it's not life that matters but the journey...

Happy Sunday – well it’s Sunday here in temporarily sunny Japan. I’ll start out by saying a big thanks to toadflax234, dawnie1970, serialbathera and winterdahlia for the virtual milk and cookies! I’m stuffed and they were delicious! Since I’ve been having some stomach issues lately, I should probably refrain from eating real cookies – therefore, the virtual treats are welcomed!!

Amidst all the lesson planning I have to do this weekend, I thought it would be a nice idea if I wrote a little bit about life in Japan, starting with a bit of an overview of my job. I feel like I haven't done much writing about my new teaching job except to complain about how tiring it has been! Or to complain about the teachers. But I guess I needed to get more classroom time before I could start to become more comfortable and adjusted. So many factors were causing me stress during the first few weeks of the job, and teaching just ended up being more exhausting than fun. Not only had I been unemployed for over six months, but also I haven't taught in about 5 years! And the last teaching I did was either really small classes, or college classes. So I've had to adjust to being in front of large groups of kids (which actually can be lots of fun), and also get readjusted to teaching in the Japanese classroom (which is a world in and of itself!).

One thing that I'm learning is that each day and each class I teach brings a whole different experience - sometimes that experience can be challenging, sometimes easy - sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding. But overall, I am enjoying it, and I know it will just get better with time.

I guess I should explain what my job actually entails and give you some of the highlights and low points so far.



My job title is ALT (Assistant Language Teacher), which means that I am not in charge of my own classes, but I'm more like a "guest" in the English classrooms. And the "guest" thing is not an exaggeration, given that I'm actually working as a contracted employee rather than a direct employee of either the school or the city's Board of Education. I work alongside the Japanese homeroom teachers and "assist" them with various aspects of the teaching of English. So this means entirely different things at the elementary school and at the junior high school. Currently, English is not a mandatory subject at the elementary level. Starting next year, it will be mandatory at the 5th and 6th grades, so right now ALT's are kind of in an interesting position. Even though our title is "Assistant", we are more the main teacher in the English classroom. Elementary school teachers in Japan are not trained in English, so whether or not they speak English is dependent on whether or not they've studied it on their own. This means that some of the teachers I'm working with speak absolutely NO English at all and are petrified to even say a few words in class; while others can speak a little and are comfortable using it to communicate with me and with the students. So in the Elementary school, I pretty much control the content of the lessons (i.e. make the whole lesson plan using subjects decided by the students' textbook), while the Japanese teacher is just in charge of the class (keeping the students focused, helping explain activities, getting them into groups, etc.) Next year things will probably be different, as the English classes, which are now just a "choice" for each individual school, will become compulsory. ALT's are being told that we should start trying to encourage the Japanese teachers to take a more active and main role as English teachers - which is a big challenge for them. And I'm sure it will be several years before the whole system is perfected.

The junior high school classes are more like the teaching I did 12 years ago in the Japanese high school. I'm really much more of an assistant, and the lessons are "team-taught" - I perform dialogues or skits with the Japanese English teachers, help plan and organize activities and games, and sometimes I'm just the "human tape recorder", reading words or phrases so that they can hear "native" English. English teachers at the junior high school level are trained in English, but the four teachers I work with all have very different English language skills. Plus they all have radically different teaching styles, and each teacher has different uses for me as an "assistant." What this means is that with one teacher I might be in charge of the whole show (making the lesson, and being the main teacher), while with another I might not be allowed to make any lesson plan or activities of my own, and I'm just standing on the sidelines most of the time.

This teacher, the one who mostly has me standing on the sidelines, is a veteran (she’s the oldest of the four) and she speaks English quite well. She’s very professional, and very in-charge (aka in control!). She's the one who pulled me aside after our first lesson together and told me everything I'd done wrong. Well, maybe it was more like I hadn’t really done anything wrong – just not the way she liked it. She’s not a mean person – she’s just one of those intense people who has to be in charge of everything. She keeps the students in line, and keeps them focused, and there is no time wasted. And even though I have prepared lessons plans for all of the other teachers, she pretty much threw out all but one small part of my lesson plan and used her own materials. And she seems intent on making her own plans for our team-taught classes. Even though I prefer using my own lessons and materials, I can’t complain. I’m an “assistant” only, and I have to defer to what the Japanese teachers want. The biggest problem for me is that I never really know what I’m supposed to be doing in her classes because we don’t have time to talk about lessons. The other day, for example, she pulled me aside while the kids were singing a song (which they do at the beginning of every lesson in all classes) and briefly told me how the lesson would go. I have to follow her lead, and try not to get lost. It’s challenging to say the least.

