Job Discussion Forums

[wonmi]

Hi all!
New to this forum. I did JET years ago and am currently in the States teaching TEFL. I have to lead a workshop titled "How to work with an ALT" to a group of Japanese teachers who are here for TEFL training.

Naturally LOTS to say, but I'd love your input if you've done ANY ALT (especially if you've gone through a private agency) work before or have extensive knowledge about private ALT agencies in Japan. Here are some questions I have:
1) If you're a private ALT (or have been one), how many schools do you usually visit in a month. Is the schedule decided by the agency or by the school?
2) Going into a school, do you have a general idea of which grade you will teach and which teacher you will teach with? Or is it more like arrive, get a schedule, and find the class...?
3) In class, what do you usually do? Does the teacher actually ask you to help teach? Or do you do your usual human tape recorder? OR are you expected to go in with a full lesson and the teacher sits back and watch?
4) I've heard from some people that private ALTs are paid by the hour and it's in their contract that they teach only during class and aren't expected to plan before or reflect after the class with the teacher. Is this true?
5) What are the better agencies to work for? What are the agencies to avoid? What's the average pay in yen per month?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[esl_prof]

Excellent questions!!! In addition to content, I'd encourage you to think about your method of workshop delivery.

A good starting point would be Jane Vella's Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach.
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Listen-Teach-Dialogue-Educating/dp/0787959677

[marley'sghost]

[fluffyhamster]

The dispatch positions I've had have always involved going to at least 3 junior high schools (or one base JHS and several elementary schools, or even exclusively to elementaries). The BOE draws up a schedule that divides the AET's number of visits reasonably regularly and evenly between the schools on his or her roster, and then leaves it to the schools to liaise with the dispatch agency concerning any changes, make-up days etc. No details of actual lessons were ever exchanged IME between the JHS and dispatch agency - such details were left to be worked out between the AET and JTEs concerned from day to day and week to week. (It was only on JET that JTEs did me the courtesy of faxing [to the BOE] or calling to tell me what [what little LOL] they were intending to do, and then, that was usually only a necessity from the less regular/more "one-shot" type of schools, that I'd not visited in potentially months! BTW my JET schools were all SHSs, with only exceedingly rare visits to JHSs, or to special e.g. handicapped, or blind and/or deaf schools).

So much for the general schedule - now for the actual teaching, that whole "HOW to work with an AET" shebang LOL. The keyword is obviously WITH, but the vast majority of JTEs seem to prefer to work AROUND (avoid) the AET or delegating much to them, and handing over the ENTIRE lesson isn't the answer either (that's just turning the usual situation on its head, leaving now the JTE with little to do!). But all this is just so much handwaving regarding methodology, "minutes to fill". But fill with what precisely? Obviously English language items - linguistic knowledge, in other words.

And now we come to what I think is the crux of the matter. Incredibly, only a minority of the JTEs I've worked with have ever expressed much interest in the language. That is, very few have ever asked "How does this textbook dialogue strike you?" or "Is this or that authentic enough an example?". Some have even posed RHETORICAL questions to not so much find out any facts of usage but to "tell" me that I (a native speaker) am wrong/cannot possibly be correct ("corrected" though, sure! ), whereas they (or whatever dubious usages they are championing) are "in fact" right. Very puzzling, passive-aggressive, somewhat rude and disappointing attitude to have!

It's not that the average AET wants to bin the textbook or even explicitly contest a single example in it, let alone wreck or scrap the exams. All they want to do is ensure that at least a smidgen of authentic usage, example contexts and possible practice be given just a teeny weeny bit of time, towards the end of the class say, and some linguistic curiosity on the JTE's part (assume the AET has some, please!) would obviously go a long way towards helping hammer stuff like this out. Where's the terrible conflict in that? And if JTEs can make that concession, they might even start to realize that native input from the start of the lesson might not be such a threatening or awful thing either.

In other words, the native is there to help contextualize and indeed to personify the language. The JTE doesn't need to be involved in that (if they don't wish to), and can stick to providing mainly Japanese (explanations, translations etc). But then, this is exactly where clearer agreement on what needs to be said comes in! Any AET with an ounce of training won't want to be just jabbering away about anything (with all the concomitant demands that might make on the translator!), but will be gearing their language towards focussing on contextualizing whatever key items have been decided upon (which hopefully aren't "just, and only just, what's in the textbook please").

Hope that (my 2nd-5th paragraphs above) has helped answer your 3rd and 4th questions, Wonmi!

Quick rundown of dispatch agencies that I've worked for or have at least had dealings with (from roughly "best" to worst):

Interac: Reasonable IME (but that E is the most dated of all these dispatchers)
RCS: Marred "only" by financial irregularities/suddenly withdrawing availability of lending and helping themselves to too-large repayments
DIC International: Dozy wazzocks who drop you right in it
Wing: Litany of irritations~problems, and too-patronizing attitude
W5: Disorganized, condescending timewasters! (Never worked for 'em)
Borderlink: Psychotic bloodsucking hypocritical hellfiends

"Bonus": Interesting recent thread:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=109728

[wonmi]

Thanks Marley's Ghost and Fluffyhamster for your prompt reply. These are exactly the kinds of comments I want to see. Especially Fluffyhamster, I wanted to know what kind of things the JTE does or doesn't do in the classroom. The textbooks (which I've looked through dozens of them both in JHS and HS) are definitely very limited and poorly organized. I've been working very closely with these Japanese teachers for the past 5 weeks and certainly Grammar-Translation and Audiolingual methods were highly regarded. Now having gone halfway through our program, they are understanding (or maybe some of them might feel that we're forcing them) the importance of communicative and collaborative learning.

A part of my workshop will be on what the ALT can actually do in the classroom other than just being the usual human tape recorder. What advice would you give to that? I already know things like role playing with the teacher, telling stories to the students, planning games, providing sample sentences. Are there any other tasks you do or wish you could do in the classroom? As for those of you who teach your own class, do you wish to team-teach with the JTE or are you satisfied with doing it on your own?

Another part of my workshop (which will probably play a big part) is HOW to communicate with the ALT. As Fluffyhamster already said, Japanese people are passive and their communication method is less than stellar. Are there things you wish you could tell the JTEs about how they can communicate better (that you wouldn't directly say to your coworkers' faces =P)? I can pass on the message in a very nice polite way to my teachers. haha...

Again, thank you SO MUCH. GREATLY appreciated.