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**** The Solo Sensei Newsletter - Volume 12 ****
November 6th, 2002
Over 5000 Readers Japan-wide
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You are receiving this newsletter as part of your membership in FindaTeacher.Net. If needed, see remove instructions below.

IN THIS ISSUE
1. PARTY! - Findateacher.Net Year End Party
2. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
3. Refresh and WIN - 20 Prizes!
A. Thompson's - "The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teachers' Course" (5)
B. MacMillan's - "English Learner's Dictionary" (10)
C. Longman's - "Grammar Express" with CD ROM (5)
4. A Teacher's Comment on 'Age' and 'Gender' Search
5. Do you know a Non-English Speaking Teacher?
6. The Ways Students Contact Teachers
7. More Helpful Tips
8. How Can We Help You?


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1. FindaTeacher.Net Year End Party
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We have all probably taught enough for this year so.....come out from behind your white boards, textbooks, and computer monitors and join many of the over 3500 registered teachers from over 80 countries for findateacher.Net's first year-end party. All findateacher.Net teacher members, students of their choice, and reps from supporting companies/websites are invited. DJ/Prizes/2003 ELT catalogues will be made available for you from major publishers.

DATE: Saturday December, 14th
LOCATION: Club Pure (in Yokohama - Kannai Station)
TIME: 7 - 11 pm
HOW MUCH?: 3500 yen (includes open bar/light fare)
MAP URL:
(English) http://www.clubpure.com/images/englishmap.gif
(Japanese) http://www.clubpure.com/images/japanesemap.gif

We've all seen your photo on-line and look forward to meeting you (and any students you want to bring with you) in person.


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2. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
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5000 yen (and Congratulations) went to 4 teachers this month in the "Tattle and Earn 5000 Yen!" campaign. These teachers let us know that a school had contacted them. Thanks to their help we were able to identify the schools as "under-payers" (they paid only 3,800 instead of 15,000 yen - which is the school price).

Since the last Solo Sensei Newsletter 1850 teachers' contact information has been sent to students. We hope you were among them. findateacher.Net's popularity is best measured by us in terms of new teacher sign ups. Sign ups continue to rise even though advertising to teachers has been intentionally tapered off.

Of the currently 3274 active teachers, 16% (529 teachers) are non-English teachers.


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3. Refresh and WIN - 20 Prizes!
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A. 5 copies of Thomson Learning's "The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teachers' Course" (retail value 9438 yen) will be awarded by Thomson Learning. Grammatical descriptions and teaching suggestions are organized into sections dealing with form, meaning, and use. THE GRAMMAR BOOK, helps teachers and future teachers grasp the linguistic system and details of English grammar, providing more information on how structures are used at the discourse level. (whew...that sounds serious!)

B. 10 teachers will win MacMillan Language House's "Macmillan English Learner's Dictionary for Advanced Learners" (paperback edition with CD-ROM: retail value 3,800 yen). This is a brilliantly-organized user-friendly dictionary of over 1,692 pages, with over 100,000 references, 30,000 idioms and phrases, and 80,000 real-life spoken and written example sentences. It features clear, simple explanations using only 2,500 defining vocabulary, 7,500 of the most productive words highlighted in red that students need to express themselves effectively, and quick menus in long entries to get you to the meaning you want - fast! There is simply nothing else like it on the market.

C. 5 teachers will win Longman's "Grammar Express" with CD ROM (retail value 1920 yen). This is an intermediate to high-intermediate text with 75 four-page self-contained thematic units that present and practice key grammar points. Can be used as class text of for self study and sections can be taught in any order. A very useful classroom companion.

TO QUALIFY for the prizes above, refresh your record in the findateacher.Net database (by logging in and clicking "Refresh") then email us at prize@FindaTeacher.Net. Include your *postal* mailing address and name of the prize you are most interested in winning.

Congratulations to last month's 6 lucky winners!


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4. A Teacher's Comment on 'Age' and 'Gender' Search
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findateacher.Net teacher, Sarah Ridgway, commented:

"I think that the categories 'age' and 'gender' are odd ones to use as search tools. Surely qualifications or experience would be better criteria....it's my experience that Japan is bad enough at discriminating against women and being ageist without services provided by foreign companies following the accepted Japanese way of thinking. Let's try to encourage students to judge candidates on the criteria which really matter".

