Job Discussion Forums

[BigZen]

I am a team teacher (Assistant Language Teacher) at a junior high school. I work with three Japanese English teachers, teaching with them the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades respectively. Class size is 40-41 students.
I work with a Japanese man in the 3rd grade classroom. I started the job in April 2014. Last year in the fall I was asked by this teacher to make a “communicative activity” for the class. I teach 3 classes (3rd grade) in one morning, consecutively. I made a 20-minute information gap activity. It went Ok the 1st class. However, during the 2nd class, my colleague complained to me in front of the students that the students were speaking Japanese, and that one of the questions, which was “what’s your name?” was really dumb and a waste of time since everyone knew each other. He also pointed out in a loud voice in-front of the class that students were speaking Japanese. I tried to explain that for a large class (41 students) aged 13-14, it is inevitable that students might revert to their L1, and that I was doing my best to circulate throughout the classroom, trying to make sure everyone was doing the activity in English. Then after I had gone back to the teachers office for the 10-minute break between the 2nd and third period, I was walking with this teacher to the classroom to teach the 3rd period, when he informs me I have the entire 50-minute lesson to teach/do the activity. So all I could do was try to improvise, introduce the activity and explain it to the class in English. The Japanese English teachers usually support me with Japanese explanations when needed, however, this teacher just sat at the desk at the front marking papers. The activity did not go all that well since the students got confused, and my attempts to explain things in Japanese did little to alleviate their confusion. So, I tried to extend the activity for as long as possible, but when I looked at the clock on the wall, I still had at least 15 minutes “to kill.” So I told the students how sorry I was that I could not provide a better explanation and that my poor Japanese obviously did not help, and it was not their fault, but my responsibility. I spoke from the heart about how I know how anxious it can be to speak a foreign language since I have difficult in the rural area where I live going to the hospital, pharmacy and other places. I am married to a Japanese woman with two small kids by the way. As I was talking my co-teacher at the front said “it sounds like a funeral,” which I took as my cue to shut up.
Later in the teachers office this teacher began to lecture me on time management. I did not at the time tell him how he threw me under the bus telling me just before we stepped into the classroom that I was to teach the class on my own, and all I had was a 20-minute activity for a 50-minmute class.
So I was utterly humiliated and embarrassed, or as the Japanese would say, “lost a lot of face.” After the class I tried to justify the question “what is your name?” saying that it is communicative if the students ask and answer in English…I then hinted at how difficult situation he put me in without any forewarning. His answer was that he said he wanted to give me more time for the activity.
Judging from the pleasure he seemed to take at witnessing me bomb in the class, I can only assume it was a means to punish me for something.
Am I being too sensitive?

[spiral78]

No, he threw you under the bus.
I think you helped him by apologizing to the students.

Have you had a CELTA or other TEFL training course? It's almost always feasible to design tasks so that translation isn't needed for directions, even with lower-level learners.
If you were asked to design any further task, your best bet is probably to make sure it is done so that you have no need for the Japanese teacher to get on board with you, and that you've got expandable/additional units that can make it work in different time frames.

[Maitoshi]

Nice comment, spiral!

[rtm]

You shouldn't feel bad about anything you did -- like Spiral said, your co-teacher threw you under the bus. Has he worked with an ALT much before? He might just not know how to do, or be comfortable with, team teaching. Your description sounds like he was trying to put you in your place, so to speak.

Alternatively, his statements in front of the students could have other meanings -- him 'complaining' that students were speaking L1 too much could have been a cue to students that they should speak more in English. His statement that "it sounds like a funeral" sounds (to me) like he thought you were taking things too seriously and he was trying to lighten the atmosphere in class a bit -- he might have thought that your struggles living in Japan might be a bit too 'heavy' for 13 year old Japanese kids.

Spiral is right that you can, in the future, think of activities that don't require the JTE's assistance, except that giving such assistance is his job. If I were in your position, next time I would have a brief meeting with the JTE before class not only to explain the activity, but to make it very clear to him what parts of the activity you need his assistance with and in what ways.

As an ALT, it's also good to have a few activities up your sleeve that take no preparation and require no materials, in case you need to fill time, such as hangman or rows & columns.

