I'm in the middle of my fourth week teaching now, and it's had its ups and downs.
I have two schools, a Junior High and an Elementary school. I teach first, second, third years, and two special needs classes at JHS and fifth and sixth grade at ES. Next month I will teach Kindergarten for the first time which should be fun.
My introduction classes seemed to go down pretty well in every class. I found that I went through it a bit too fast and had too much time at the end of class, so I definitely need to work on my timing. The kids are all really funny and sweet, and when I'm out and about I hear tiny voices shout 'Aiona-sensei! Hello!' I guess that's what happens when you live really close to school in a smaller city.
Unfortunately after just one introduction class and one regular class, my Elementary school complained about me to Interac. They said I wasn't preparing well enough. I was really disappointed. They didn't even give me one month to get used to life in Japan, get used to a job I have basically no experience for.
My trainer came to the school, and it turned out the previous ALT was really good and had a lot of experience and the teachers were comparing me to her. Unfortunately for the school, I'm not just a malfunctioning robot that Interac can just come and fix, so they're going to have to give me some time to improve. I did get a lot of awesome advice from the trainer and I know what I have to improve. I need to have better voice projection, I need to explain instructions to the kids better, and generally just have more confidence. As much as I learned from him coming to school and helping me teach some classes and plan lessons, it really stung that I wasn't given a chance. And I feel kind of awkward around the teachers knowing that they are disappointed in my performance.
On the other hand, the Junior High school are pretty good. There's a lot less for the ALT to do at JHS. In elementary, you're pretty much expected to handle the whole class and the teacher just sits and watches. At JHS, in my experience so far, the teacher does the lesson and they just get the ALT to read out the English vocab and passages. I'm basically a human tape recorder. The only exception to this is my special needs classes, where I have just been thinking up fun games and activities for the kids, and the teacher mostly deals with discipline. The staff at my JHS talk to me a lot more than my ES, and I feel a lot more like I'm part of the school. Some of the teachers even invited me to dinner.
As for outside of school, I really haven't been doing much. I've been so tired from having this new kinda stressful job that at weekends I pretty much just sleep and watch TV. There isn't all that much to do here, but I did discover a cool bookstore/second hand game/DVD/CD store that's a 15 minute walk from my flat and is open till midnight every day. It's really nothing like the Japan I'm used to. When I lived in Tokyo, I could just jump on a train and go to any kind of shop or bar or restaurant, I went to music performances and saw stuff like Kabuki. And it was way easier to meet people. Apart from teachers I haven't met anyone Japanese here. Unless you count the pizza delivery guy who seems to recognise me now! I haven't decided yet if I want to go live in a big Japanese city once I've been here a year. I do miss Tokyo.
Well it's not even been a month since I moved to this city so we will have to see what happens!
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
Living in Inaka (middle of nowhere)
I have been crazy busy for the past 4 days! I was informed last minute that on Thursday the 2nd I would have to visit my new schools to introduce myself, so early in the morning I got on a train and saw my placement town for the first time. It's pretty!
From my window it looks like a really small town, but in fact the population is about 80,000 people. There doesn't seem to be much to do, there are a lot of houses spread over a wide area. I'm hoping I made a good first impression at my schools: I was basically introduced by someone who works at Interac and didn't have to say or do much myself, but the Junior High school asked me to come back and be part of their staff photo shoot which was pretty nice. They also already prepared a desk for me.
The next day I had to come back on the train very early in the morning with all my stuff to be introduced to the Board of Education and start moving in to my new apartment. The other new ALT in my town and I were told what kinds of things the city wants to improve in its English classes. Apparently, test scores for English here are very low so we have our work cut out!
The other ALT had already moved in a few days ago, but we both had to sort out bank accounts and stuff so after meeting the Board, we waited at the station for an IC to help us out. They are basically contracted by Interac to help set up phones, bank accounts, register at the city office and whatever you need. Our IC was sooo nice. She is a housewife who once a year helps new ALTs settle in to their new towns. There are problems with Interac but I think it's awesome they contract people like that. They really try to soften the craziness of moving your entire life over to Japan. They translate your housing contract, offer counselling, emergency numbers- basically anything you need they can help you out somehow.
