Teaching In Japan, My Experience

I regularly get asked about teaching in Japan, so I thought it was about time I wrote a post about it. I won't really go too much into the wheres and hows as there is a fair bit of detailed information out there on that. Some helpful links to start with for that are;

Teaching In Japan

Japan Guide

Secrets On Teaching In Japan

I first came to Japan to teach in 1999. Actually, I first came to Japan in 1999. I had applied for a job from a newspaper advertisement in my local paper for a small conversation school. Before I knew it, I was on a plane heading for a country I knew not a lot about, could hardly speak the language and knew no-one there. Before I left people were telling me how brave I was, but it wasn't until I stepped on that plane that I felt the fear.

For the most part, I loved the teaching side of working in the conversation school. The school I worked in, as long as I used the text book for a large part of the lesson and followed some other curriculum, I had a lot of freedom. I taught students from two years old to those in their seventies. I taught group and company classes and private lessons.

In our school, unlike many others around, we were not only allowed, but actually encouraged to socialise with the students outside of class. I formed many friendships with my students and one of my first students remains one of my closest friends to this day.

Working in the conversation school was hard though. I worked six days a week, each day with a different schedule. Somedays, I would teach six classes (averaging an hour each) back-to-back, not finishing until 9.30pm by which time I was exhausted and starving. At different times of the year, on top of the schedule we were also obligated to work to teach "free lessons", sample lessons for potential students and that was unpaid on our day off. We only got paid for our classroom hours and not our lesson planning time. I was also expected to travel to different schools, sometime between lessons, that time wasn't paid for either. Personally, I found that job useful as an introduction to working in Japan, but wouldn't want to have done it for much more than the three years I was there.

Mind you, the different conversation schools can really vary in style and rules, so it's important that you find out their system before deciding whether to sign up with them or not.

My second job in Japan, the one that I'm in currently, is very different. I work in a private combined junior and senior high school. I found out about this job through word-of-mouth. The other teachers that started at the same time as me, applied for the position from a job advertisement on-line.

Unlike many of the public school jobs, I'm not an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I have my own classes, plan my own lessons and create the tests. I work with three other native English-speaking teachers. I have to say, I love this job. I'm blessed to be at a high-level academic school, so the students are smart and for the most part, eager to learn. The students are mostly very friendly and will say hello when you see them outside of class, some will even call out "I love you!" In class, I find the junior high students very eager to answer questions, the older students sometimes more reluctant to do so. Right from the first class, we try to instill on the students that our lessons are not going to be like a normal Japanese class so this helps a lot.

Of course, like any job, there are good days, and bad days. The school has a very good reputation (to the point that when people find out I work at this school, they suddenly act like I'm someone important), but with that comes a rather rigid way of thinking and doing things and that can take a little getting used to.

In this job, I work from 8.15am to 5pm, Mondays to Fridays. Each day, I teach an average of three classes (65 minutes each) and the rest of the time is spent doing some marking, lesson planning and administration, with admittedly, a nice amount of free time. I get school holidays off, which amounts to quite a lot over the year.

Somethings are quite different in schools in Japan. For example;

• At my school, the students are usually there from before 8.30am to 6pm. They have classes every second Saturday and often on holidays.
• At Japanese schools, there isn't a cleaner. The students (and many of the teachers) clean the classrooms, hallways, bathrooms and gardens. I believe this practice has roots in Buddhist teachings.
• In Japanese schools, the students stay in their classroom and the teachers move around for lessons.
• Most Japanese schools are very strict about hair colour. Students are not allowed to lighten or colour their hair.
• One reason why the students are at school so late is because they often have "club activities". The clubs can be anything from sports teams (baseball, handball and soccer are very popular at my school and taken very seriously), to creative clubs (photography, art, brass band), to something more academic (like the astronomy and nature science clubs).
• All of the students were slippers at school. When they arrive in the morning, they put their "outdoor shoes" into their shoe locker and change into regulation slippers. The teachers also wear "indoor shoes", but this can be anything from slippers to high heels (that's what I wear), just as long as they are deemed for in-school wear only.
• Foreign teachers can only work at the school for a maximum of three years.
• The Japanese school year starts in April and finishes in March.

