Interviews in Toronto are in an old (amazingly beautiful!) building on the UoT campus. There is a room (a classroom) on the first floor where applicants wait. Here is also where I turned over my interview voucher and candidate card - both of which I had to hold onto and give to my interviewers later on. There were 2 former JETs in the room, and only 2 other applicants, which I assume was due to the fact that it was the last day of interviews and also probably the last ones of the day. There was a video playing, but no one was watching it. I couldn't tell you a thing about it. When I walked in everyone was already chatting, so it was a nice atmosphere and I had the chance to ask one question (which age group did you like teaching the most?) before it was time to go to my interview room, which was upstairs. I walked up with one of the applicants and we sat in our respective chairs, which were placed beside the closed interview room doors. We sat there for a few minutes before being let in.
I was surprised that my interview panel consisted of only two interviewers - and both were Japanese men! One could speak fluent English and had more western mannerisms, while the other seemed to know nearly no English at all and was very Japanese. They did both shake my hand as I entered, but they bowed too, so I found myself kind of mimicking their body language. The general consensus seems to be to not bow, but since they were already doing it, I felt awkward about standing straight while shaking a bowing person's hand.
So the room I was in was basically a university seminar room. There was one table in the corner by the door, where I was told I could leave my bag. Two tables were pushed together - the interviewers sat together on one side and I sat across in a chair. They explained how the interview would go - there would be about 20 minutes of questions, including a 1 minute mock lesson and a brief Japanese test.
The first question I got was "Where did you hear about the JET program?", which I found a bit surprising, but it was a simple and easy question, so I just answered honestly (I heard about it at my language school as a teenager). After that there were a TON of other questions. Most of them I had prepared for in some way, but a few were ones I hadn't thought of. I was shocked that I got NO questions about my family coming along, and nothing about placement (i.e. "How would you handle living in a rural area?"). Also nothing about harassment or having to make tea for male teachers.
Some questions I was asked (paraphrased, as I have terrible memory):
- What qualities do you have that would make you a good ALT?
- What do you like about the JET program?
- How did you become interested in Japan?
- JET is a grassroots program. What are some ways you would get involved outside of the classroom?
- How did you handle an instance of culture shock in the past and how did you overcome it?
- How would you deal with having to be away for longer periods of time for work (ex. orientations)?
- Name a famous Japanese person.
- How would you teach about Canadian culture in the classroom?
- What famous Canadian would you use to teach about your culture?
- What is something that you are very excited to experience in Japan?
- How do you continue to learn a language outside the classroom?
- What do you think you would gain from an experience as a JET?
- What age level would you like to teach?
Only one of the interviewers asked the questions, and because of that I was only looking at him, however, when I realized that I made an effort to make eye contact with the other guy, which I think was really important. I got a few laughs, which I was pleased about. The man asking the questions seemed content enough with my answers. I noticed that he seemed to be taking the questions from a booklet, and both interviewers were making lots of notes as I talked.
For the mock lesson I was given a pretty detailed situation - I was told I was giving a lesson to junior high students ("10 year olds") who didn't know any English. One note: I think this was directly related to the last question I was asked, about what age level I wanted to teach. My suggestion would be that if you get that question, use it to your advantage by picking the level you feel comfortable mock teaching to. So yeah, it was supposed to be the second or third class, so they knew who I was. The topic was food. It was probably one of the best topics I could have gotten, since I'm big on the culture of food, but I panicked a bit and overall the lesson was a bit of a flop. I think that if I had practiced mock lessons more it would have been helpful. It doesn't matter what you practice, but knowing how to speak slowly and clearly, move around the room, and involve the "students" is key here, I think. Anyway, I went on some tangent about french fries, poutine, coffee, and donuts. I tried to relate it to Japanese food so they might understand, by mentioning McDonald's and Mister Donut.
After the mock lesson I did the Japanese test. This had two parts. The first was a series of scenes drawn out with speech bubbles, and I had to say what would be in the bubbles. It was pretty simple and I think I got them all right (ex. Hajimemashite, Arigatou gozaimasu, Sayounara). The second part was answering oral questions asked in Japanese. I think I did about 2 or 3 out of five. A few were simple, but others were a bit complicated, as I hadn't studied Japanese in a while. For example, "What do you eat a lot of at breakfast?" and "Where do you live?" were the easiest questions. There was also one that I think was about who my role model Canadian was or something like that, and another about what time do I eat breakfast, maybe. I did pass on one and fumbled horribly on another, but they had said beforehand that it was okay. I said that I thought I understood most of the question, but didn't feel comfortable answering. I put down my Japanese as basic/elementary on the application, so I wasn't too worried about that, but of course doing perfect is always a better feeling.
At this time I noticed what seemed to be grading sheets on the table, and it looked like I got marked a C- on Japanese and lots of Cs and one D for what I think was the mock lesson. I was really discouraged by this, but I feel that my answers to the questions were alright, so hopefully that carries me through.
They asked me a few more questions before finishing up. They both stood up and shook my hand/bowed again. I thanked them and blurted out some verbal diarrhea (something like "I hope your long day is almost over!" and that was the end! I realized afterward that I didn't ask them any questions! I had some prepared, but they didn't inquire if I had any, so it completely slipped my mind (I was probably too busy thinking about how badly my mock lesson went).
Overall I was there until 3:45, so the whole thing took about 30 - 40 minutes. Afterwards I was discouraged, thinking about all the things I could've done differently, but I think that's normal. And the whole thing is over and done with and out of my hands now. The wait until April will be long, but I'm going to try and keep myself busy with other things.
