Jul 25, 2010

Thursday mornings at Miyagi Gakuin University 09




After I dropped my books and computer in the teachers' room, I went back out into the hall to take a couple of more pictures. The first is a notice board for the students and, beside it on the left, a place for the school to leave papers for the students. Each student in the English Dept has a slot that they are supposed to check daily.
The next picture is a typical classroom. Most of the rooms are like this and I have one class a week in this room. For my listening and speaking classes with only 20 students, I found a small room in the corner of the building on a little used hallway and specifically request it. The rooms like those in this picture have seats for about 80 students and the wooden desks are so close together that it is extremely difficult for the teacher to move around the room. Of course, it is assumed that the teacher would never think of leaving the platform that is under the green board at the front.
After taking the two pictures I returned to the teachers' room and got a cup of iced coffee. This machine is set so that all the drinks are free. If it were on the street, each drink would be at least 150 yen. Actually there are two teachers' rooms. There is another just down the hall that is a smoking room, and that room has another machine almost like this one. I checked them both out after this one was up graded last year and found that the one in the no smoking room has a wider variety of drinks.

The coffee is brewed separately for each cup, so while that was happening I went over and put my stamp in the book. Miyagi Gakuin University's logbook shows a single pay period (about a month) for each teacher - dates along the top and names at the left. The teacher can use a formal hanko, an informal stamp like I use, or just sign or initial with a pen.


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