Teaching English Abroad

My life as an ALT

I’ve talked a fair bit about my travels and my life here in Japan, but I’ve yet to really talk about something I do every day, my job. I’m working as an English teacher with the JET programme. My official title is ALT, or assistant language teacher. 

I really didn’t have any expectations about what this job would entail, mostly because there was so much about the specifics that I didn’t know. Until a few weeks before I left Canada, I didn’t know where I would be teaching, or even what grades I would be working with. 

I ended up working with high school students in Ibaraki, not just at one school, but at four different high schools. I have one “main” school that I go to twice a week, or if there are exams or no classes at my other schools. The other three “visit” schools I just go to one day a week. 

These schools are either a half hour, or an hour away in other nearby cities. In some ways it feels like I have four slightly different jobs, even though my role is the same.

Most schools I primarily teach first year students, what would be grade 10 back home, but two schools I teach classes for second and third years too. So far, usually the lessons I teach are ones I come up with myself with support from the Japanese English teacher. 

Although so far, I’m still rolling out my self introduction lesson even though I’ve been in Japan for two and a half months now. It’s nice since I know that lesson very well after having done it probably 50+ times, but it’s 45 minutes of just me talking and showing photos, and many students end up sleeping. 

This was probably the biggest hurdle I had when I first started teaching, almost every class, at least one student will fall asleep. Sometimes before I’ve even started my lesson I’ll see students hanging their heads, eyes closed, head bobbing as they drift off. 

While I think I’ve fallen asleep maybe twice during class in my entire educational career, sleeping in class seems to be no big deal here. I’ve even seen the odd teacher falling asleep at their desk! 

After my first lesson, this really bothered me. So, I did some research to see if there was any cultural context or differences that I was just missing. Turns out, there kind of was! 

In Japan, there is a large emphasis placed on both work and study. I largely knew about this before coming here, but never really considered the results of that. If someone is napping in a public place, like work or school, it can be seen as a sign that that person has been working hard and may be sacrificing sleep.

In the case of students, after their school day they often have a few hours of club activities before going home, leading to more time spent at school. These could be various sports clubs, soccer, basketball, or kendo. Or culture clubs like yearbook, English, or drama.

A lot of these subjects would be optional electives back home, and while I took some extra after school classes like choir and theater company, most of my peers were gone as soon as the bell rang.

Students in Japan also have to face entrance exams for high schools and college. At the end of middle school, there is a big test which will determine which high schools you are able to attend. High school is also not compulsory here in Japan, and students can enter the workforce if they so desire, though most students go on to high school. 

For those looking to go to college, there are further tests done to assess students' knowledge and are required for many different institutions. 

With this kind of culture, it’s easy to see why students may be sleeping in class, they’re likely working a lot harder than I ever did in high school to study for exams not just for their immediate grades, but for their future. 

Once I saw more of this culture firsthand, and witnessed how busy my Japanese counterparts often are, I had to grapple with the fact that most days, I have a lot of down time at my desk.

While many of my colleagues are busy grading papers, assisting in club activities, and more, I often find myself at my desk with some free time on my hands. I’m not responsible for grading any of my students’ work (thus far), nor do I have a hand in creating tests for exam times. 

I typically teach about three 50 minute classes a day, out of a 6 class school day. When I’m not teaching I’m desk warming in the staff room. I often use this time to work on future lesson plans, or refine existing ones as I see room for improvement. Though with around 5 and half hours of time to do this, I run out of things to do fairly quickly.

Given that I’m at four different schools, my lessons tend to stretch pretty far. I often try out a new lesson at my main school, then weeks later can wheel it out at my other visit schools. 

Often my lessons make me feel like a guest speaker, as I discuss topics that may be very different from what students are studying during the rest of the week. So far I’ve done my self introduction, a game of Jeopardy about Canada, Christmas, and numbers in English. 

I quite enjoy giving these lessons, though the atmosphere varies wildly from class to class, let alone school to school. I was very surprised at how shy many students are, usually unwilling to raise their hands to answer a question, even if I was sure they knew the answer. 

Though some of my schools, especially the technical schools, can be quite lively. I’ve had classes with only male students, and by the end of the 50 minute class my throat can be quite sore from trying to speak over the constant chatter. 

Given I only see students maybe once a week, I’m generally discouraged from trying to discipline students. I can understand why, since there may be important context about students that I’m simply not around enough to know. Although, when a student in the front row has their phone out for the whole class, it is annoying that I can’t simply take it from them.

Outside of class, my interactions with students have been pretty limited. I get lots of greetings in the morning and hallways, but rarely strike up a conversation outside of teaching. 

I’m still considering joining a club at one of my schools to try and make friends with other teachers and get to know the students, but it’s a pretty daunting idea. Which club would I pick, and at what school? Would I commit to going every week? What would it look like for me to be part of a club? 

I’ve got plenty of time to think about how to be a bigger part of my schools, and hopefully as I become a more familiar face it’ll happen naturally. Since I can still count the number of times I’ve been at some of these schools on one hand, it makes sense that I’m still finding my footing. 

Speaking of thinking, that seems to be what I’m spending a lot of my time doing at my desk. I’ve got the time and space to explore various topics, things about Japan I don’t understand, or occasionally planning out my next big trip. That extra time and space is also what gave birth to this very blog. 

After scrolling through reddit looking at people who had very similar experiences, lots of downtime working as an ALT in the JET programme, I had the idea to start writing. People discussed using their time to study Japanese (I’m sorta doing that too, I swear), learning to code, doing graduate school, or even just reading a book. 

As long as you could make a somewhat compelling argument that it was work related, it seems like it would fly. I’ve had coworkers comment that I “must be busy” or that I’m “working hard” after spending hours writing articles or fussing over my blog. 

Really though, it feels like I’m working hard just to keep busy. Before I started this blog, my days felt long and listless, wondering if I was missing something about doing this job. Now it feels like a fun balancing act, of using my down time to lesson prep, write articles, manage my blog, study Japanese, and whatever else feels productive, versus the time I spend actually teaching. 

Occasionally I’ll even feel busy, after a lesson I had one free block before my next round of teaching. During this time I had planned to polish up an article that was going live in just a few minutes. While frantically trying to edit the article and wrestle with the formatting, I was getting feedback from other teachers about ideas to improve my lesson. 

All of a sudden I needed to tweak my lesson for the next class while still getting my article ready to be posted. It was a fun spike of adrenaline that I don’t often get with this more laid back posting. 

In game design there was always plenty to do with a hard deadline looming just over the horizon. In my current position, I often have more time than I need to prepare lessons, so adding extra tasks or expectations keeps me feeling busy. 

While I’m getting more comfortable with my role here, I’m excited to see how it’ll grow and evolve during my time here. Will I take on more classes and responsibilities? Or maybe I’ll find more ways to spend my down time and have self imposed tasks and goals? 

I came to this job really not knowing what to expect or what I was in for, and certainly struggled with the cultural differences and challenges of teaching English here in Japan. I’ve found plenty to like, and while the free time was disorienting at first, I find this job is flexible in letting me pursue my interests and become a better English teacher. 

I don’t yet know if I’ll try to continue teaching English when I return to Canada, but the unique opportunities this job affords me, like being able to run a blog while at work, are certainly one of a kind.