Admittedly, jobs like mine are a lot harder to find and may not be offered to first-timers. I should mention that I have a Bachelor degree and post-graduate studies in Applied Linguistics, which I'm sure didn't hurt when applying for the position. I have also taught English to foreign students in a number of private schools in Australia.

My husband works in the public school system and also enjoys his job. It's quite different to mine. He is an ALT and works at three different junior high schools on a rotating schedule in the one city. He doesn't have the same planning to do, but also doesn't get to teach a class on his own often. Somedays, he feels a bit like a walking tape recorder and his schedule will differ each day. This is his first time to Japan and his first job teaching English. Had we decided to stay longer he may have been able to get a job at the school where I work now once I finished my three years.

On my blogroll there are many other people who live in Japan, but not all of them talk about teaching here. Some good ones that do are;

Present Simple writes some hilarious accounts of teaching her university students.

The Monster Flower sometimes talks about teaching private students.

If you have an interest in Japan and Japanese culture, teaching is something that I would recommend, even if teaching isn't your be-all-and-end-all. I have used my time to build a business that I will take back to Australia as well as creative inspiration and travel time. My husband has spent some of his free time learning a martial art, Iaido, that would have been difficult to do in Australia. It is no longer a place that you come to make lots of money, those days are over.

So that's all that I can think about writing for now. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. I'd also love to hear other people's experiences of teaching here, either in the comments or as a blog post that I can add as a link to this.

Why I Like Fridays but not Mondays

This week in the high school class, the topic is giving advice. Part of the lesson is a game. There are twenty different problems and the students have to come to me in groups and perform little dialogues explaining the problem and giving a solution. For each dialogue I give them points. For a basic performance and advice, they get a single point. If they've gone the extra mile, they get two. What I don't tell them is that if there is blatant, unabashed sucking up, they get three points.

Generally, at some point in the game, one team will refer to me as being really nice or beautiful. I surprise them with the extra point. Usually word gets around pretty quickly and the sucking up becomes a whole new element to the game.

Friday's classes cracked me up. They found more and more creative ways of sucking up in the responses. Some of the dialogues went like this;

"I'm always tired when I'm at school." "Oh, you shouldn't be. When you come to school, you can see beautiful Melanie and you will get lots of energy."

"I don't know what to buy my (girlfriend/boyfriend) for Valentine's Day." "Oh, don't worry about buying them a present, you should buy one for beautiful Melanie."

"I don't understand my English teacher." "Oh, if Melanie is your teacher, it shouldn't be a problem, her voice is very nice. If Sam is your teacher, then you should go and talk to Melanie."

"I want to go to Tokyo University." "I think you should study very hard and when you study, think of Melanie's beautiful face. Then when you're doing the exam, think of her beautiful face again and it will give you power and you will pass the exam."

One that caught them out though was this;

"Every time I eat curry, I get a stomachache." "Oh, you should eat Melanie's curry because it is delicious and then you won't get a stomachache."

They didn't get the extra point as I explained that I don't cook. My husband does the cooking. This was met with shock. One girl churned over this news for about five minutes and then came and asked me "Do you really not cook? Does your husband really do the cooking?" "Yes" I told her. "So he cooks, and you watch TV?" Not wanting to get into the whole dynamics of our marriage, I simply said "Yes." She stared at me in disbelief, then simply shook her head and walked away. Another boy, at the end of class came up to me concerned, "I think you should cook", he told me.

One team worked their way around this problem though and came up with;

"My mum won't make me lunch and I can't cook." "Well, you should go to Melanie's house and have her husband make you a delicious lunch."

So that was Friday. Pure joy, so much fun.

Come to Monday. Same game, same lesson.

Not only did I get almost no suck-ups, but in the warm up exercise, I jokingly said to a student "I want a new husband. What should I do?"

The advice? "I think you should diet."

No wonder I don't like Mondays.

A Good Teaching Week

I love those weeks when the lessons just go off. One of those magical weeks when the kids are enthusiastic and eagerly speaking English, can't wait to be given the chance in fact. Sounds unbelievable doesn't it?

One thing I love about teaching my Junior High class is that they're easy to trick. In our subject, the kids are graded each lesson, but we also have a "bonus points" system, often for volunteering answers in class. This week (our teaching week began on Thursday and will finish the coming Wednesday), one of the things I'm teaching them is different hobbies and the basic sentence "My hobbies are ...... and ......" After going through the new vocabulary and grammar points, I have all the kids stand up. I tell them that we're going to have a "bonus points chance."

