Hi! I've been reading about your trials and tribulations, and I can totally empathize and identify with your situation since I also want to go to Japan and had been rejected by Nova over a year ago. I'm attempting to join Aeon so we will see how that goes.
I know you kinda have your heart set on South Korea now, but if you want to give Japan one more try (maybe even as just practice for future oversea esl interviews) my friend who used to teach at Nova and then changed his job to teaching public jr high school recommended this company.http://www.interac.co.jp/recruit/cgi-bin/index.cgi/welcome/home.html
He got his public school job through them and highly recommends this ALT route over Nova and Aeon. I believe they recruit overseas. I hope that you would consider this cuz after reading some of your entries I think you would have a lot to offer your students and to the people of Japan. Anyways good luck whichever path you decide, and now that I'll keep on reading to see how everything turns out.PS I'm planning on looking into this also as my alternative/backup to Aeon since I know their application process is really competitive.
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----- Original Message ----
From: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
To: anonymous-comment@blogger.com
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 3:42:56 AM
Subject: Re: [black, asia, & teaching esl]
11/09/2006 12:14:04 AM
wow, thank you SO MUCH for your email!!!!! i really appreciate your comments!
japan is still in the back of my mind, i will go there eventually, but right now im really excited and set for korea. the opportunity to save so much money is too appealing right now.
any idea why nova turned you down? it's a blessing, it opens you up to take advantage of the right opportunity. when will you interview with aeon? aeon seems like a really good company, i wish you the best of luck. do you have a website/blog as well? i'd love to see it.
if/when you make it to japan, do keep in touch. i understand that korea is just a skip away from japan, Sister, perhaps we can meet up some time? ... or is it brother?
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----- Original Message ----
From:
To: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 2:09:28 AM
Subject: Re: Hi
Hi,Well I got that evil letter from Aeon yesterday that said I got turned down. I figured as much when I didn't receive a call by Friday during the week of the interview, and none of my references were contacted.
Talking to some of the other interviewees there, it sounds like Aeon is way competitive and a very picky company. One of the interviewees said out of four of his friends that applied (he said all were bright guys and carried themselves well), only one got in. The other three interviewed at Nova later and all three were offered positions.
I thought I did farwelly well at the interview, but I guess they chose other candidates. Going in I realized Aeon was a long shot, so I was pretty well prepared for this outcome, as long as I personally thought I did a good job during the interview.
As for my interview with Nova a year ago, I just totally jacked up the lesson part of it and wasn't in the right frame of mind to interview. Looking back at it, I was going through some personal, financial, as well as family problems and I should have just postponed my decision to interview until things had settled down. Oh well what's done is done and you just have to move on. If I only interviewed at Nova a year ago like I did at Aeon this past month, I think I would had been offered a position back then.
Speaking of more happy news, I realized pretty quickly that Aeon was going to turn me down, so before I even received my rejection letter, I applied to the Interac company that I sent you the link for. They are having interviews in San Francisco on the 9th/10th of December so hopefully I will be invited for the info meeting and 50 minute personal interview. There's no essay to write, no group lesson to create, no 2nd interview, none of that. Hopefully this company will be more willing to hire teachers, and hopefully they will have a lot of positions to fill for the upcoming jr high school year in April. I've already been contacted by them and have sent back my completed application, so I'm just waiting to hear from them to see if I'm invited to the info session.Third times the charm right?!!! If this doesn't work out, I wonder if Nova would be willing to reinterview me? I guess that's the backup to Interac. Hahaha...
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----- Original Message ----
From: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
To:
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 3:18:46 AM
Subject: Re: Hi
hi a! im so sorry to hear about aeon... a little glad too, it re-affirms for me that i wasnt the problem when they didnt hire me. if both you AND me didnt get it, then it's just something about the company, not us. forget aeon, interac sounds good. and im sure nova would re-interview you if you want to pursue that. i dont know what their policy is; i know for aeon, they will do a second interview a minimum of 6 months later.
have you considered jet? i have a friend in japan with jet and she's loving it, and is going to renew her contract. before deciding on korea, i nearly applied with geos. the geos interview is three days, and lasts all morning and all afternoon for those three days. they suggested i bring supplies (colored paper, magazines, glue, etc) to prepare an impromptu lesson plan on day two. i appreciate the thorough interview process, but other esl jobs are much more easily obtained.
have you been reading up elsewhere about the esl field in japan? i read a lot on eslcafe.com for south korea, they of course have a good japanese forum as well. japannewbie.com is really good for japan, check that out if you havent yet. if you dont get interac, or if you decide to forget interviewing with them, i know you can find a job on your own. shoot, just come to south korea with me!best of luck, do keep me updated. have you blog or a website i can check out?