The other female teacher is very young and very much a novice teacher; she's very sweet and very easy-going, and in her classes I am able to do a bit more with the students, which is nice. She hadn’t prepared anything for our first lessons together, so I was able to use my plans and my materials. That helps me because then I have more of an idea of how the lesson will flow. However, because she's young, and not as experienced, she's not as good at controlling the students, so sometimes it can be more chaotic. But the students seem to like her, and I like teaching with her. Plus, she’s the only one who’s seemed to take an interest in me, and my life outside of school.

There are two male teachers, and they're as different as night and day too! One of them I actually met at the City Hall meeting we attended before my job began. He’s apparently the “Eigo Tanto” (or chief English teacher) – which I find a bit amusing. Unlike the older female teacher who is very professional and controlling, this guy is about as laid back as a surfer. He’s a bit older than me, and friendly, though not very talkative. He almost always wears a track suit (in fact many of the Junior high teachers wear track suits – kind of like Sue Sylvester on Glee!) whereas the two female teachers both wear very professional slacks and skirts. This guy only teaches the 9th graders, and he is the only one of the four teachers who lets me prepare lessons for the entire 50-minute time period. The other three teachers usually take the first 15-20 minutes of class for their own business (checking homework, giving quizzes, etc.), so most of my lessons last only 30 minutes. It’s easier to be sure, but not as fun as having the whole class time. The atmosphere in his classes is much more relaxed, since he’s not very rigid about anything. This is both good and bad. He doesn’t really control the students much, and when they’re not paying attention, he only yells at them, which doesn’t really help. Sometimes I leave his classes more tired because he really lets me lead the lessons, while he just assists and provides translations. He’s definitely the least interested in teaching – though his English isn’t too bad.

The other male teacher, who is a bit younger (and who also wears track suits!) is probably the least talkative, which is due mostly to the fact that his English is the worst of the four. He had trouble simply explaining to me, in English, how to get from the teacher’s room to the classroom where we’d be teaching. I can do the same thing in Japanese! But even though his English is terrible, as a teacher he’s much more organized, and our lessons flow very smoothly from one activity to the next. He’s good at motivating and controlling the students, and he allows me to design my own lessons and activities, which I enjoy. So his classes, while not exciting, are not really stressful. We really work more as a team, which is how it’s meant to go.

I spend about 85 percent of my time at the junior high school, so I haven’t really gotten to know the Elementary teachers. And I won’t be working with them in the same way, since we aren’t really teaching together. But that said, I already have my favorites there too – the ones who are more willing to participate in activities, and who aren’t afraid to try using a few words of English in class. The biggest challenge I’ve had with the Elementary teachers is just getting them to understand games and activities so that they can then explain (in Japanese) to the students, and so that they can oversee everything. This will get easier with time as they get more used to me, and to the games that we use. Repetition is probably going to be my key word this year!

So now I’ve explained about the teachers. Honestly getting accustomed to their personalities, and knowing (and meeting) their expectations of me as an “assistant” has been the hardest part of the job so far. Teaching English to the students is much easier. But just like all of the teachers are different, so are the students! Each grade level brings it’s own challenges – and to add more challenge, each level has 7-8 classes, each of which has it’s own dynamics and abilities. And so far I’ve only taught each class only one or two times, with sometimes as much as 2 weeks in between – so I’m still learning. And forget about learning the student’s names!!!! With 30 students per class, and a total of 22 classes, that’s almost 700 students just at the junior high. Then there’s about 300 more students at one elementary school, and I’ll be visiting my second elementary school next week!

The first thing I've come to realize is that the younger kids are really so much easier to teach. I've only had three days at the elementary school in three weeks of teaching, and while they have been the most tiring, they are also the most fun. As opposed to a full day of teaching at the junior high, teaching five classes at the elementary school is tiring in a good way. I get to play games, sing songs, and see the cheerful smiling faces of 10-11 year-olds! The kids always greet me with a smile, they look me in the eyes, and they approach every activity with very loud enthusiasm! That is really such a cute age. And the most important thing is that they are not afraid to use English. They love it! I feel like the kids look forward to my English lessons at the elementary school.