Findateacher.Net replied:

We agree that qualifications and experience are better things to search for a teacher by BUT those are the things (ironically) least searched for by our Japanese student users.

One of the main reasons the gender search was put in place because many *women* students were asking if there was a way they could look for only women teachers.

In our initial research on what information students wanted to know about teachers, 'age' was high on the list. 'Age' is the second most popular among all the advanced searches taking place (price is most popular). Searches are being conducted at relatively equal amounts across all age levels.


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5. Do you know a Non-English Speaking Teacher?
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Requests for teachers other than English teachers are up. The most popular are German, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian and Chinese teachers. However, there are increased requests for teachers of other languages too. So...if you know someone (current teacher or aspiring teacher) in need of private students and who speaks:

Algerian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Burmese, Bengali, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Farsi, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malaysian, Nepalese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Rwandan, Serbo-Croatian, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tunisian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, OR Zulu.

...please let them know that they too can get students (earn money) through findateacher.Net. We've recently begun advertising directly to students of each of these languages.


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6. The Ways Students Contact Teachers
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As you may know, when a student requests teacher contact information from SenseiSagasu.com, they are sent a list of up to 5 teachers' phone numbers and email addresses. The chosen teachers are also informed that their contact information has been sent to the student.

Occasionally, we get notes from teachers who are upset that although their contact information was sent to a student, they were not contacted by that student. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing findateacher.Net can do to make sure that the students contact teachers after the contact information is sent.

So far, here's some of what we've observed about what students do with teacher contact information after receiving it:

A. Normally (and ideally), students set up trial lessons with all contact-able teachers as soon as possible, try the teachers, then choose one to study with.

B. Some students contact all teachers immediately after getting the contact information and screen them by their email responses or during the first phone call. Email screening seems to take into consideration the speed at which the teacher responds as well as the content of the response. Phone screening seems to consider the quality of conversation, sometimes the teachers Japanese level, and occasionally, even the evaluation of background noises, tone of voice, etc.

C. Out of desire to begin studying quickly, some students stick with the first teacher they are able to set up a trial lesson with and never contact anyone else.

D. Some students hold on to the list for as long as possible and study with the teachers, one by one, until they run out.

E. Some students hold the info for a very long time. One student contacted us upset that the phone number we had sent her (1 year before!) for one of her teachers was outdated.

F. Some students share their teacher contact information and log-in passwords with friends.

Please do not get flustered if you are not contacted immediately. There's not much we can do (besides tell you to make sure your phone number is set to display to students). There is a pretty good chance that if you are not contacted in the first 7 days, you'll be contacted afterwards.


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7. More Helpful Tips
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A. If you are flooded with students (as some of you are) increase your price before putting your record on "Break". The laws of supply and demand apply to you too. Raising your price will slow the number of students selecting you. However, if they are willing to pay the higher price...why not get it.

B. Earn 5,000 yen for letting us know if you are contacted by a school/matching service - for details see section #4 of:
http://findateacher.Net/solosensei/volume11.html

C. Teaching prices are now available in increments of 100 yen. Previously they were set at 500 yen increments. Please log in and adjust your prices if necessary.

D. Over-refreshing (repeatedly logging in and clicking "Refresh") is not necessary. Several teachers have been doing this over 5 times a day (!?!?!). Listing yourself in the correct locations (that is, your primary teaching area plus its adjacent areas) and refreshing weekly - or every few days should be enough.

E. If your record was chosen only once or twice - just around the time you signed up - and then then not at all OR or very infrequently afterwards, the cause is most likely that you haven't "refreshed" your record. Doing so pulls your record back to the tops of each area list you are registered in. This is where most student browsing takes place.

F. Interested in getting a Certificate for Teaching Japanese Students? Check out:

http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/about/dehseminar.shtml

This course is designed to address the specific needs of teachers teaching in *Japan*. All ideas derive from classroom research, and trial-and-error experience in various Japanese teaching situations. The course is appropriate for teachers of Japanese junior / senior high school students, college students, and adults.


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8. How Can We Help You?
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Please let us know what you want us to do for *you*. That's why we're here.
Hope you can come to the PARTY!! Let me know if you need more info or text directions.


Jake Rollins
Solo Sensei, Producer
Teacher Helper
jake@FindaTeacher.Net
http://www.FindaTeacher.Net
http://www.SenseiSagasu.com

*** Made for Teachers by Teachers ***

Copyright 2002 FindaNet, Ltd.