School

Hello all.

I don't have much of anything new to report other than I go to work for five days a week and teach 4 classes a day on average, but I haven't really described what that is like yet, maybe now would be a good time to do so.
At my school, each class has English four times a week. Three are normal English classes and a fourth is the 英会話 class (eikaiwa, English conversation class). I only go to the Eikaiwa classes. Now generally AET's (or ALT's, depending on your region) are usually required only to read new vocabulary or the text for accurate pronunciation, check the students' pronunciation, and generate activities (i.e. games). How much assistance the AET gives is otherwise left up to the individual teacher, which can range from just standing in the corner for the majority of the lesson to explaining every part of the class in English first so the students can practice listening.

At my school, however, I am expected to lead the lesson as if I were the primary teacher and the Japanese main teacher were the assistant. This was extremely difficult at first as I had zero teaching experience when I started and there was apparently a great deal they expected to me know already. However, the teachers were understanding and helpful and I managed.
My main problem was (and to some extent still is) that I never went to a Japanese Junior High school and I never learned the protocol. As a result, I'm never sure what's the same as the U.S. and what's different. It's really the procedural things that I get hung up on the most. But as time goes by I am improving.

Today, I was supposed to have an additional class, making the total number five. However, I discovered upon showing up to my first class that the teacher I have three classes with on Thursdays was absent, which no one had bothered to tell me. Communication here seems to be like that pretty regularly, and by like that I mean nonexistent. So, I ended up having two classes instead of five. I actually wrote this entry on a piece of scratch paper between classes in my spare time. So I guess I found something useful to do with my extra time.

I suppose that's all for now. Until next time.