Interview Days with GEOS Japan

Whew! Finally done the 3 days of interviews with GEOS. Oh, I applied for GEOS to go to Japan to teach. Actually, my mom found a newspaper clip in the Toronto Star. This interview or let's say interviews was probably the most intensive set I've ever gone through in my life. Now any other interview just seems like a breeze to me. 1st day: Ok, so this is when you first meet all your other soon to be "teachers in Japan". So the interview was held in Toronto Bay and Queen St, so I took a subway east from Kipling then transfer at Bloor/Yonge and south back to Queen to get off. So I walk into the interview office and I liked how they arranged everything for the potential candidates. There were long tables with books and magazines on Japan. It was arranged so that you could meet all the other people going and just chat. This was I think about 9:40am. At around 10 am (I think), we started the dreaded comprehension quiz, which would determine if you just sucked at English or was good enough to teach. It was pretty long and lasted about 20 minutes. Questions included basic grammar such as spelling (accommodation), punctuation, and creating your own sentences (past, present perfect, etc.). Then there were basic knowledge questions such as who is the president of China; the president of Japan; match song titles with musical artists; match artwork to artists. Then they gave you old names of countries and you had to figure out which country it is (Burma = Myanmar). Then what are the capital cities of so and so. After the quiz we each had one on one interviews with the interviewers (there were two of them). I guess somewhere during this time they marked the comprehension quiz. So based on the interview and quiz you were told if you could come back for the next interview which started later on in the day at 1:30 after lunch. I knew one person who got cut on the first round. So there were around 20 people in total. So I went for lunch with a couple of people and came back. They then gave us general information about the program and we did some activities where the interviewers would observe us. We went around and basically introduced ourselves to each other and just started a general conversation. Finally, I think it was now about 4 or 5 pm. In the end they gave each of us an envelope which told us if we could come back for the interview the next day (Saturday). I got my envelope and it said that I was accepted to the next interview, but I had to rewrite the quiz, because my marks were not so high. I think about 4 or five people got cut the first day. There would be no more cuts until after the last day (day 3), so the rest were pretty much invited again for the next remaining two days. They told us the quiz was the same, so that meant I had to try and remember all the questions and find all the answers to them. I stayed up till about 1 or 2am studying and getting everything memorized. The only thing was I managed to get in about a few hours of sleep. 2nd Day: We all met up in the front lobby of the building at around 8:25am, because on Saturdays the elevators didn't work without a key, which only the interviewers could get a hold of. So we waited there for them. The 8:25 was for the people who had to rewrite the comprehension quiz. So we all rewrote the quiz. I think I did alright since I studied for it the night before and it was the same quiz. Then we went through more details like teaching methods. They gave us teaching demonstrations with the group. The whole teaching methods were explained and we got notes explaining the whole procedure. We were given instructions on how to prepare for the 30 minute presentation we were to prepare for the next day. This presentation involved many different themes, where each group of people would get a certain theme. Mine was ordering at a restaurant. They told us it should take about 5 hours to prepare. I was totally drained and I just felt like I had absolutely no energy. So I reviewed the notes while on the subway. So I got home and started working on it right away. I guess a should a taken like a nap or something, because my mind was not very efficient (lack of sleep, pressure, and anxiety). I figured that I couldn't get to sleep anyways so I'd start work on it right away. Most of the time I was there trying to figure everything out. I called up Clinton who had it tomorrow as well and we both started to really work on it at around 10pm. I was just brainstorming and preparing notes as well as making up props. I also called up other interviewees and we just tried to help each other out. It took me way up until about 3 to 4 am, since I had to go to Kinkos and do some photocopies. It was really hectic for me. I got up to around 3 or 4 hours of sleep. I ended up making a few props of different types of foods. 3rd day: The final day. So we arrived there at around 9:50am. So we all got into our pre organized groups and got into pairs to start presenting. It went alright I guess. I was just really tired and managed to just squeeze it by. So we all got into the one room after the interview. We just sat there chatting before they called us one by one to interview. Done. Only to find out today that I was not accepted. Awe well, it was a good experience and I went to distance so I'm glad. Time to go to sleep.