They love a "bonus points chance", sometimes I've asked them if they like a chance or a game, and they've always opted for the bonus points. Gotta love these kids! For the bonus point they need to produce the new sentence with two of their hobbies. Hands are instantly raised, kids are jumping up and down just waiting to be picked. Sometimes I tell them that I'll pick the person with the best smile. There is a sudden flash of pearly whites which always makes me laugh.

What no-one has seemed to notice, or maybe care, is that in the end, I let each kid answer. Each and every one of them gets a point. Admittedly, it isn't always the way in the bonus points chance sessions, gotta keep them on their toes.

At the end of this current lesson plan there are a few minutes left at the end of class. Rather than letting them all go early, I have the whole class stand up, but don't tell them what we're doing. I ask how to spell a word from that day's vocabulary. We have lots of little spelling bees, so that's not out of the ordinary. They first kid picked will spell the word. Usually, at this point they get to sit down. Instead, I wave good bye to them and say "Very good, see you next week." The realisation that they get to leave earlier than everyone is magic. Suddenly, everyone wants to spell a word.

The high school lesson plan was written by my co-worker, Sam. It's a really fun game. We call it "Teach Me Japanese".

They are put into teams and given a list of Japanese words. Many are unique to the culture so don't have a direct translation. The teams will work out how to explain the word in English, then one member will come and explain it to me. I've told them that if their description is basic, but good enough for me to understand, they get one point. If it's really good with lots of detail, or funny or with good gestures, they get two points. The next time another member from the team must explain a word. I don't care about their grammar, they can use what ever means possible to get the meaning across.

It's great they're lined up, can't wait to speak English to the teacher. They forget to worry about making mistakes, about being shy, they just want to get that point.

For the second part of the games, the teams are given one word each and fifteen minutes to prepare a description they they will then have to perform in front of class. They are told they'll get one point for each piece of information they come up with and extra points for anything funny or for gestures. Again, the shyness melts away, which anyone who teaches Japanese high school kids will know, is a breakthrough.

I've had kids miming ninja actions and learnt that ninja did not in fact wear black, but rather very dark blue. I've had then pretending to have a picnic under the cherry blossoms and tell me that at "hanami" people don't really go to see the flowers, they go to get drunk. Other groups have had cool boys hike up their pants so they sit up as high as possible to pretend to be "Otaku" and draw fabulous animation characters on the board. One group have explained the radio exercise programs and led the class through a session of the movements. One girl did the funniest imitation of a kabuki actor, a boy pretended to be a very traditional Japanese woman and showed the class the proper bow. They've done all of this while speaking English in front of the class.

I laugh, the kids laugh. It's a great time. It's one of those weeks that is great to be a teacher.

Ten Days

Ten days until summer holidays begin, which means;

Ten more days of teaching on a construction site with the sound of jack hammers and drills to scream over in class.
Ten more days of teaching in a dungeon of a classroom with peeling paint and curtains the colour of body odour.
Ten more days of having to make my lunch before work every morning.
Ten more days left in this old dusty staff room.

When we come back from summer holidays, a new school building will be finished, with our new classroom, new staffroom and we'll finally have a staff cafeteria back!

Just ten more days.

Crazy Person Drill Day

I remember fire drills when I was a student. I remember them being in summer and standing under the shade of large trees as a relief from the heat. At my school in Japan, the fire drill is in winter and students stand in the middle of the baseball field in the freezing cold.

Last month, at school, there was an earthquake drill. There may have been something about getting under the desks, but I may have imagined that.

Today, there was a drill for a crazy person. There was some announcement about a crazy person being near the school. I don't what the students were supposed to do, they just ignored it and went to their next class.

Cold

As in, I have a cold and I am cold.

And I'm very grumpy about it.

It seems like I'm on some sort of six-weekly cold cycle. That's how often I've been catching them lately. Other than the obvious I-feel-crappy-so-I'm-grumpy grumpiness, I am grumpy about the fact that I am cold. All day. Every day. Well, at work at least.

