Shitting Myself

Yesterday was our opportunity to plan lessons ready for teaching next week.

None of us feel we are really ready for this. Instructions and guidance has been vague, and really SHANE is putting a lot of trust in us.

They do admit it is a baptism of fire and it appears as if this is par for the course. I suppose it makes sense to get teachers out there actually teaching rather than overload them with theory.

However, Steve, Helmut and I likened this sitting your driving test after someone had read out the Ford Focus owner’s handbook and then showed you a video of a stationary car.

“Yes, you’ll probably crash….you might even hit a few old ladies, but it’s better to be out there learning how to drive than sitting in here learning stopping distances”

I have about 20 lessons to plan for. In one day, I managed to get two planned. The maths is not exactly stacking up. Met a SHANE teacher called Paul in an English bar last night in Omiya (The King George). He essentially extolled the virtues of common sense.

“Have you got a CELTA” he asked.

“Yes” I replied.

(shrugs his shoulders) “Piece of piss for you, then”

“Really?”

“Use your common sense. You’ll be fine”.


I would feel a bit better knowing that the expectation on me as a teacher is not particularly high at the moment. How can it be? I’ve had a week’s training and pushed straight into 25 hours a week.

I just wish SHANE had acknowledged more readily that “yes, you should feel like you’re not ready for this....that’s completely normal”

Incidentally, in the pub, I ordered that most British of dishes: a chicken korma. When it came it was a deep terracotta brown. Didn’t look like a korma. Didn’t taste like on either; it was so hot I went into the future. Expecting toilet trouble later.

Drank 5 pints of beer. A bit of a record for me as that usually results in me needing 39474 trips to the bathroom. But for reasons unknown to science, I actually held up pretty well.

On the way back to Omiya station it became apparent that we were in a red light district. Didn’t notice it on the way in as everything was shut and it was daylight.

But now girls had spilled out on to the streets, dressed in alluring satin dresses and feather boas and the lamps were now in the windows.

Bizarrely, however, though accosting Japanese men, the girls looked straight through us. We were invisible. And it was very strange. Apparently, they refuse to take business from Westerners.

I think this is the first time I have ever experienced anything even vaguely approaching racial discrimination.

And it makes you feel a little bit angry.

Not that I would have given them any business, you understand, but there’s principle at stake.

I like to think I’m as inadequate a lover as the next man.