Aspiring Canadian JETs 2012

[Smasha]

So my interview in Toronto only had two people present. A man from the consulate, and one former JET I believe. At least I think so. It was really chill, lots of laughing, more like a comfortable Q and A than an interrogation.

A lot of people have said that the interviews can get really intense, but I found it was fairly comfortable. I was very close to both my interviewers (it was a small table). They shook my hand as I entered. And there was lesson. I had to teach a class who had just learned their ABCs about fruit. So it wasn't so bad (except that I TOTALLY blanked on A... apple? NAH, AIRPLANE!

Good Luck to everyone! Two pieces of advice, prepare before you go as in write down some plausible answers. It will make you more comfortable for when they ask the questions as you will ave an idea of what you want to say and wont be on he spot to think of a good answer. And two, be yourself, as that is who they want to see. Don't let yourself get stressed out, ultimately you are meeting two or more people for the first time and they are just asking you questions to see who you are and whether or not you possess the social and interactive skills required to assist with teaching English. (well... and all the other stuff like community involvement etc)

Glad yours went well. Good advice, I did the same thing, wrote down some questions and my possible answers to them-made me less nerveous. As for the lesson, I didn't really do a lesson so much. The ex-JET asked me how I would teach a class with low english ability about fruits and veggiews, and i just told her some activities and such i would do with them. I wasn't really asked to demonstrate, nor did i think i had to. I hope that was ok

[Dangston]

Hey guys I had my interview on Feb. 23, I think it went well.
I had a Japanese man and woman interview me.
I got standard questions,
How did you learn about JET?
What are your motives for wanting to work with JET?
Tell us about a time you faced some form of adversity?
What 3 things from Canada would you bring to Japan?
Then 1 minute sample lesson on counting and a short Japanese test.

I was wondering if everyone else got the Japanese test at the end too
They gave me a short paragraph to read and asked me 5 progressively longer questions about the text in Japanese.

[Gizmotech]

Okay, maybe this will be helpful to the 2012 appliers who are worrying about their interview.

Guys, it is possible to make some COLOSSAL mistakes in the interview and still get into JET. Stop your worries, and read this little story.

I was in my interview, doing relatively well. I had proceeded to surprise the judges with a few really good on the spot answers that I justified really well and then I was asked some Canadian Trivia. I was asked what are the animals on the Canadian coins. (For those of you who were in this interview... SHHH) I thought I bad assed it, I gave all 4 no problems. Then for my skit I was told to describe one of these animals to a class. I wasn't given any other direction then that, and I chose the animal I knew best of the four, which was obviously the moose. (Hold your snickers please) I totally rock this part of the presentation, describe the animal, give some stories, like everyone is happy with this and I'm just barreling along. Then we get to the end of the interview and I'm told they have bad news for me. I was wrong about one of the coin animals. Not only was I wrong, it was the one I taught. It was actually a Caribou.

DEVASTATED

Then laughing they said they weren't sure whether to tell me or not because they were enjoying the class demo part, and that they had to look them up that morning themselves.

Moral of the story: It is completely possible to TOTALLY screw up the interview in a truly spectacular way and still get into JET. That was almost a year ago this week that this happened and now I'm in BFN Tohoku having fun on JET.


@Dangston: Only my friends who indicated proficiency above beginner were asked anything like that in Japanese. They started to ask me about my Japanese but I just told them it had been a long time since I used it and they were happy with that answer and moved on.

[Smasha]

awesome story~!!!!!!

Consdering they themselves didn't know what the animas were, i think your moose/caribou mistake was pretty minor and had no effect on your interview score. I would have just said deer, caribou is soo specific

Congrats on making it in!!!! How is life so far? What does BFN stand for?

Once the interview is done, we can't change anything, and just have to sit and wait....and not worry too much about what happened.

[Ertai87]

@Dangston: Yup, I had the Japanese test too.

@Gizmotech: I'm pretty sure 75% or more of Canadians thought it was a moose too XD I know I certainly did, and so does everyone I've asked (albeit I haven't asked since I was about 5 years old). The more you know =D

[aboultzi]

@Gizmotech - lol That was a great story! Thanks for posting that! I'm sure it'll ease a few minds as I'm sure a lot of people are worried about how horrible their interview went...

