Back in November of 2012, I made a comment on my blog that I wish I could teach English in Japan. A follower of mine asked, "Have you heard of the JET Program?" A few clicks later and Google had shown me everything I needed to know. I guess you could say the rest is history!
"The JET Programme is a government-sponsored, large-scale international exchange programme. JET began in with the purpose of increasing mutual understanding between the people of Japan and the people of other nations. It aims to promote internationalisation in Japan’s local communities by helping to improve foreign language education and developing international exchange at the community level." (taken from the official JET site www.jetprogramme.org)JET stands for Japan Exchange and Teaching. In my case, it's not only meant to help educate Japanese students about American language and culture but is also meant to act as an exchange program in which I, as an American participant, am in a position to learn a lot about Japanese culture as well. Because of this, the JET Program doesn't necessarily hire applicants who are already well versed about Japan... which is lucky for me, since I've only taken about a year of Japanese language courses. Which brings me to my next point:
People ask me why I've decided to go to Japan to teach English as opposed to diving right into my field of study - TV and Film Production. And it's a good question... I guess I've just always had a spot in my heart for Japan. It dates back to before I even realized that a lot of my interests shared that common theme! I truly feel that everything does happen for a reason, not by chance but because life naturally takes us where we need to go. This particular process all started with the realization that I was able to take Japanese classes as electives. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had been short-listed on the JET Program which, as any hopeful gaijin knows, is the jackpot.
As I said, I discovered the JET Program around early November 2012 and the application deadline was only a month from the point that I decided I wanted to do it! The initial application is very extensive but I got everything together, poured my heart into my SOP (Statement of Purpose), and got lucky with some very special recommendation letters. In January, I was notified that I received an interview (at which point I died of excitement)! I did so much research for that interview... I only had about 3 weeks to prepare and then had it in February. It went really well even though I forgot to mention the 3 teaching courses I had enrolled in solely to prepare myself for JET, heh! But I still made it through and got short-listed. I was notified of that in April. Throughout May, I had to send in more forms and towards the end of the month I got my placement - Yawatahama (which I will cover in another post)!
So now I'm still working out the last few details but I'm in the home stretch. In 2 days, I'll be attending a Q&A in Nashville and after that it's only a little over a month before I board a plane for Tokyo Orientation on August 3rd! This has been a brief little summary of how I got to this point but if anyone is wondering about anything more specific, feel free to tell me and I'll make a post!~
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