Applying for the JET Program: The Reply Form and Other Documents

After I was notified that I was a shortlist candidate, I was required to submit MORE documents to JET. I really didn't realize how much paperwork was involved with the whole process.

In my case, I had to submit the reply form, a copy of my passport (valid until 2015), and two passport photos. These were due May 2nd. The three other documents required by JET - the criminal record check, the certificate of health, and proof of graduation - were given a later due date of June 20th, thankfully. 

The information to fill out on the reply form included checking yes or no to accepting the shortlist position, my address, if I had applied for a criminal record check yet, if I had dependents and if they were accompanying me, if I had dual nationality with Japan, choice of departure airport,  passport information, and if I already had a visa for Japan. There was also space to glue on the two passport photos.

My tips for filling out the reply form:

• Do it early! My form had to be in Toronto by May 2nd, NOT postmarked. You never know with mail, so get it done and send it out ASAP. Plus, a lot of people send their paperwork in near the deadline, so sending as early as you can will also relieve the coordinator of some work.
• Make your photos professional. Dress for your photos like you did for the interview. That little bit of extra effort might be the standout factor that causes a CO to pick you.
• Follow directions! Check and double check. If the form asks you to glue the photos, don't tape them or paperclip them. If it wants to you use black ink and all capitals, make sure you're doing it.
• Get tracking when you send your package off. It is worth any extra cost to have that peace of mind that your important documents actually arrived.

Tips for the criminal record check:

• If you can afford it, get the criminal record check and certificate of health done as if you were applying for early departure (even if you're not). Being able to send these off with your reply form will relieve some of your stress and minimize the number of post office visits you need to make.
• Get the ball rolling on your criminal record check ASAP. Right now. I mean it! It can take weeks or even months to get your check returned. In my case, the police only mail them out, so on top of that I had to wait for it to arrive in the mail. 
• In Canada, there is a bit of an issue with criminal record checks. The vulnerable sector check is what is usually required for teachers, however, these are no longer done for jobs outside of Canada. I could only obtain the regular police check, and the consulate was aware of this and accepted my check regardless. However, I have heard that you can get the vulnerable sector check if you tell the police that it is going to the embassy or consulate in Canada, not Japan.

Tips for the certificate of health:

• This is something else you should get started on as soon as you can, as it can be difficult to make appointments in time for busy doctors. In my case, my doctor only did examinations at certain times. I ended up going to my student health center. You can make appointments early on and cancel them without penalty if you need to, as long as you observe the doctor or clinic's policy.
• If you need to get the TB test instead of the x-ray (some doctors won't do x-rays without just cause), keep in mind that this may take several weeks. I opted for the 2-step test, because it makes it easier for any other TB tests I take in the future. This meant that I had to visit my clinic four separate times (I scheduled my examination for the 4th day as well to prevent a 5th visit). 
• Make sure your doctor fills out ALL the sections. Especially make sure that you can get your eyesight and hearing checked.
• Also make sure that you get a copy of the TB test results if you do that instead of the x-ray. They are required to be included with the certificate of health.

Tips for the proof of graduation:

• Somewhat obvious, but important to note: MAKE SURE YOU WILL GRADUATE ON TIME. When I applied in November, I had to get a letter written up by my counselling office which stated that I was expected to graduate in June 2014. This required a graduation check, so I knew exactly what factors my graduation hinged on. 
• Make sure you will get your actual diploma in time. In my case, I get my diploma on the day I graduate and no earlier. 

Turning in these documents on time is incredibly important, as late documents will disqualify you from the JET Programme. Late documents will make one alternate very happy, but you may not share their enthusiasm.

Also, make sure you get copies of everything you send to JET! It is important to keep copies for your own reference, just in case.

Lastly, I will quickly touch on another document you may be required to submit, which is registration for orientations. This is for both shortlisters and alternates. My consulate offered 8 orientations (2 were the same information) plus Japanese classes. I am required to submit my registration by May 16th. It is important to send this on time because the consulate needs to know how many people are attending which events.

Shortlist Reply Form is Sent!

Well, I stopped in at the post office on the 19th to finally mail my reply form! I also included my police check and certificate of health, since I had them done for my attempt at early departure. Hopefully they're acceptable..I tried to ask, but got no response, so...

I will have to mail out my proof of graduation after convocation in June. My package was successfully delivered yesterday (the 23rd)! Things are starting to feel more real...

I've been busy at home cleaning the house (for rental photos) and putting stuff we don't want to keep in the garage. I feel like I've already gotten rid of TONS of stuff but there is still SO MUCH MORE. So much stuff...

Bringing Dependents to Tokyo Orientation

"Tokyo Orientation" by chrysanta

One of the biggest concerns I had immediately after finding out I was shortlisted was whether or not my dependents would come along with me to Tokyo Orientation.

JET's official recommendation is that dependents wait 1-2 weeks before coming over. Their reasons are:

1. The orientation begins right after you arrive in Tokyo and you will not have time to look after your family.
2. Spouses and children may not participate in workshops and lectures at Post-Arrival Orientation or the prefectural orientation, and CLAIR cannot make arrangements for family members. 
3. Babysitting services at the hotel may not be available and the cost can be very high. 
4. Post-Arrival Orientation provides an opportunity for you to meet other JET participants residing in your area. This is a good opportunity to network, and not having to care for your family during orientation will ultimately be an opportunity for you to meet more people with whom you and your family may interact with once you arrive in your prefecture/designated city. 

JET also notes that participants are very busy getting settled in for the first few weeks.

To help me make a decision I decided to make a pros and cons list. I love writing things out like this when making decisions; I find it really helps.