@Dangston - The Japanese test freaked me out a bit. On my application I indicated: 1 - Listening, 1 - Speaking, 0 - Writing, 0 - Reading. So, I was very very very surprised when they started to say "On your application you've indicated that you have some knowledge of Japanese....(deer in headlights look from me)...something something passage (hand reaching over to a sheet of paper with a huge Japanese paragraph).....(super deer in headlights look)"
Haha...I don't know what that was about. At the moment I freaked out thinking "what if they think I lied about my Japanese language ability"...but in hindsight it was silly of me to think that, especially while ALREADY nervous. Didn't help.

Bottom line guys - we could all pick out things we could change. It's out of your hands now...don't stress. Stay busy! April is around the corner!

[HerrKaiser]

Was Toronto the last area for interviews? The posts seem to have slowed down. While I know I am just using the forum to procrastinate, it is nice to read new stuff to keep my mind occupied. I imagine I will, like many others, be relying on the forum to keep my mind occupied while we wait for another two months to find out whether I made the cut.

So, if there's not much action here, anyone wanna recommend a good thread to keep me occupied (thanks in advance)

[Smasha]

Was Toronto the last area for interviews? The posts seem to have slowed down. While I know I am just using the forum to procrastinate, it is nice to read new stuff to keep my mind occupied. I imagine I will, like many others, be relying on the forum to keep my mind occupied while we wait for another two months to find out whether I made the cut.

So, if there's not much action here, anyone wanna recommend a good thread to keep me occupied (thanks in advance)

It's more like one month at this point, unless different cities send letter out at different times. I was told end of march/beginning of april. So in my mind, there is only a month left-makes the waiting period more tolerable!

[Gizmotech]

Ottawa is doing their interviews today, as a friend of mine was on her way in about 10 hours ago

Patience, your notifications will come. Ours were received April 20th last year, yours might be a smidge earlier, but I doubt it

[AVN]

Was Toronto the last area for interviews? The posts seem to have slowed down. While I know I am just using the forum to procrastinate, it is nice to read new stuff to keep my mind occupied. I imagine I will, like many others, be relying on the forum to keep my mind occupied while we wait for another two months to find out whether I made the cut.

So, if there's not much action here, anyone wanna recommend a good thread to keep me occupied (thanks in advance)

It's more like one month at this point, unless different cities send letter out at different times. I was told end of march/beginning of april. So in my mind, there is only a month left-makes the waiting period more tolerable!

Yeah I found out on the 6th of April.
I know last year was late because of 3/11 so hopefully this year will be closer to the beginning of April again.

[Toktogul]

I did the interview in Montreal. I was hard on myself at first, then when I told how it went to my friends, i figured it wasnt that bad.

As a french-canadian, it was already stressful enough to do my first english interview for 30 minutes. Then when they asked me to name 3 canadian books/movies to present in class, I realised that I couldn't (and still can't). In Quebec, we are surrounded by french and french-canadian culture, to the point that english canadian culture is hard to find. So I said that I would need to make some research during my class preparations to find few books to present.

Then they ask me to pretend that I was giving a class to high school students on multiculturalism..... not on animals, not on sports, no! On multiculturalism..... One of the interviewer started sleeping and the other one texting on his cellphone. I was already stressed enough trying to find a way to explain multiculturalism, I had to do discipline, which went well, but I spent most of the time doing it, and didn't talk much about the main topic. I have teaching experience, but at university level in Russia, so I didnt have to deal with sleepers and I didn't bother requesting people to stop texting, because they were adults, so It's their problem if they don't listen, as long as they don't disturb the whole class.

I don't know if they had a poker face or weren't impressed by my candidature, but I didn't feel like I did well enough. At first I thought I had strong chances, since I lived for a year abroad, I speak 3 languages already (not including Japanese which i've been learning for 2 years) and I have experience as a language teacher. Also, I'm planning on doing a master degree on russo-japanese international relationship.

I know the interview counts for a lot, but I hope the paper application still counts after the round 1 for a good amount.
I did my interview 2 weeks ago, this is the first time i come back on this forum (which i visited like 2-3 times a day a month prior the interview). I just wanted to share this with you fellow canadian jet applicants, because I know you also went trough it and nobody outside this programme can understand how hard and stressful this interview can be if you are truly motivated to make it.

