Job Discussion Forums

[sumyunguy]

I've been looking into ALT work, where the choice would be either Junior High, working with a Japanese teacher, or elementary school, where there may be a homeroom teacher, but I'm basically on my own.

I wonder if anyone has had it both ways, and could give input. I like responsibility, don't want to be a parrot, but could also appreciate having another teacher take some of the burden off lesson planning, provided it was collaborative.

I've heard a lot of different things on this site about JTEs....basically I'm asking if, typically, you've found another teacher to be an overall asset or a hassle?

(The other side of this is whether I'm really ready for elementary kids, not having taught them before...I like kids, and expect their energy would be fun...but I'm only moderately extroverted/animated, so JHS kids, even if more withdrawn and temperamental, may be a better fit. But that's another subject, think I gotta take that one on my own....mostly interested in the first issue)

[Glenski]

I've been a full-time teacher (not ALT) in a JHS/SHS situation where some of my classes were my own and some were team-taught with foreigners or JTEs.

It's a crap shoot on partners. You can't know in advance what the outcome will be. It's almost impossible to learn what the JTE's experience or level of English is, or how they interact with foreigners.

Even on your own in elementary school, I've heard that in some situations you do only what the (inexperienced and untrained HR teacher says).

[Squire22]

Greetings.

I've actually done and am currently doing all the variations you mention, more or less. I have worked both lead teaching and assisting in JHS and as the main teacher in elementary school.

As Glenski points out, team teaching at JHS can vary wildly depending on the teachers that you are paired with. Some teachers prefer that you just do the repetition, reading, and walk around helping out the kids on an individual basis. Others prefer you to be more involved, particularly with the activities and demonstrations, and some think of the "ALT" lesson as your gig and will help you in whatever way you need them to. This last one is often seen as a chance for the JTE to relax because they don't have to plan anything and they can just enjoy the lesson. As you'd expect with these different kinds of roles, they involve different levels of preparation, from none, to everything. As you work with teachers you gradually learn their style of teaching and work accordingly, it can however be frustrating when you go from one class where you are teaching everything including the grammar to the next class where you're making kids repeat words a thousand times until the JTE is happy.

With regards elementary school, I run the show, I plan the lessons, all the resources, everything. I meet with the teachers the week before my visits to tell them what we're doing, there is no real collaboration involved in this aspect. I involve all of the home room teachers in the lessons, this is important, and I ask them to conduct the discipline aspect as well which really helps. I find the HRT to be, for the most part, extremely useful, they know and understand their students better than you ever will and know how to communicate with them more effectively than you do - unless your Japanese is amazing - and this helps with maintaining control and keeping the lesson flowing. I mentioned the importance of involving them, personally I think it's vital that students see that their HRT can do it, or is at least willing to try and do it, it gives them and the HRT confidence. It also keeps the HRT on the ball and focused on the class, if they have nothing to do you may find that they sit down at their desk and begin to mark homework and ignore the goings on in the class.

Some HRTs have zero interest in participating in the English lesson and see it as a lesson off, however, and again this is personally speaking, I don't give them a choice, I tell them what they are going to do in our meetings before the lessons, it's not a negotiation, and I make sure they can do whatever it is I'm asking of them.

So in conclusion to your question, overall I have found another teacher to be an asset, doing dialogues by yourself is tricky at the best of times, and even though my Japanese is improving, I still find elementary first through third grade students to be speaking an alien language.
Elementary kids have lots of energy but this does decline towards fifth and sixth grade a little, the sixth graders often believing themselves "too cool for school" as it were. But generally yes, they're good fun. It does require that you have quite high levels of energy as well though, which is also where having another teacher comes in handy to help take some of that energy burden.

JHS is a different kettle of fish, not quite so much energy, by the third grade grammar can get pretty difficult, and it's a little more technical I guess, so again, a JTE is pretty useful in my opinion. Finally I would say that overall JTEs want you to be involved and doing stuff in the lessons, and it's the minority that want you as a tape recorder.

Apologies for such a long answer, if you have any specific questions that I might be able to answer, feel free to send a PM.

Regards

[fluffyhamster]

Good advice so far. All I can really add is that if you do decide to teach at elementary school-level, you will probably HAVE TO assume responsibility for the burden of lesson planning and materials preparation - the poor unfortunate in the school, who was delegated the job of writing the syllabus and reporting back to the BOE, 99.99% likely did NOT have the applied linguistic instincts let alone the English necessary to furnish you with anything other than toilet paper (or would you be able to do more than wipe up your nightsweats at the thought of going into classes with little more than a sheet of paper with 'Grades 1-6, Lessons 1-4: Colours; Lessons 5-8: Days of the Week etc etc' on it?). Put simply, you cannot depend on the Japanese teachers in elementary schools being that willing to help you much with the nitty-gritty of lesson planning and preparation (although most, like Squire22 says, will participate and co-operate pretty willingly in the actual classes), even if they were able; they are pretty busy, and if there is anyone who has halfway-decent English, chances are he or she wasn't delegated the responsibility for you and your classes by the principal or BOE or whoever, and is glad of that merciful irony.

Here's what I came up with to ensure that my own elementary classes would stand much more chance of being reasonably successful and fun to teach (for me at least, anyway!) - and whaddya know, they were indeed successful and fun (certainly compared to what I would otherwise have been expected to teach)!
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=646217#646217

On the second page of that thread, there is a link to a Teacher Discussion forum thread where a guy was asking for help in dealing with just the sort of nightmare "syllabus" that I mentioned above (and my solution again was to suggest taking over creative control if not responsibility. Luckily I was capable of typing up reasonably detailed lesson plans in passable/comprehensible-enough Japanese, which allayed the concerns of the to-the-BOE paper-pushers, even if it did take me whole afternoons into evenings once per term to do, after pretty full days of teaching! But my main concern was to plan linguistically- and pedagogically-sound lessons that would satisfy the kids, their HRTs, and last but not least, me! (There should be a tripartite, in other words)).

But for the first grade or two of elementary school, it is sometimes better to not be too ambitious, and do more what the HRT may suggest is suitable - anything for an easy life all round (re. that tripartite again)!

I have also taught at high-school level (both junior and senior ~ but JHS is by far the most common AET posting outside of JET), and here, the JTE is usually the mover and shaker, and often reluctant to delegate much responsibility (just in case it gets perceived as abnegating it, I guess - their students have to pass the exams! etc etc). Not that this prevents the worser/lazier/burnt-out and idea-less JTEs from sometimes expecting pedagogical miracles from you in class despite the complete lack of delegation, preparation, warning etc. So basically it can be much harder to be of much help and benefit even in schools that are crying out for improved English lessons, but for those AETs (not saying you'd be one of them!) who really aren't too professionally bothered, the pay for being little more than the proverbial human tape recorder sure ain't bad. In other words, JHS JTEs aren't so much a hassle as a hinderance sometimes, but I am sure they have the same opinion of the average "communicative" (monolingual and inexperienced) "hotshot" AET LOL. A lot depends on what you could have to offer methodologically, and how "pushy" you are to be taken up on it...

[sumyunguy]

Good stuff guys, thanks. When I first saw three replies I thought well that ain't much -- but these are detailed....very appreciated!