The staffroom I sit in all day when I'm not in class is really not comfortable, and most of the time, it's downright freezing. I rug up as much as I can taking into consideration that the classrooms are warm and if I dress too warmly, I'll sweat in class. At my desk, I wrap my bottom half in a blanket, wrap a pashmina around my shoulders, wear disposable toe-warmers in my shoes, drink hot tea and still I get waves of cold shivers running up and down my back. I swear it's because I spend the day feeling so cold that I get sick.

Today is the first time that all of the heaters in the room have been turned on. There have been days when only two of the five heaters are on and we've sat and shivered all day long. I know it's not just me, two of the other foreign teachers I work with feel it too and they are from cold cities.

I wonder, do the Japanese teachers feel cold as well and just not complain? Is it a matter of the Japanese ideals of gaman (perserverence) and shoganai (it can't be helped) being at play here?

I don't think it's a Japanese thing. Wayne has said that the staffrooms of the schools where he teaches are lovely and warm. I don't believe it's even a (my school name...) thing either. The high school teachers rooms are also very cosy. It's this room. There is one person who decides how many heaters can be turned on on a given day and everyone else has to live with his decision.

There are official heater and airconditioning turning on days in the year and that day is abided by regardless of the temperature. Last year, the heating-turning-on-day was December 1st, so when I came to school on the third and fourth, I was dressed expecting the room to be warm. It wasn't. There were no heaters on at all, a day or so later, sure enough, I was sick with a horrible 'flu that included loosing my voice and having to take time off work.

So not only do I get to be uncomfortable all day at work, I then get sick and get to be uncomfortable with those symptoms at home too. And then, top it off with the stress of possibly loosing my voice.

If I wasn't drinking tea in an effort to try to warm myself up, I would not drink at all here. Going to the bathroom is almost like torture. It's outside, freezing and the water to wash hands is so cold it's painful. Sadly no Japanese heated toilet seat for this school. And I won't get started on the lack of availability of anything warming to eat for lunch......

I really enjoy my job, I like teaching, I like my students, I like the teachers and staff I work with. It's just such a bummer that it is such an uncomfortable place to work in for parts of the year.

Love Triangle

As we've just finished exams and only have a couple of weeks until holidays, we've been able to do a few fun lessons with the kids. One activity we're doing with the high school students is giving them a sheet of paper with three pictures on it and asking them to write a story. The aim they are told is to write a funny story.

There is one in particular that I love from today's class. Before I get to it, I should explain the characters... Melanie - is obviously me and Sam, Adrianne and Mr K other English teachers at the school. I've left the mistakes in and copied it as is;

Sam said, "She is mine. Her eyes are shining. Her name is Melanie. But she has a husband. She is outgoing to love. She has sexy body. I always fall in love with her. I was wallow in her everyday."

But he kissed with Adrianne. The kisses is very passion. I have never explained such a sexy and pleasure kiss. I am steeped in luxurious pleasure. I can't live without her body. It was true.

Ah..... Which is better, Melanie or Adrianne? Melanie has perfect body. But Adrianne has perfect body too. But it is important to honest to me. I want to the most is Mr K. I was homo.

Exam Answers

We're on the downhill run to the holidays now! Yah! Just two more weeks to go and then about three weeks off. Not sure what we're doing yet, but thinking of going somewhere for a few days. Does anyone have any suggestions? I want to go somewhere I haven't been before and I've done the big sites and cities.

We've just finished the last exams for the year and there were some answers that brought a smile to my face. I thought I might share....

From Junior High, in answer to the questions;

"Who cooked your breakfast this morning?"

My breakfast eat my family.
My breakfast cooked my mother.
I cooked my mother.
Cock brakefast is my mother.
It's dreakfast cooked my mother this morning.
It my mother cook to for breakfast

Where did you do your homework last night?

I homeworked in the hoom last night.

Where did you brush your teeth yesterday?

I brashed my teachers in the bathroom.
I washed the thieves in the bathroom.
I brashed my pea in the bathroom.
I blash your teach in the kitchen.
I brush south in the bath yesterday.

In one question the high school students had to describe Sam's and my personalities. Some of the results were;

Melanie is cheerful. She is big voice and her smile is cute.
She is cheerful because her class time is very interesting and exciting.
She is like rabit because she is very praty.
Melanie is very cheerful, because she is loved everyone.
She is cheerful and easygoing, because her smile is beautiful and she makes us happy.
He is gentle. He always listens my boring and not-well-English story happily.