Thanks
Pierre

[Gizmotech]

Umm, don't feel too bad about the books/movies thing... I don't think I could've done three either that represent the country very well. That being said, The hockey Sweater was the first thing that came to mind and that IS French Canadian culture. I might have suggested, given you were in Montreal, that lots of truly Canadian culture is French Canadian, possibly suggested a few things off the top of your head, and then said you would try and find the English versions

[AVN]

Umm, don't feel too bad about the books/movies thing... I don't think I could've done three either that represent the country very well. That being said, The hockey Sweater was the first thing that came to mind and that IS French Canadian culture. I might have suggested, given you were in Montreal, that lots of truly Canadian culture is French Canadian, possibly suggested a few things off the top of your head, and then said you would try and find the English versions

I agree! If you're going in as a French-Canadian represent French-Canada. I teach about Ukrainian culture all the time here. They love it.

I think that question was a big unfair. Music would have been much better. There are times I don't even know if a movie or book is Canadian (unless it's really obvious) because they don't always advertise them as such. Also we get exposed to so much in the way of American and British culture growing up and at school.

One thing I'll say though Toktogul is you'll need to get over that anxiety about speaking English

[Ertai87]

@toktogul: Wow that sounds harsh! Good job fighting through it, and best of luck to you! Unfortunately they're probably going to judge you a bit harshly on the movies thing, since that's a big thing for them. They really shouldn't, though, since so much of Canadian culture is taken from other countries. I don't know how much you've left Quebec, but here in Ontario, we get American culture basically the same way you seem to get French culture over there. I don't think I could name 3 Canadian movies either if they asked me in an interview!

On a lighter note, don't be so nervous about your English; you're actually pretty good, and, having been to Japan and spoken English with Japanese students, I can say you're much better than them at any rate =D

[Smasha]

I did the interview in Montreal. I was hard on myself at first, then when I told how it went to my friends, i figured it wasnt that bad.

As a french-canadian, it was already stressful enough to do my first english interview for 30 minutes. Then when they asked me to name 3 canadian books/movies to present in class, I realised that I couldn't (and still can't). In Quebec, we are surrounded by french and french-canadian culture, to the point that english canadian culture is hard to find. So I said that I would need to make some research during my class preparations to find few books to present.

Then they ask me to pretend that I was giving a class to high school students on multiculturalism..... not on animals, not on sports, no! On multiculturalism..... One of the interviewer started sleeping and the other one texting on his cellphone. I was already stressed enough trying to find a way to explain multiculturalism, I had to do discipline, which went well, but I spent most of the time doing it, and didn't talk much about the main topic. I have teaching experience, but at university level in Russia, so I didnt have to deal with sleepers and I didn't bother requesting people to stop texting, because they were adults, so It's their problem if they don't listen, as long as they don't disturb the whole class.

I don't know if they had a poker face or weren't impressed by my candidature, but I didn't feel like I did well enough. At first I thought I had strong chances, since I lived for a year abroad, I speak 3 languages already (not including Japanese which i've been learning for 2 years) and I have experience as a language teacher. Also, I'm planning on doing a master degree on russo-japanese international relationship.

I know the interview counts for a lot, but I hope the paper application still counts after the round 1 for a good amount.
I did my interview 2 weeks ago, this is the first time i come back on this forum (which i visited like 2-3 times a day a month prior the interview). I just wanted to share this with you fellow canadian jet applicants, because I know you also went trough it and nobody outside this programme can understand how hard and stressful this interview can be if you are truly motivated to make it.

Thanks
Pierre

I am sure you did fine- you didn't crumble under pressure, you were proffesional, and answered to the best of your ability. I speak two languages myself, and am originally from Russia( my grandfather fought in the Russo-Japanese part of WWII), so I think our bi/tri-lingualism, and multiculturalism plays in our favour for JET- we know what it's like to learn another language and integrate into another culture. Also, you have teaching experience abroad, so they should also take that into consideration.

The Canadian culture thing is a tough one on the interview: how do you know what's truly Canadian when you are surrounded by influences from US, Britain and France? I was honest in my interview, and told them i am not an expert, but can teach the kids a little bit about a lot-hockey, first nations, etc. I hope that was good enough.

Good luck!!! And keep checking up on the forums, they are a good way to pass the time!