Being an ALT #4: Planning Classes

As I mentioned before, a lot of classes will involve you making a game, activity or worksheet. This is an acquired skill, although you'll be surprised how quickly you pick it up, and often horrified when you re-examine the sheets or activities you made last year/when you started the job.

This week we'll talk a little bit about the process of putting together something for your class.

WS: Snake Eyes (All Purpose "Anything OK" Escape Plan #3)

This is another great group game which involves the whole class interacting with the JTE and ELT.

You will need dictionaries for each group, and some dice.

Keep going as long as they are enjoying it, which can quite conceivably be all lesson. 

Job Spotlight: Tsukuba City CIR Position

Tsukuba City has posted a hiring notice for a Coordinator of International Relations (国際交流員) position on their home page. CIR jobs are generally positions within a city hall or other municipal office arranging community events and international awareness. Some CIR positions include teaching community classes or visiting public schools as a guest teacher. Here's the scoop:

Application Deadline: Jan. 22, 2011

Being an ALT #3: An Average Day

We kicked off this series with an explanation of what an ALT actually is, and how it differed from an ELT. We later explained your role in school.

This time, we'll have a detailed look at the average school day for an ALT.

PT: Japanese Gardens

 

Everywhere you look in Japan, there are some immaculate and spectacular gardens. Future installments of our Destination series will give some recommendations, including the one above (Ritsurin, Takamatsu: Shikoku).

Peaceful, colourful, full of fish.

Differences Between Driving in America and Japan: Traffic Rules, Etiquette, and More

The obvious difference between driving in the U.S. and Japan is that drivers sit on the opposite side of the car and cars drive on the opposite side of the road. Although this seems like a terrifying difference, actually this difference is really easy to get accustomed to. The differences that trip people up tend to be smaller things:

WS: Boggle Puzzle Generator

Boggle puzzles are an alternate activity to word searches and crosswords in the ESL classroom. They offer more flexibility, are easy to create, and can be presented to advanced students as a challenging vocabulary activity rather than the simple "search and mark" routine of a word search.

Here are some easy-to-use tools and hints for incorporating a Boggle puzzle into your classroom:

Being an ALT #2: Your Role in School

Your Role
As mentioned last time,

"An ALT is supposed to act as support to a Japanese English Teacher (usually abbreviated to JET or JTE, but not to be confused with JET programme participants), while an ELT usually plans and executes classes alone by instruction from their employer."

You are not on the same level as Japanese teachers. You don't have the same status or responsibility. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your current and future goals.

Job Spotlight: How to Get a Gaijinpot Job

Although I think there are other, better resources available for job searching, the well-trodden sites of the Internet are still worth a look; they are often well designed and because of their popularity, new jobs appear on them almost every day.

Today we're going to take a look at Gaijinpot Jobs.

(But, this advice is just as effective at other big job-listing sites, too.)

Most readers have already heard of Gaijinpot Jobs, so I'll keep the site description short: You create a profile on the site, write and save resumes, browse jobs, and send resumes with cover letters. Most of the jobs listed on the site are ESL teaching gigs, from small local schools to corporate giants like Interac. And Gaijinpot's ability to store your resumes means you can apply for a load of jobs with very little effort.

And that right there is what I want to focus on.

Think about it: If you can save one resume and one cover letter and send those off to a dozen companies in five minutes, so can everyone else. So, if you want to get in for an interview, the name of the game at Gaijinpot is quality and speed. Read on...

PT: Lunch

Pregnant fish

We've written quite a bit about school lunch in Japan in the last few months. Steve wrote a very interesting article about why we have some very bizarre combinations of foods sometimes, and I wrote about what it's like eating with your students.

For a more in-depth look, I also put together a typical 5-day sample of what you can expect to be eating.

Getting a Japanese License: Do You Have to Take the Test?

The driving test is the worst part of converting a foreign license. But, not every nationality has to take it. It all depends on whether Japan has concluded a treaty with your country that waives driving tests for each country's citizens. (So, if you're required to take a driving test to get your license converted in Japan, so would a Japanese person moving to your country.)

Anyway, here's the list of countries who do or don't have to take a driving test in Japan:

WS: Pyramids - 1st and 2nd grade JHS (12-14yo+)

This is a great format which can be adapted to a lot of different scenarios. It's essentially a listening test, where students have to pick the correct choice on a descending pyramid of words, letters or numbers.

Takes about 10 minutes.

Full description: