"mr.sumo snr." <mr_sumo@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bnmb7o$1331km$1@ID-141600.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> Just that one thread? Please tell us you've Google Groups advanced search
> for threads - you should find over 1000 posts.

Well uh, no. Before I so thoughtlessly posted, I only did a scan of
current group threads and simply didn't see any that seemed relevant.
Then after posting I started to browse more leisurely and came upon
the thread.
See, searching actively would have been the intelligent thing to do.
=)
 
> "conversational fluency" in Japanese is rarely required to teach here -
> after all where are you going to use it?  Surely you didn't imagine in the
> classroom?  That can get you canned in a lot of schools here.  If you're

Really? I can't imagine a foreign language class with a teacher that
couldn't speak the native language. I have 3 semesters of German in
college, and I think I did adequately well, and my instructor while a
German native spoke pretty clear English.
Do they, in Japan, tend to follow complete emersion style of language
instruction? I can't even really begin to fathom explaining English
conjugation without being able to explain all the exceptions and
irregularities. How can you really get that across without being able
to discuss it in the students' native language?

> job at a chain school.  Then again if you want to aim higher then do so -
> I've met a lot of university English teachers who couldn't recognize a
> complex sentence with a flashlight and a grammar dictionary - you might get
> lucky.

Browsing the 'Net, I'm not finding too many good things about the
chain schools. (I still haven't quite figured out if NOVA is a chain
school or simply a union.) When the time comes for us to really focus
on making moving a goal, I'm certainly going to set my sights on
University. Strunk and White are friends of mine. ;)

Thanks for the feedback!
Liam