Well, tomorrow's the day I officially start teaching. Wish me luck, 'cause I will need it, after the meager three days of training I just completed.

For the curious: each class is 40-45 minutes long, with teachers doing up to eight a day (or more, if they request overtime or swap shifts). Nova emphasizes conversation, so teachers are encouraged to minimize verbal instructions and maximize role-playing exercises. This eventually gets as tedious as you might expect—beginning students, for example, have only ten lessons available to them—but the repetition has the benefit of quickly familiarizing the teachers with all the lessons, making them easier to plan. And quick planning is a must, since teachers have only ten minutes to grade each student, write comments for the next teacher, pick a lesson for the next class, and create a 15-step lesson plan. Whew!

I've only taught three (supervised) classes so far, but my Japanese students were all very nice, and many of them have travelled the globe a lot more than I have. My co-workers, meanwhile, are an odd mix of Australians, Brits, Canadians, Americans, and even a few Irish and Scots. All very friendly and outgoing, as you'd expect. I gotta be honest with you, sometimes I feel like I'm at summer camp or something, only with more conversations about how pathetic American beer is.