The Interview

Cut and paste from my blog on Feb 6, 2009

Since many of you are asking me how's my interview, I shall dedicate a long entry about the interview...

Thanks to yvonne, my new fren, I was more or less prepared for the interview because we got the same interviewers and some similar questions but some questions left me stumbling for answers. Feel kinda stupid. lol.

There were 3 interviewers, 2 Japanese (One is fatherly looking and the other reminded me of like what yvonne said, kinda reminded us of hiro from HEROES) and 1 foreigner.

Today I was kinda stressed out because we had chapel till 1.15pm and I had to rush home because I forgot to bring my passport to school. (Totally forgot that I don't have my IC because my bag was stolen on Sunday) and then there was some crazy jam at bkt timah, I reached Japan embassy at 2.15pm. LOL.

By the time I walk into the reception area, the lady was waiting for me at the counter and asked me if I am me. Lol. So stressful. I was panting. Haha..

So I was brought up to wait into a little cold room. I kept wondering if there was some security camera for them to watch me getting all stressed out in the room. And the hiro guy came in to fetch me.

Here are the questions that were asked based on my memory...

Hiro: Pls introduce yourself briefly.

Fatherly man:
1. I notice you teach many subjects and many levels. May I know more about what is Social Studies?
2. How many classes do you teach then since you have so many levels of preparation?
3. Can I find out how you cope with so many levels of preparation? How many lessons do you have to plan per week?
4. I notice you are in Data Management Committee, what kind of data do you collect?
5. Does your school do diagnostic tests for EL? Do you think such tests are useful?
6. Since your school do learning styles profiling & have a through train programme, do you notice any improvement in results?
7. You have taught for quite a couple of years, which teaching method you find most useful/helpful?
8. Do you have use any scientific method in measuring students' improvement or learning?
9. I notice you head NPCC, was vice head of Staff Welfare committee and organised many camps. Did you volunteer for all these positions?
10. Why do you think your school leaders assign you NPCC and Why did your colleagues nominate you for Staff Welfare? (Found this question most difficult to answer because you are like praising yourself!!!!)

Foreigner: (stumble with most of his questions, he kinda made me scared, i duno why, maybe because he seemed like an experienced EL teacher and I haven't taught EL for a looong time)
1. It seemed that you find building rapport with students very important. How will you try to build rapport with students when you teach in Japan?
2. How about young children? If you are placed in a elementary school, what kind of activities will you do to engage them and build rapport?
3. In your example used just now on teaching adjectives in class, I'm not intending to put you on the spot here but how will you explain to the students the difference between regular adjectives and irregular adjectives? Eg. Tall taller tallest are the common ones but there are others like exciting, more exciting. What is the structure that is used to define the difference? Wondering if you can pull this out from your memory. (I was totally shocked by this question and told him frankly that I don't remember).
4. So, if your students or your colleagues ask you this question and you obviously do not know/remember the answer, how will you respond to them?
5. I notice in your statement of purpose, you mentioned that you feel that you can adapt to Japan because you share the same Asian rootedness with Japanese. Can you further explain this statement?
6. In your daily work, you will actually be dealing with many different colleagues who are not Asians, then you do not share Asian roots, how will you adapt then?
7. You have travelled to many countries but they are all short stays, the longest is only 2 weeks. How are you so sure you can cope in Japan since you are staying for at least one year?
8. You mentioned that students have very short attention span in class and you have to constantly engage them with different activities, how can you ensure you have a supply of such activities?
9. You talked about having breaks during lessons to keep them engaged, can you elaborate more about these "breaks"?
10. In your future career plans, you mentioned that you will want to teach in international schools or private schools when you come back from JET. Can you explain your reasons why?
11. In international schools, they usually do IB program, what are your views towards IB? (Faints, I gave some answer about that it is not the programme that is important but what are the values and life skills that you impart at the end of the lesson that is important)
12. Do you think the role of teachers is weakened with promotion of IB or project work learning?

Hiro:
One last question - please introduce a place of interest in Japan, with details of the location and interesting sights that you will want to visit since you've never been to Japan. (throw me off totally. told him i've never been to japan and difficult for me to pin point an area but told him why i chose miyagi as my 1st choice to live in becoz it has a unesco site of pine trees and Kunmamoto because it has volcanoes and hot springs.

ALOT of questions right?!!! At first I was quite calm but the foreigner made me so nervous with some questions that I couldn't formulate my answers properly so that I think I was babbling by the mid of the interview. Lol. Not sure if good or bad because I was really babbling at the foreigner. The japanese men seem friendly but I thought Hiro looked bored and the foreigner had this deadpan look. Only moment of laughter was at the end when i described to Hiro why I wana visit Kunmamoto because I want to experience being on top of a live volcano and as a Geography teacher, it is strange that I teach all the earthquakes and volcanoes and not seen one before? Fatherly man laughed. Hiro just nodded while foreigner continued to scribble more. Oh well. Haha..

And then when I was ushered back to the waiting room, met an Indian guy who was waiting for his turn. During this brief moment of interaction, I discovered he was also a sec sch teacher we started laughing because his principal is the husband of my Vice principal. Singapore is really too small.

Anyway, I am just so glad this is over. Now is the long wait for results.

Now that I am more or less confirmed that I am going to Japan, I better start updating this site!

Friday was a real crazy day where I rushed down to submit my reply slip and medical report.

One word of advice, the medical report takes 3 working days to be done, so do not be naive like me and assume that medical checkup can be done in one day. =x Can't describe how I felt when the nurse told me I can't collect the report when the deadline for submission was 3 days later. So I had to pay $25 extra for them to rush my tests' results. =x

Anyway, I really like the lady from the Japan embassy who's in charge of the JET programme. She's so helpful and nice. She was worried that I "forgot" about the deadline or maybe, I am the only person who didn't submit the forms early that she sent a reminder email to me on Friday morning to hand in the forms. Heh..

Felt so super relieved to be able to submit the forms to her personally and she checked through everything for me.

Now it's the long process of waiting for my placement results. Where will I be posted to stay for the 1 year in Japan?

While I wait in anticipation, I shall cut and paste all Tina's emails to me after she notified me about the interview...

On 13th Feb, one week after my interview, my present for V-day was..

Dear Ms Yip,

I am pleased to inform you that you have passed the preliminary selection
process for the 2009 JET Programme/ALT conducted by this embassy. You are now
on the shortlist for the final selection process to be conducted by the JET
authority in Tokyo.

Please note that not every applicant who has passed the preliminary selection
process will be offered the post. You will be informed of the final results in
the beginning of April.

Best regards,
Naoki Kuwayama
Second Secretary
Embassy of Japan

And on 3rd April...

Dear Ms Yip,

Congratulations, you have successfully passed the 2nd stage of the screening
process for the 2009 JET Programme and are now on the final short-list for ALT
candidates.

The attached letter and documents will be posted to you today.

Have a nice weekend.

Best regards,
Tina Chiang
Senior Assistant
Japan Information & Culture Centre
Embassy of Japan

Sometimes it's amazing how time flies... the time spent doing up the application forms seem so long ago.. and I am getting really excited about going to Japan! I must start updating this site so that it will be a source of help for future JET applicants from sgp!