Failure and Persistence

Just like what the title says, I failed to get the interview and demo stage for the JET Programme.

What happens next? Well, I’m never going to give up on living and working in Japan. The JET Programme is the most prestigious English teaching positions in Japan, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only avenue for English.

I’ve been creating a bank of other Japanese institutions. Eikaiwa or ALT, I’ll take it (of course, the salary has to be reasonable).Recently, I was also looking into TEFL and TESOL courses. It took me three days to find the right one when one of my mother’s friends told me to ask the British Council. Here’s their reply:

Hello,

Thank you for your enquiry. Generally speaking, two of the most widely recognised initial TEFL qualifications for teaching English are the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity CertTESOL.

Some British Council centres offer the CELTA:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teacher-training/celta

You can find other institutions running a course in different countries using the links below.

Cambridge CELTA

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/find-a-centre/find-a-teaching-centre/

Trinity CertTESOL

http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=212

You can find a full list of these courses on this website:

https://www.cactustefl.com/

Hope this helps!

Best wishes,

Rachael

LearnEnglish Website Team

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en

I took one look at the fees, and WOW they are expensive. I’ll probably take them when I saved up enough from teaching in Japan. I’ll have to bank on my teaching experience rather than taking shady TEFL courses like MYTEFL.

There also some things I noticed about myself when I was getting closer to calling the JICC. Compared to my previous attempts at getting a job back at 2014, I felt more mentally stable, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have any negative thoughts. My “inner anxiety self” was screaming at me. It was telling me how inadequate I was and that I wouldn’t amount to those people who passed because they were truly better than me.

But being older and a bit wiser, I learnt a lot of things about myself like the voice in my head is not me. It’s a sickness, and it’s not what I am. I can detach myself from it because that isn’t a part of the real me.

So I did. I forced myself to be positive through dictating my mantras, eating good food, exercising, and keeping that goal within my sights.

Knowing I didn’t pass made me feel lighter. This isn’t a dead end street but a long detour. Thinking back, the JET Programme would be the easiest route for me, and we all know that life is that easy.

Courage is grace under pressure – Ernest Hemingway