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----- Original Message ----
From: >
To: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 10:05:57 AM
Subject: Interac responds
Hi,So yesterday Interac called and they gave me a telephone screening for about 30 minutes, and afterwards they invited me to their info meeting/personal interview on Dec 9th. Hopefully everything goes well. It doesn't sound like too many people are going to be attending the meeting since the 1:1 interview portion lasts from 1p - 9p and they are only interviewing that day or rescheduling people for early Sunday. Interviews last about 50 minutes.
Seems like Interac is more like Nova and less like Aeon or Geos (actually they are the largest private recruiters of ALT -- at least that's what the recruiter told me). They're requiring the same college docs, copy of dipolma, and passport photos up front. As part of the interview they are going to tape 5 minutes of it where I introduce myself to an imaginary class, introduce myself to Japanese teachers, and teach students colors or numbers for the last 3.5 minutes. I pressume they are going to use this to have jr high schools select their teacher.
I told them I have a preference for an urban setting, but since it's teaching jr. high I wouldn't be surprised if most of the positions are in the boonies somewhere. An urban setting is probably going to be a suburb about an hour away from a big city.
The whole process doesn't sound nearly as daunting as Aeon's and no where close to what you told me about Geos. I just need to focus and get past the interview and taping. I'll let you know how things go after the interview. It definitely seems more realistic than getting hired by Aeon -- that felt more like a crap shoot after hearing that guy tell me how many of his friends got turned down by then, but accepted by Nova later.Anyways... I used to have a blog, but I haven't updated that thing for well over a year now. Maybe I'll restart one if I get this job.
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----- Original Message ----
From: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
To: @yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 10:44:55 AM
Subject: Re: Interac responds
sounds like interac is looking good. good luck in your interview. do you have a suit and all that picked out for your dec 9 interview? try to time a haircut about a week or two before the interview. and i vote for you starting a blog again, all this "process stage" is important for those that come after us. i had a phone interview with CDI last night, it went great. im really excited about this school. ive of course read a lot of negative about it on eslcafe, but there's negative about everything of course. keep me updated, youre going to do great on your 1:1.
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Hi,
I guess dual congratulations are in order. I just read your blog the other week, and I'm happy to hear you landed the teaching job in S Korea. Wow... less than 40 days before your depature. You must be excited!
Interac got back to me toward the end of Dec with an offer. They don't have an exact location or time yet, but most likely it will be the end of March, since the new middle school year begins in April. Till then I guess I will be grinding away at my day job.
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----- Original Message ----
From: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
To: yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 9:25:58 AM
Subject: Re: Congrats!
my date has moved up and i'm leaving feb 9, less than 30 days. im super hype. im combing the esl forums about what i should bring with me. congratulations on interac!!! do let me know where/what age you'll be teaching. im beginning to get nervous and hope i dont get too young, hope i'll be able to hav proper discipline... ah, just a bunch of nerves i gots. i have a couple friends in japan, and i know i will make it there some day, if the stars align it, maybe we can meet one day too.
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----- Original Message ----
From: @yahoo.com>
To: english teacher i_teach_esl@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:42:30 AM
Subject: Re: Congrats!
Wow that is fast--like less than 3 weeks. Good luck with all your preparations. I'm sure everything will fall in place.
I don't recommend bringing too much stuff besides clothes. At lot of the other stuff (stuff for the apartment, nit-naks), you can probably find for cheap w/ a little scrounging since there's always ppl moving back and leaving S Korea for good. At least that was my experience the last time I lived abroad in Japan. I do recommend stacking up on some of your favorite deordorant since (at least for Japan), their stuff was rather weak and inadequate.
Interac positions are mostly for jr high school teachers, with maybe a rare visit to a elementary or high school depending on the area. All the positions too are ALTs (assistant language teacher), so basically I will be helping out the regular English teacher, and I don't have to worry as much about the discipling aspects of classroom management.
There are plans to start teaching English earlier at the elementary school level in Japan, so in the future there will be even more positions open and a higher demand for native English speakers. That should be perfect if you decide to move from S Korea to Japan in the future. But who knows? Maybe you'll fall in love with S Korea and not want to go anywhere else.
Good luck.
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