[nomad soul]

Straight up passive-aggressive behavior.

[dove]

That teacher should have done everything he could have done to help you make the activity work. When activities work, students learn. That's the purpose, right? What an a-hole you have to team-teach with. Sounds like he wanted to make you sink or swim, as a kind of lesson for you. See, thing is, that sink or swim bulls#%$ gets in the way of the lesson for the students, the only people who should be learning something in the classroom.

At the end of the day, you just have to forget about it. If you confront these type of people in Japan, they will play the gaijin-doesn't-understand-Japanese culture card, and--in their minds--they always win.

[fluffyhamster]

I don't know how long you've been an AET, but it is asking for exactly this sort of trouble if you "agree" to run part- and certainly full-length classes much, given there's always the backseat driver (the JTE) ready to snipe away and make a grab for the steering wheel (and they hardly ever give that clear an idea of what it is that they want or would allow you to do in the first place, eh!). By all means try to supply some activities for those JTEs who actually request any, that they can choose to use, adapt or disregard while committing all of the errors they might criticize you for (silly exemplars, possible overuse of L1 by teacher if not students too, etc etc etc), but you have every right to refuse to be delegated too much if it is in fact not clear, effective and real delegation (and thus with no real trust and respect) at all. One can only imagine what would happen to an AET who was as forthright in their comments about any of the JTEs they observed. Anyway, if you really want to teach unhindered (which though more intellectually satisfying, isn't quite as "easy" a life as the average JHS AET's "should" be given the usual set-up) then I suggest you look into elementary school AET positions instead.

[rxk22]

[fluffyhamster]

[fluffyhamster]

[spiral78]

Fluff, can I use your post as an exemplar for my students of how numerous parenthetical expressions make written texts difficult for a reader? They are overly-fond of using these, though certainly not so enthusiastic as you!

[Maitoshi]

[BigZen]

Hello Everyone:
Thank you all for the replies and opinions and advice. To answer a few of the questions, I do have a CELTA, as well as Master’s in Education (TESL) done on-campus, with a practicum like the CELTA. I also have an elementary teaching degree. I was an AET on the JET program (1991-93), and then returned to my home country to get the proper credentials. I am, I am sure, much older than all of you. Yes, at my age being an AET is kind of a “step down” since I have taught at the post-secondary level in the Middle East and Korea. However, here in rural Japan, where my family and I live, teaching opportunities at the post-secondary level are almost non-existent, so I feel very grateful to have the job, any job, in such a competitive job market; both for foreigners and Japanese.
I really do try and put myself in the shoes of my three Japanese English teaching colleagues, since they work such long hours, and it appears to be a thankless job. Indeed, stress can affect work relationships, so I am always cognizant about how little responsibility I have compared to them. I get along in the class with two of the teachers. It was that one “incident” in the classroom with my male colleague, the head of the department. I agree that I need to bury any resentment and move on. I was kind of surprised the day after my class from hell that this Japanese colleague asked me if I like teaching at the school. I answered of course I do, but he doesn’t seem to believe me.
I agree that the question on the information gap activity I made, “What’s your name?” is kind of lame, but I thought it would kind of ease the students into the activity. I did an information gap last week that was made by another colleague for a different grade, and as I suspected, the students reverted to Japanese. I can only speak from experience studying Japanese as a foreign language that I do so much better in classes with a Japanese teacher who can speak English, and therefore can provide explanations in my native L1. Of course others prefer total immersion, but I get overwhelmed, confused and frustrated. I guess that is why I am so sensitive to the challenges my students face trying to learn English.
I bought a pretty good activity book (in English and Japanese)for my teaching, and gave a copy to each of my three colleagues, with the hope that they would choose an activity they deem appropriate, and then my job is, as the AET, to provide as much support I can in implementation. I also scour the Internet for material. I found the CELTA very useful. My Japanese is OK, but I am certain if it were better, I would be able to serve the students much better. From my experience teaching in the Gulf, I could deliver a lesson in the target language (English), but I relied upon Arabic speaking co-teachers to provide explanations of difficult grammatical concepts. Like I said, I too reply on an instructor who can explain difficult Japanese things in English in the Japanese classroom.

[spiral78]

[rxk22]