The post office ended up being overly bureaucratic and we spent a couple hours there so we couldn't get phones that day. But I went to the phone shop with the other ALT the next day and we managed just fine (I think!) with our combination of Japanese skills.
I didn't really have much time to settle in before my first day. I was provided with a starter kit for about 10,000 yen which had a futon, duvet, stuff like that so I could get by, but I bought a rice cooker and a toaster oven myself. I have to make my own bento for dietary reasons so that was pretty much necessary. I am in a Leopalace, and it's surprisingly nice, the rent is low and it comes with internet.
From my window it looks like a really small town, but in fact the population is about 80,000 people. There doesn't seem to be much to do, there are a lot of houses spread over a wide area. I'm hoping I made a good first impression at my schools: I was basically introduced by someone who works at Interac and didn't have to say or do much myself, but the Junior High school asked me to come back and be part of their staff photo shoot which was pretty nice. They also already prepared a desk for me.
The next day I had to come back on the train very early in the morning with all my stuff to be introduced to the Board of Education and start moving in to my new apartment. The other new ALT in my town and I were told what kinds of things the city wants to improve in its English classes. Apparently, test scores for English here are very low so we have our work cut out!
The other ALT had already moved in a few days ago, but we both had to sort out bank accounts and stuff so after meeting the Board, we waited at the station for an IC to help us out. They are basically contracted by Interac to help set up phones, bank accounts, register at the city office and whatever you need. Our IC was sooo nice. She is a housewife who once a year helps new ALTs settle in to their new towns. There are problems with Interac but I think it's awesome they contract people like that. They really try to soften the craziness of moving your entire life over to Japan. They translate your housing contract, offer counselling, emergency numbers- basically anything you need they can help you out somehow.
The post office ended up being overly bureaucratic and we spent a couple hours there so we couldn't get phones that day. But I went to the phone shop with the other ALT the next day and we managed just fine (I think!) with our combination of Japanese skills.
I didn't really have much time to settle in before my first day. I was provided with a starter kit for about 10,000 yen which had a futon, duvet, stuff like that so I could get by, but I bought a rice cooker and a toaster oven myself. I have to make my own bento for dietary reasons so that was pretty much necessary. I am in a Leopalace, and it's surprisingly nice, the rent is low and it comes with internet.
Leopalaces do vary, many people have a bed on a mezzanine level, and some apartments have more features than others, but I think I got a pretty good one. It was built in 2009 so it's very new looking.
Here's the view from my front door. In that bamboo grove there's a pretty creepy shrine.
On Sunday I found my way around town a bit in preparation for my first day at school. It takes 20 minutes to walk to my Junior High school, and 8 minutes to my Elementary School. Most people here seem to drive, I am kind of considering learning.
So on my first day I went to my Junior High school, and took part in the entrance ceremony. It involved a lot of bowing, and I did a short self-introduction in front of the 2nd and 3rd years. Other than that, I just had to look busy in the teacher's room. I made a lot of notes from the Interac manual, and eventually I got sent home early. The teachers were all really nice to me. I only have preparation time this week, so I won't be teaching anything until next week. 16 hours of sitting in the teachers room await, yay. I keep getting introduced as 'Iona, the new ALT who is from the same country as Ellie from the drama Massan'. I guess I will be hearing that for a while.
On Tuesday I went to my Elementary school. They did not invite me to their opening ceremony, so I had even more time to spare. I wrote so many notes my pen actually ran out of ink. I had to stay from 8:30 until 4:30. I think the first week is probably pretty frustrating for everyone because you just have opening ceremonies and tonnes of paperwork. I feel kind of bad being paid for it but I guess they didn't have to tell me to come in.
Apart from school, a major part of my life so far has been my stuff arriving from Amazon. I'm so amazed at the mail service here. I missed the deliveries, so I called this English automated line and my stuff arrived one hour later. The next day it was a different company who didn't have an English line but I just guessed what I had to do and ten minutes later my stuff arrived. Pretty damn impressive.
So I think that's all I have to update with for now. I guess I should change the title of this blog from 'Almost an ALT' to something else. I don't feel like much of a teacher yet though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)