Adventures as an ALT or a CIR...

[jasonbvr]

Originally Posted by MMM

Rural Japan is like the American Ozarks.

This is so true! However, you could get lucky and be that JET that lives in a ski resort/mountain town. Losers...

[ChisaChi]

Eep, that's a bit too rural for me. I want to have some decent public transport at least...

I have heard stories of people putting down the Tokyo prefecture(?) as a preference thinking they'd be close to Tokyo, then ending up on tiny islands from which it takes longer to get to Tokyo than most of the rest of Japan, heheh. Although I suppose island life would be fun in it's own way.

I know the JET selection process is reputed to be almost random, but are there many applicants that got through with no teaching experience at all? A lot of people I've seen around seem to have teaching ambitions and qualifications, and plenty seem to have done a lot of tutoring and volunteer teaching. I don't have any of these things, which worries me a bit. Although I do have a year to do something about it, I suppose.

Another question! Do private companies hire ALT's mid-year? I know they try do most of their hiring for the start of the school year in April, but I've heard of JET alternates getting upgraded as late as August. If I didn't think I'd get through and looked around for a private position in June or July, would there be any?

[SSJup81]

Same here. I'd like a place that has somewhat decent transportation. Rural is definitely out for a choice, though. I guess I'd prefer something semi-rural, as you said, that's close to nearby cities to visit. Like if in Ishikari, I'd be really close to Sapporo.

Oh, and not everyone who joins JET has prior teaching experience. Some just show an interest in it or Japan's education system. I'm interested in the system and really want to witness it firsthand.

I was told from the beginning that the main thing that seems to have a lot of bearing is your two-page SoP. If it's even one word over two pages, it gets tossed away. Seems that getting the application together is the easiest task since that's pretty much a "follow the directions" thing.

If I get past the application process and get an interview, I'll definitely have to practice. I tend to stumble sometimes if I don't have time to fully gather my thoughts.

Oh, I have a question now about the application. You have to get official transcripts from all of the colleges and universities you attended. Usually, when obtaining official transcripts, they come in a sealed envelope. Are we supposed to actually unseal the envelope to put it in with the other papers that have to be included?

[MMM]

Originally Posted by ChisaChi

Eep, that's a bit too rural for me. I want to have some decent public transport at least...

I have heard stories of people putting down the Tokyo prefecture(?) as a preference thinking they'd be close to Tokyo, then ending up on tiny islands from which it takes longer to get to Tokyo than most of the rest of Japan, heheh. Although I suppose island life would be fun in it's own way.

I know the JET selection process is reputed to be almost random, but are there many applicants that got through with no teaching experience at all? A lot of people I've seen around seem to have teaching ambitions and qualifications, and plenty seem to have done a lot of tutoring and volunteer teaching. I don't have any of these things, which worries me a bit. Although I do have a year to do something about it, I suppose.

Another question! Do private companies hire ALT's mid-year? I know they try do most of their hiring for the start of the school year in April, but I've heard of JET alternates getting upgraded as late as August. If I didn't think I'd get through and looked around for a private position in June or July, would there be any?

I don't think a desire to be a teacher is high on the priority list of qualifications...though I wouldn't say that in the interview.

I put Tokyo, Nagoya, and someplace else, and I got Kansai...at least I was in an urban area...and couldn't have been happier with my location (between Osaka and Kobe).

I don't know anything about mid-year hiring...but since NOVA went out of business, there are a lot of people looking for English-teaching work in Japan right now.

[SSJup81]

Originally Posted by jasonbvr

So you would rather work in Tochigi than Gunma? Yeah, Tochigi has Nikko, but I would much rather live in Gunma than Tochigi. Of course, I would rather live in Niigata than Gunma, but what can you do? Shoganai...

To be honest, the only reason I'd consider putting down Tochigi is because I know of someone who works on the Tochigi BOE there. I haven't heard from him in a while, though, which makes me wonder if the e-mail I sent out before Christmas actually got through. I guess I should stick to romaji as opposed to Kana and Kanji since, for some people, it doesn't show up right. I sense a visit back to the Japanese language help board. lol

ps~ Eager students, that is like five out of thirty eager to learn English. Maybe fifteen out of thirty are eager to impress upon you how cool they are with four out of those fifteen acting like complete idiots. Then there are about eight out of the thirty that are just completely socially awkward with the other students and even more so with the scary gaijin. Then there are the two out of thirty who seem to think it is totally cool to know zero English, make single digit scores on the tests, and are just happy if you leave them alone in English class. This of course is all at my schools which have some of the best behaved kids in the city.

Here's hoping for the well-behaved kids. ^^

[MMM]

Originally Posted by jasonbvr

ps~ Eager students, that is like five out of thirty eager to learn English. Maybe fifteen out of thirty are eager to impress upon you how cool they are with four out of those fifteen acting like complete idiots. Then there are about eight out of the thirty that are just completely socially awkward with the other students and even more so with the scary gaijin. Then there are the two out of thirty who seem to think it is totally cool to know zero English, make single digit scores on the tests, and are just happy if you leave them alone in English class. This of course is all at my schools which have some of the best behaved kids in the city.

ESID. Eager students? I think there were five kids in my whole school that were interested in learning English. It worked out though, because my interest in teaching people who weren't interested in learing was about as high as their interest was in learning. But we had to spend that time together, so coming up with creative ways to keep them engaged AND get some English in thier heads (and some truth about life in America) was the new goal...and I think it worked out.

[samurai007]

Originally Posted by ChisaChi

Eep, that's a bit too rural for me. I want to have some decent public transport at least...

