistry concepts are inter related i am a better chem tutor than i was last year and i will only get better in time to come with my credentials in english i am confident that i won t fumble too badly if i just quit sp and open my tuition centre and go all out to secure students my seven month stay at sp has whetted my appetite for enterprise simply because what ricky said to me makes more sense as the days go by if you are investing so much energy and effort in something that something ought to be some thing you can call your own hell yes as a man i need this some thing to validate my existence except that the thing that brings me joy the thing that i am good at isn t something i particularly want to do as a full time job the world is so big i know i will feel trapped within the four walls of my tuition centre and pine for the good ole days of email ping pong ing in sp because it allowed me to meet people and yes i should give myself one tight slap am i unnecessarily complicating my life with my dos and don ts so i remain a salaried employee a satisfied but restless one posted by heng at 9 47 pm 0 comments before the big 3 0 i jan 09 i have come to a stage in life where i think blogging is self indulgent and lack the motivation to blog because nothing exciting enough happens anyway but i was looking at an ex student s reflection for 2009 and his conviction behind his smooth flowing words stirred the impulse in me to write now i think it s fitting to start this with a reference to an ex student since the question that has consumed me last year was this do i regret spending my youth the best years of my life as a teacher it s a question hard for me to answer especially since i went for a 4 hour writing test with singapore press holdings sph i resolved to be a journalist since sec 2 and that writing test seemed to be my last ditch effort to make this adolescent dream a reality indeed this is when i learnt how determined i could be for in the weeks after the verbal interview with sph i passed the writing test i called nearly every week to ask the hr personnel if i was selected as a translator i wanted it so badly this is the first time in which i felt for myself how this instinct to go seize what you want was wired into my dna as a descendant of the primitive caveman i didn t get a confirmation or rejection for that matter from sph after all ironically maybe it worked out for the best that i didn t get a call after all for i wouldn t then have to choose between sph and sp i will never never forget how my director generously remarked so sp is lucky to have you after i confessed to her that sph never got back to me no matter how overworked i am in sp this year i shall hold on to that and try my best not to complain for it s one of those remarks that cut straight to my core and warmed me to bits i guess it s fitting also that i spent two weeks as an exchange student at the beijing language and culture university it s nice to just sit back and observe a fellow professional and think about how well she was teaching the chinese professors follow the conventions of a successful lesson quite naturally they detailed learning objectives summed up the lesson by giving a task and followed up on the task the next lesson more importantly they appeared to be knowledgeable on their subject area and if there s one thing i m impressed about the chinese it s the way they appear so profound and cultured with their liberal use of cheem sounding bombastic phrases to some end it kinda fired me up to want to do better after i returned to singapore i was about to end this with a comment about how gratified i felt yesterday when i saw how some of my students rwp reports were shaping up but as i was writing this i was chatting with sophea my tour guide in cambodia who was also an ex teacher before long we were swopping horror stories regarding the woes of teaching apparently in cambodia some school principals punish teachers who are unable to finish the syllabus at the end of the year there is even a running joke about how parents will fail to give the teacher credit when their children are performing well but will readily pinpoint the blame on him when their children don t do well sounds familiar teachers lead sad and tragic lives everywhere i commented only half in jest i guess i feel that i have not yet conquered teaching so it is all right if i am still in teaching i m not so sure whether this justifies the heartaches and qualifies as youth well invested but i think i am coming to be at peace with myself these past few months it s a comfortable feeling posted by heng at 9 47 pm 0 comments my fairytale ending regarding combat shoot not dec 09 i think kaile doesn t mind either way kai wei my platoon mate confidently announced his assessment of me when asked to guess which members of the section had opted to reshoot the combat shoot hey i wanted to reshoot i protested but secretly wondered if my easy going demeanour was so apparent to someone whom i had only met for the third time and not for an extended period of interaction either but i could see where kai wei was coming from hell i surprised myself too by wanting to reshoot my track record prior to this combat shoot wasn t exactly what one would call glamourous my officer commanding once half chided in exasperation your scores for your various trials are so random that i don t know what to make of them now not only was i a bobo shooter but i was an inconsistent bobo shooter so inconsistent that my experienced officer commanding couldn t think of ways to redeem my performance much as he wanted to boost the number of men who attained marksman for their atp his words were so impactful that i was rather nervous when i knew that this in camp training only comprised rifle training of course i had passed the conversion course to sar21 two years ago but 1 when you are fast approaching 30 two years feels like half a generation 2 let s not mince our words we all know how idiot proof these saf tests are and 3 i had still never handled sar21 in a live firing and was particularly concerned that i would choke if i had to rectify ias on the spot my hands shaking leading to a misfire not a pretty thought but somehow i didn t hyperventilate and marched out there to do my day combat shoot along with the rest of my section mates maybe it was the nod jie wen cast my way before we commenced the fire and movement i did need time to adjust i took too long to focus and fired off my last shoot just as the target board was coming down during my first station aside from that lone shot i got the rest of them in the bag 19 20 my section s combined score 117 140 not spectacular true but still eligible for marksmanship our night shoot was when our hearts got broken for the first time directly after our shoot we were informed that we missed the requirement for marksmanship by only 3 shoots which was ironic because one of us returned 3 live rounds due to an ia he promptly apologised for that feeling that he had let the section down while we pooh poohed his apology aside valiantly stating that no one was to be blamed that it was fate that we didn t get marksmanship my dejection felt more raw because what if i had been the bobo shooter who got a single digit for his night shoot and dragged the entire section down with him it s surreal this kind of emotional ambivalence that i felt on the one hand i wished desperately for someone to announce our individual scores so tha...