[jasonbvr]

If you don't know yet, an ALT is the foreign English teacher placed in Japanese public schools. The acronym stands for Assistant Language Teacher whereas the JTE is our assigned title for Japanese Teacher of English. I say assigned title because the JTE title is something it seems only ALT's know about and use.

You and your JTE are going to be working together to teach these little buggers English. You are going to do a little something called "team teaching." Well, that is the vision anyways. How it works out always varies by the ALT and the school they are placed in. But I will address the biggest issue ALT's face in working with their JTE's, communication.

Why would communication be a problem? You both speak English right? Wrong! JTE's teach English, they don't speak it. Unfortunately I wish I was kidding, but in some circumstances you will find this to be unfortunately very, very true. Sometimes, you will have an amazing JTE who can read and write beautifully and translate things to Japanese with ease, but when you need to discuss or explain something it takes four or five times to get the message through.

This, you will get used to eventually. You will also get used to pointing out their errors hopefully outside of class but sometimes in front of students. I try to do this as quietly as possible and make excuses for them like, "Oh, I make the same mistake all the time." But what ALT's never get used to is that part of being an "assistant."

An assistant to most of us means someone who is going to help out and follow the directives given to us by our superior counterparts. Now in some if not most circumstances you really are the assistant in your team teaching classes. The JTE leads and you follow. Everything of course planned out and decided before the class begins, you two just breeze through the class together.

Now for the realities you will face. In my case, I make the lessons for our team teaching classes. We don't use the textbooks or any workbooks. My class is designed and assembled by me. Not exclusively of course because one thing you will learn quickly as an ALT is to follow the path blazed by our predecessors. We often take games and activities and simply reshape them and mold them into our own. We get together with other ALT's and in the midst of heavy drinking and on the way to the karaoke booth start exchanging lesson plans. Then there is always the blessed internet. Full of free resources for teachers and English learners alike.

Now for the flipside to my scenario, your JTE controls every minute detail of the class. You, the ALT, are there because someone long ago decided it would be a good idea to have an English helper. Your JTE doesn't think so but rather views you as a hindrance and a waste of time. They resent you because you have perfect, or close to it, English. The result is that often they leave you in the dark as far as what is going to happen during class. They like to spring things on you like, "Oh, Jason there is fifteen minutes left in class. Can you make some game to practice today's grammar?" "What? Right now??" Then there are the ones that will use all Japanese in class and will tell the kids something like, "And now let's listen to Jason read this text." Then simply turn to stare at you along with thirty kids without ever mentioning to you that you are supposed to start reading and you are just like, "Um, what?"

The ideal team teaching situation is where both teachers are contributing to class. Your JTE's are making sure that you know where they are in the program and what the kids are studying. They are actually giving you feedback on lessons and commenting on ways for improvement. At one time, my dream was that instead of planning entire fifty minute activities we could every now and then just give me twenty minutes at the end of class. But now that I have a new JTE to work with and she is taking my plans and implementing them herself, I feel like she stole some of my thunder.

But you will learn to adjust the same as the rest of us no matter what situation you find yourself in. Always remember though that just because your title is "Assistant," you are really the one who will decide your effectiveness and involvement in the lessons. If there is something bothering you with your relationship to your JTE, talk directly to them about it in a respectful manner. Afterall, it is not like you are Japanese and need to give them the false impression that everything is alright when it is not. If that doesn't work, well, you have just learned why the turnover for ALT's is freaking sky high.