I have heard stories of people putting down the Tokyo prefecture(?) as a preference thinking they'd be close to Tokyo, then ending up on tiny islands from which it takes longer to get to Tokyo than most of the rest of Japan, heheh. Although I suppose island life would be fun in it's own way.

I know the JET selection process is reputed to be almost random, but are there many applicants that got through with no teaching experience at all? A lot of people I've seen around seem to have teaching ambitions and qualifications, and plenty seem to have done a lot of tutoring and volunteer teaching. I don't have any of these things, which worries me a bit. Although I do have a year to do something about it, I suppose.

Another question! Do private companies hire ALT's mid-year? I know they try do most of their hiring for the start of the school year in April, but I've heard of JET alternates getting upgraded as late as August. If I didn't think I'd get through and looked around for a private position in June or July, would there be any?

The islands off the coast of Tokyo is a true story, they do have 1 or 2 JETS out there, and a few other prefectures have something similar. But with 6000+ JETS, the chances of getting one of those places is pretty remote (pun intended)

From my experience, either some background in teaching or desire to teach, or background in Japan/Japanese, is quite helpful on your resume, and if ou have both, it's a big plus. I had no experience with Japanese really, but I had a History/Soc Sci teaching degree and several years experience teaching art. I think those helped get me through to the interview stage, and in my prefecture, I'd say about 30% of the people had teaching experience, 30% Japanese experience, and 40% had neither (maybe a couple people had both).

It was interesting, because for those of us with teaching experience, actually teaching in the classes wasn't too stressful because we were used to teaching a room full of kids. But getting by outside of school with little to no Japanese was the harder part to learn. Conversely, those with Japanese experience found getting around outside of school to be relatively easy, but would sometimes stress over teaching the classes. So we tended to help each other out.

Private companies are always looking for new teachers, if they have openings (and they usually did, but with Nova going under, there are a lot of out of work English teachers over there now, so it's probably a lot tougher private market at the moment.)

[samurai007]

Originally Posted by MMM

ESID. Eager students? I think there were five kids in my whole school that were interested in learning English. It worked out though, because my interest in teaching people who weren't interested in learing was about as high as their interest was in learning. But we had to spend that time together, so coming up with creative ways to keep them engaged AND get some English in thier heads (and some truth about life in America) was the new goal...and I think it worked out.

I taught at 2 schools... an Academic school most of the time, and a technical school (that was about 80-90% boys) a few days a month. The actual proficiency level in English was higher at the Academic school, but they were very shy and often unwilling to use what they knew. At the technical school, though, they were eager to use what they'd learned, to the point of shouting it out (in class or outside of it!). We often play games, such as Pictionary, and many times they worked out better at the Technical school because the students weren't afraid to speak out.

I too had a goal to teach them about life in the US, with pictures, a menu I brought from my hometown, stories about all the holidays, different foods, etc.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by samurai007

I taught at 2 schools... an Academic school most of the time, and a technical school (that was about 80-90% boys) a few days a month. The actual proficiency level in English was higher at the Academic school, but they were very shy and often unwilling to use what they knew. At the technical school, though, they were eager to use what they'd learned, to the point of shouting it out (in class or outside of it!). We often play games, such as Pictionary, and many times they worked out better at the Technical school because the students weren't afraid to speak out.

I too had a goal to teach them about life in the US, with pictures, a menu I brought from my hometown, stories about all the holidays, different foods, etc.

That's a good story. And I totally relate.

One day a week I taught at a night school. In Japan, there is no "skipping grades" or "being held back". If you need to be held back, you get to go to "night school". At the night school the students were aged 15 to late 50s. Some students were handicapped. But, a good percentage were really enthusiastic, and I made one of my best friends in Japan with a student there, who was actually a little older than me, at the time.

Anyway, your story reminded me of one of the most bizarre incidents of my time teaching there. I ran into a student from the night school at a local izakaya. He worked at a host club, and often napped in class (at night school) BEFORE he went to work. That's fine. I taught his class once every two weeks. So he was at this izakaya with his fellow host-mates getting a meal before work, probably, and I walked up to them and said "Hi, +++-kun". (I can't remember his name now, but I did remember it then.)

The young man looked at me and said "How do you know my name?". Mind you, this was in a small industrial city in an urban area between Osaka and Kobe. You could count the number of white people living there on three hands at that time.

So he said "How do you know my name?" and his buddies looked at me and looked at him and said "+++-kun. Who is your friend? Who is this guy?" He responded "I have seen him somewhere, but I am not sure." I was in shock.

I said (in Japanese the whole time, mind you) "Seriously, you don't know who I am?" and try as he might, he couldn't remember.

When I reminded him that I was his English teacher, and that I had seen him (or at least the top of his head) in class less than a week earlier his face red and his buddies chastised him for not even recognizing his own teacher, but for me it was a good lesson in recognizing how insignifigant we can be in our students' lives.

Now after that, his buddies invited me to sit down with them for a beer, and I happily obliged. I actually was able to have a conversation with the guy, (after he got over his embarrassment) that I NEVER would have been able to at school. We learned a lot about each other that night. I wish I could say he never slept through my class again, but at least he said "hi" to me every other week before he took his nap.

[ChisaChi]

Some eager, some not sounds like any highschool, especially for a compulsory subject XD

Good to hear that they do let people with little or no teaching experience through - while I am interested in the process of language learning and how English is taught in Japan, I don't think I'd trade my career for one as a teacher.

Fingers crossed I'll get into JET for next year and won't have to worry about applying for private companies. Anyway, by next August I'd hope the issues caused by NOVA will have settled down a bit.