Friday 19th May

Last Friday I had an interview at Saxoncourt/SHANE. It was conducted by a man who looked like a cross between Matt Lucas and Larry Grayson. Generally, he sweated a lot and had to excuse himself to be sick. I’m serious.

“So what skills do you have to offer, bearing in mind……oooh….excuse me…..uurggh…..I’ve got to go…”


Good start.


The interview was two hours long. I tried to be as enthusiastic, and he tried not to spew on me by raising a fist to his mouth as if playing an imaginary trumpet.

When he wasn’t stifling a technicolour yawn, his interrogation comprised a mix of obvious questions: “Why Japan ?“

…..and curve balls:

Interviewer: Now, I’ve got to tell you..…young lad like you…. you’ll do very well in Japan ; easy to get girlfriends

Me: er……

Interviewer: What would you do if a student passes you a note at the end of the class saying ‘I love you’?

Me: Er….. (coughing into a low, manly tone of voice) well of course I’d explain to her that teachers must maintain a professional relationship with their students

Other questions included:

Are your parents supportive of your move?
What are you looking forward to least?
What aspects of the culture will you embrace?
How do you teach 3 year-olds?
I think I’m going to retch again, could you stand back?


My advice to SHANE candidates is that the interview appears to be designed primarily to gauge your enthusiasm, and find out a little bit more about you. The hard work is done on the application form which, frankly, is a bit tricky.

Sample question: What’s the difference between: she needn’t have done it & she didn’t need to do it?


The corporate video was surprisingly engaging, but belied someone who had clearly discovered that the edit suite had 56 different fade/wipe/dissolve effects, and wanted to use every single one. Twice.

“Let’s make this shot of the pagoda disappear up that guy’s nose. Brilliant”.

It was a bit like Top Of The Pops circa 1986. (Cue Paul Hardcastle’s The Wizard)


Left not really knowing how I’d done. Poor bloke was obviously ill. But would it affect his judgement?

Excuse the out-of-skew dates. I wrote a number of entries before I had even created my blog, and unfortunately the site gives the posts the date they were published.