New Placement Differences

   Something that's constantly lingering at the back of my mind, even after a month here, is the nagging feeling that I'm not really getting any work done up here. At Azuma, I felt more like I was teaching, despite frustrations. I was proofing tests before they went out, checking tests when they came back, helping teach the textbook and deal with grammar questions...

   Now, though, it seems like I've taken a step back. Although I'm more accepted at Fujimi as a person, I'm not really being used much as a teacher, albeit an assistant. This comes with the job, though; ALTs generally can only do what the school wants them to do, however satisfying or unsatisfying it is.

   At my old school, Azuma, I taught with the textbook in every class. I helped teachers come up with decent, grammatically-correct example sentences, I helped demonstrate them in class, I did a lot of model readings and pronunciation correction, and I walked around class to help students one-on-one with translation and grammar problems. It was sometimes frustrating, but definitely a rewarding experience.

   It's completely different at Fujimi.

   I've been here a month and I still haven't taught a lesson like that, much less one with the textbook. Teachers don't really consult me about worksheets and things that they make, so it always irritates me when I catch mistakes in class. Not just typos, but egregious grammatical mistakes.

   What do I do in class, though?

   I run "communication activities." My class time is supposed to be used for communication -- speaking and listening practice. I understand the point, but the reality is that teachers want me to do a lot of "games" to make communication "fun." I guess part of this is a philosophical difference since I think "fun" comes along with "effectiveness" -- that is, if you know HOW to speak and use grammar so that someone else can understand you, it becomes fun without needing a game.

   Perhaps a sometime reader here will remember the glee with which I deciphered various katakana tags on appliances in the secondary dining hall at college...

   It's incredibly frustrating, sometimes. Even though I'm having fun, I'm not really getting to know the kids anywhere near as well as I did at Azuma, largely because I don't get the chance to work with them singly and see what kind of mistakes they make; I just work with the entire class as a group. It's more like my old elementary school, in that sense.

   The most checking I've done is proofreading show-and-tell speeches, and those are all from one of the four teachers.

   Despite one of the older teachers saying I'm the best ALT she's ever seen, I don't really feel like I earned that appellation at all -- instead, it really feels like I'm being left out of the serious educational process where I could really be helping.

   This feeling is only accentuated now that it's midterm test season; nobody wants me to check their tests. They're all confident that their tests are perfectly fine without me looking at them, though I've already pointed out some misspellings and grammatical problems. They only want my input when they ask me about specific issues, which I think defeats the point -- if they don't know it's an issue, then they won't ask me!

Addendum

   I've been thinking (brooding?) over this for a bit more and wanted to add some details. The longest a non-JET ALT stays at a school in this city is three years; I stayed at Azuma for three years, so they had plenty of time to get used to me and the fact that I have pretty solid grammar and spelling. I've only been here for one month, and the ALT before me was only here for a year.

   I don't really know anything about the guy I replaced, or the person before him, or the person before that. In short, I don't know what kind of ALTs have been through this school -- whether they were reliable, fun-loving, friendly, or what. I don't know how their English was, or even if they were native speakers.

   For example, the girl who replaced me at Azuma is Australian, half-Chinese and half-Vietnamese. I don't even know how to grade her English; she tends to use tons of Australian slang and pager-style spelling, so I don't know how well she can actually type or proofread when she wants to. Of course, my gut instinct, which is influenced by her demonstrated (in)abilities and racial heritage (unfair, I know) is that her English ability is pretty sub-par.

   My point is that it's probably not going to be possible for teachers there to rely on her as much as they did me.

   And here, the teachers may not be used to having an ALT they CAN rely on, who has the ability and the desire to help in that respect. A lot of ALTs don't think it's a part of our job to do that kind of stuff, anyway. I think it is -- after all, if we're not helping the teachers teach proper grammar to the best of their abilities, then what's the point of us being here? Are we just paid international goodwill ambassadors?

   I really don't think so.