Pros for Travelling Together

• Support from my spouse during a stressful period
• Could be less confusing for Yana if we're all together. She's never been away from me overnight.
• Simpler in terms of booking transportation and accommodation as we can just do it all through JET
• Any decisions about housing and other contracts can be made together and any help I get with setting up phones, bank accounts, etc. can include my spouse
• We'll be together, so no worries about me not having internet or phone service for a while
• Justin has only been out of the country once before, a while ago, so he doesn't feel comfortable travelling alone with a preschooler
• JET will book a suite for your family for Tokyo Orientation, so no sharing rooms
• If we arrive separately, I might have to take leave to pick them up and get them settled and do it all on my own (as opposed to when I arrive I will have help from my BOE)

Cons for Travelling Together

• The hotel in Tokyo would be expensive, plus paying for extra food
• It may be cheaper to book dependent flights if they have flexible departure dates
• The housing may be unfurnished, which could be a problem if there's no beds
• I would be busy with work stuff, so Justin and Yana would be on their own all day. That means a tired, jet-lagged adult watching a cranky, jet-lagged kid
• Going alone would give me time to network and meet people on my own

Expanding upon travel arrangements for dependents, it is your responsibility to ensure travel arrangements are made for your dependents, but JET will help you out. The JET travel agent can book tickets for your dependents, they can make travel arrangements from the airport to the hotel (for a fee), can arrange hotel accommodation in Tokyo, and can arrange travel from Tokyo to your contracting organization. Just make sure that your entire family has been included for all legs of travel.

When making my decision, I asked on the JET couples and families group on Facebook for opinions. I got all kinds of opinions. Some said waiting was best for helping children make the smoothest transition. Others said their spouse had waited, but if they had to do it over they would go together. Several people said they traveled together, which surprised me, as I thought more people would have gone separately. People also noted that I would be very busy for the first little while. Ultimately, the best advice I got was "Whatever your decision, just smile, don't justify it to anyone, and when anyone at your school or BOE comments simply stare at them like you think they are crazy for suggesting you should have left them behind."

Finding out JET Interview Results from Toronto

I was shocked and ridiculously excited when I heard the first interview results went out on March 31. I had gotten my notification of interview the day after those in the US had, so I was hopeful for hearing my results on April 1st. Alas, it was not so. Despite checking my email every hour, the inbox remained empty. After April 2nd came and passed with no email, despite the constant checking, I resigned myself to waiting until Friday. On April 3rd I checked my email twice in the morning, then left at 9:17am to take Yana to daycare and go to work. On my way to the daycare, I got a text from Justin (whom I had instructed to check my email every now and then). I had an email! Actually, two! I suddenly felt like I was going to have a heart attack and pee my pants at the same time. I can check my email on my phone, but I had to wait until I got to school to check it. However, I was suspicious about the two emails, as they did that last time when I got my notification of interview (one had attachments for documents). I figured this meant I was either an alternate or shortlisted!
I got to school around 10:10 and sat down to check my email:

"It is our great pleasure to inform you that you have successfully passed the second stage of the screening process for the 2014 JET Programme year, and you have been offered a Short-list position as an Assistant Language Teacher."


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe the words I was reading. I was actually betting on an alternate position, because I have bad luck like that. I was also increasingly more and more embarrassed about my performance at the interview the more I thought about it. I was sure I did very poorly.

Now, the funniest part about this is that when I got home from work I read the email properly and saw the timestamp for the first time. It turns out that 9:17 was EXACTLY when I was leaving the house with Yana. On top of that, Justin had checked earlier THAT EXACT SAME MINUTE and there had been no email! I had actually been home when it was sent, but we didn't hear the new mail ding because we were busy saying goodbyes. The only reason Justin realized, in fact, was because he heard the ding from the second email, which was sent at 9:25. Uncanny timing...

My Toronto JET Interview

I had my interview on February 20th. I think I was the last one of the day, at least for my interviewers. Overall, there were things that I both expected and was surprised by. I'll give a run-down below as best I can remember.

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.

Notification of Interview!

i have been following the posts on ITIL and seeing that some people had already gotten interview notifications. the uk seemed to have theirs very early on, and this morning I saw that a bunch of people from the US had notifications as well. i figured canada couldn't be too far behind, and lo! an email appeared from JET. the email sent me to my JET Inbox, where i was greeted by this message:

The JET Desk is pleased to inform you that you have been selected to proceed to the interview stage for the 2014 JET Programme.

first response: YES YES YES

second response: oh shit. i am so unprepared.

so i am absolutely thrilled that i got an interview! i passed the first test! 

interviews are apparently taking place in toronto on february 18, 19, and 20. so I have about a month to prepare. i have lots of things to sort out, like how I'll get to toronto, where i'll stay, and if i'll bring the family along. i also need to get a suit! and of course practice for my interview. i think I'll take the moderate approach. here's what i'm thinking:

- go over my application and know whats on it (especially statement of purpose)

- know some basic facts and current events in canada and japan

- prepare for sample lessons

- practice basic questions, ex. why JET? why japan?

- practice speaking loudly, clearly, and keeping composure

and that's pretty much it! i don't want to over-prepare, but i still want to feel confident that i can answer any question.

I sent my JET Application!

I wasn't actually planning on applying this year. I mean, I was, but then I changed my mind. I thought it might be better to spend the next year boosting my resume and experience; give myself a better chance. And I thought maybe the timing was wrong. But a friend convinced me to just go for it. After all, the application is more or less free, so why not?! And that was how I got myself into a huge rush to send in my application in the midst of final exams - woohoo!

So that's done. And now I wait (crossing my fingers).