My First Months as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher): What I Learned

My First Months as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher): What I Learned

This is the third post in a series about becoming an ALT in Ehime, Japan. Check out the previous two here:

How to ALT – Assistant Language Teacher

How to Start Your First ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) Job

The current climate of English teaching in Japan (as I see it

It’s a transitional period for teaching English as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Japan. Traditionally English education has started at the beginning of Junior High School. However, as of a few years ago there has been a major shake-up of the system. For the past few years the level that students start to learn English has become incrementally lower. Last year it was 4th Grade starting to learn English. This year it is 3rd Grade. What this means for ALTs is there are the Japanese Home Room Teachers that have never been expected to teach any English in the past, now suddenly expected to co-teach English lessons. This is causing difficulties for both the Home Room Teachers and the ALTs.

It seems that no one knows exactly where they stand

In this time of change, teachers can be forgiven for not knowing exactly what their roles are. Where exactly they fit in the mechanics of the English education system.

Something I had not realised before I started the job is that Elementary School English is not assessed at all. There are no tests nor any other form of evaluation. You could regard this as being quite freeing for the teacher, but having a syllabus that is tested gives you some clearly defined goals. Not having these goals can leave a void in the lesson plan that needs to be filled by reaching a consensus with the HRT (Home Room Teacher). Certainly in my case, having a frank conversation about the educational goals of the class is beyond my Japanese, and the HRTs’ English abilities.

ALTs are told that they are not supposed to be running the classes. That it is the HRT’s responsibility to create the lesson plan and either be the primary teacher of the lesson, or at the very least co-teacher. This is certainly not what happens in lower level classes at Elementary school. I’ll talk more about this later.

Starting in April rather than September

I am a non-JET ALT. An ALT that the city hires itself rather than one supplied through the JET program. The only one in my small city that has twelve or thirteen JETs. Click here for more information about JETs and non-JETs. This means that I started in April to coincide with the beginning of Japan’s financial and academic year, whereas JETs start in September. I quickly realised why it is that they start in September between the first and second terms. My first week was complete chaos. In Japan the state schools transfer their teachers every few years, this is usually between two and four years. But the teachers only find out about their transfer to another school one week before the beginning of the first term. So, I arrived at the schools at the same time as the teachers who had been transferred from another school. They were getting a class of students that they’d never met and had a week to prepare for. They certainly had no time for me.

At that time teachers were too busy

I was shown my desk, and given computer password. I was shown the foreign language classroom. And after that I was pretty much left to my own devices. I had a lot of questions but nobody had time to answer them. I was sent home at lunchtime three times in my first week with the explanation that nobody had time to spend with me. Under other circumstances I would find this great, but I was nervous about my first lessons that were looming at the beginning of the following week.

Thank goodness for the advice that I had received from my friend Ros, who had been an ALT a few years earlier. She advised me to put together an introduction lesson about myself that could easily be adapted to different levels. So I threw myself into this.

You can see the rest of Ros’ advice here.

I recommend

Use the time you have at the beginning of the job to figure things out around the office. Figure out how your computer works. It’ll probably be a Japanese operating system so make sure you know how to print, how to use the copier, how to scan from the textbooks, and how to laminate cards. Making a start on an introduction lesson about yourself is a good way to do this.

Starting with no training – finding your feet

When it comes to training, the differences between Japan and western countries are pretty stark. In New Zealand I would have expected to have been given training that took me through mock classes and any difficulties I was having would have been addressed at that time. Here in Japan you’re thrown into it and expected to hit the ground running, or find your feet quickly.

On the positive side, I think that spending a few lessons, a few weeks, finding your feet is understandable and accepted. No one is perfect from the outset. I had spent almost seven years teaching smaller groups at private conversation schools in Japan but I found the adjustments to larger classes more difficult than I expected. I would have liked some more advice from the Japanese teachers as to how I was doing, but everyone said I was doing fine.

Elementary School Teachers

The Elementary School teachers have tended to fall into two broad categories for me. And these categories pretty much followed the teacher’s confidence with English. The first and largest group were happy to quickly let me take responsibility for creating the lesson plans and running the classes. It was their first or second year teaching English at all, and it was so much easier just to let me do it. These HRTs could generally follow what I was trying to explain to the class and they would jump in if I was ever stuck trying to give an explanation. On fewer occasions they would sit at the back of the class and say nothing.

The second group consisted of teachers with a little more English ability. They generally knew what they wanted out of the lesson. They came up with the lesson plan and would tell you (usually at the beginning of the class) what they needed from you. 

But… what is supposed to happen?

In an ideal world all Elementary School Home Room teachers would fall into the second category above. But, as I’ve said, it’s a transitional time and I think there has to be some understanding. Further to this, my taking responsibility for some of the lower level classes is not just kindness on my part. It is much easier for me to look at the text book and decide how to deliver the material in the most interesting way than it is to find a time to meet with the busy HRT, sit and have a slow and difficult conversation about what should happen in the class.

Club Activities

I’m sure that this differs from school to school or between Boards of Education.

In the two elementary schools where I work the club activities are monthly. In both schools the topic of the English Clubs were decided by me but the organisational responsibilities have been split between me and the Japanese teacher responsible for the club. I was asked by all of my schools to try to do activities that were New Zealand, or at least western country focussed.

So far we have made Maori poi and done some poi dancing. We’ve looked at the All Black haka, and we’ve done a lesson on Easter and designed Easter eggs. I plan to go over the rules to rugby and cricket in the next few months as well as give the students some opportunities to try black liquorice. The taste of aniseed is not common over here, especially not in candy. I think we’ll have a “taste of New Zealand” theme and they can taste black liquorice and marmite.

I was relieved to find that the English club at the junior high school was not like a school sports club where they practice four or five times a week.