At the junior high school, I have only experienced that enthusiasm in the 7th grade classes. For some reason, students at this level are still cheerful and still enjoy learning. In all of the classes we start each lesson by singing some English song (which is chosen by the teachers at each grade level), and at the 7th grade level so far it’s been two songs by the Beatles: “Hello, Goodbye!” and “Love Me Do.” The kids sing loudly and really seem to enjoy the songs. They even smile! But boy, trying to get the 8th graders to smile – and to sing loudly – is a different story! Something happens between 7th and 8th grade (perhaps it’s puberty, or perhaps just boredom or apathy?) that almost completely drains the kids of their motivation and their cheerfulness. The average 8th grade Japanese student is severely shy (most of them won’t look at me when I talk to them, and speak in very quiet, almost inaudible voices) – and when we’ve been singing songs, I can only hear a few voices. Some students just simply stand there and wait for the songs to be over. Of course it could be the choices of songs – the first week we were singing “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. But as bad as that song is, last week’s song was even worse: “Wake Up” by Hilary Duff! Oh my God! Hilary Duff might be annoying for someone like me, but on the positive side, it does expose students to English in a much more appealing package!

Singing isn’t the only way to gauge interest. Many of the activities and games used in class require the students to actively participate – this means they get up out of their seats and have to engage in dialogues with other students – in English! It’s of course difficult for them, and this is where you really start to see the difference in attitudes between one grade and the next. The 7th-graders will listen to instructions and follow them perfectly – and they approach all activities with zeal and energy! If I wander around the room, I notice that they are all actually using English – they make mistakes but they are trying! And they also really love talking to me. It’s so refreshing! The 8th graders might be glad to get out of their seats and mingle with classmates – and they might seem to be having fun. But if I wander around the room, I notice that most of them aren’t even using English or practicing the target phrases. They’ll get the answers from other students, or some of them will just stay in their seats and not even participate. And many of them won’t talk to me at all. I know that most of them are just shy, but it’s frustrating to be sure. There are exceptions of course – each class has students who shine. But the attitude of the middle level can probably be summed up by something one girl said to me the other day during an activity. The kids were supposed to be filling in a world weather map by asking each other “How’s the Weather” and using information on their own card (South Africa – Sunny). Some of the kids were following the instructions, but I noticed a big cluster of girls were just chatting with each other in Japanese. So I approached them, cocked my head, and said cheerfully: “Please use English,” to which one girl replied, her voice dripping with attitude: “Watashi wa Nihonjin desu.” (which literally translates as “ I’m Japanese”). As if that alone is an excuse NOT to learn English. She certainly won’t be getting very far with that attitude, but there was nothing I could say or do to change her mind. She simply didn’t want to use English. And good luck getting a 13-year-old to do something they don’t want to do. Better to just ignore them and focus on the ones who are trying.

The 9th graders are also lacking the motivation of the younger kids, but they are a bit easier to get focused, perhaps because they are older, perhaps because they are more familiar with English? I really don’t know. So far I haven’t had many problems with these students – some of the boys are very bold and talkative, and most of the girls are either very quiet, or very defiant. Girls in general seem to get in trouble more than boys at the junior high level. Often girls will come to class late, or will be found roaming the hallways after the bell has chimed. There is one student, a very big boy, who is posing a challenge for the Japanese teacher because he won’t participate in any activities. In the last class, he had his head on his desk the whole time, and wouldn’t budge. The sad thing is, the teachers just ignore them and don’t send them home or to the principal as they would in the U.S. That lack of discipline is a whole other issue, perhaps a topic for another day.



Anyway, if you’ve read this entire entry, then you should really have a good idea of what I’m experiencing so far – and it’s only been one month! I still have 11 more to go (well, 10 if you consider that I won’t teach at all for the month of August).

Later today I’ll do a picture post – random shots of koinobori, flowers, food I’ve eaten, and other stuff I’ve found amusing. I’m still trying to determine if it’s okay for me to take pictures inside the schools – of school lunches and students and other stuff. Hopefully that will be something to look forward to – getting more of an inside view of the Japanese schools.

For now, I hope everyone is having a great weekend! Thanks for reading!