Voice of Will: More Tokyo Stuff

2006-09-20 - 9:20 p.m.
More stuff from tokyo
The kids are starting to enjoy exploring tokyo. we found an awesome toystore yesterday, and have been looking there 2x. US prices and some higher, but an awesome selection of toys to look at, and play with in the store. WE have been homeschooling since we got here, and have finally hit the groove (we brought stuff with us, and good thing too, the people we order the our stuff from doubled their prices since last year, so we have to wait about a month before we can get their *official* stuff.) The kids are also enjoying having futons to sleep on. we have a foam rubber mattress that is about 2 inches thick, and then the futon, and then sleeping bags on them. Pretty comfortable (better than china), and loads of fun to fold and put away.

criss is extremely excited about this job. They will be teaching 8 90 minute classes a week. So the students will be getting 4 90 minute classes per week per student, that means the students will get 6 hours of extensive english preparation as opposed to the normal 2 to 3 one time a week hours. This is one of the first of its kind programs in japan, so if it works (and it should) then it could go on to be adapted for the whole country. they measure success by TOEFL scores (500 is passing, that would be someone who could have a normal conversation with you about typical things like the weather, fashion, food. But may have difficulty with more specific terms or ideas, and someone who can write an indepth paragraph on one topic, but not at the 5 paragraph essay (or close to there, but nothing more)) and all the students going into the program score about 250 (which means they have a bout a 1000 word vocabulary, very limited reading/writing skills, and limited conversational skills.) so they have their work cut out for them. But if they can improve them from 250 to 500 in one year, (that would be a definte success) they are thinking to make the about 400-500 level this year, and get them above 500 next year.
I think the job is awesome, she only works about 30 hours a week, so she isn:t gone all the time.