c-english.com Blog

End of an Era

Not sure if I can say that about myself, but I will be finishing up here at the kencho on the 31st of March. It’s been a very interesting four years.

I have been privileged enough to work with some great people, both here at the kencho and in the wider ALT and teacher communities.

Benefiting more than I have contributed, this has been a profound learning experience. I will miss many aspects of the job after I leave in ten days time.

However, I am very excited about going back to the classroom full time. I will have 35 contact (teaching) hours a week next year, which is if anything a little too much, but it should be a way to lose some of the unwanted weight I have put on in this sedentary environment.

I will be continuing to administer the JET Lounge, and can be reached through the comments here or by email.

Best of luck with your teaching, and thanks for all the support and encouragement.

End of term

Okay, so technically we’re in the middle of the second semester, but it’s December, we have the winter holiday coming up, and it feels like the end of term

Classes should be finishing up or finished, and there are only a couple of months of classes left before the end of the school year (a couple of weeks for graduating students). I’d like to introduce a few things for ALTs to be thinking about over the next few months:

• Do you want to make any changes next year?
  If so, now is the time to start thinking about it. Try to take advantage of the holidays to talk to your teachers, either at the bonenkai or in school once the students are off. You have almost finished a year, so you should have a good idea of how you would like to run things next year. It is particularly important to start new classes off on the right foot, so figuring out in advance things like class rules, how homework is going to work, and how your lessons will flow, will allow you to start with a bang in April.
• Start planning any goodbye activities for your graduating students now
  Some ALTs have a special last class, some don’t. Either way it is nice to give your graduating stuents a letter of congratulations, or to take a group photo with each class, or to do something like this year-end activity.
• Use the spring vacation wisely
  Make plans for the spring vacation, particularly if you are not going to be going away. If you have a couple of weeks in school with little to do in terms of classes, come up with some projects. Making a vocabulary curriculum based on the words in your textbook, making flashcards, recording passages from your textbook to give to students, etc. Do something meaningful and share it with other ALTs and JTEs!

I will be here in the office, trying to write a speech for the Mid-year Conference and updating our online presence.

Have a great Christmas and winter break, and I will see you in January at the MYC.

October Meetings over/COLD

So, the October Meetings last week went really well, thanks mainly to Aki’s efforts putting them together, but also thanks to the presenters, who did a great job with their workshops. Personally I thought the atmosphere was really positive -thanks for making our jobs easier!

It got really cold over the weekend. Time to dig out those stoves and tape up the windows.

Typhoon/school closures

There is a typhoon approaching Miyagi at the moment, so many schools are closed. Or rather, students don’t have to come to school as it would be dangerous.

Teachers on the other hand, are expected to come in, which begs the question: are teachers more expendable than students?

Either way, a day at school with no students is a good chance to catch up on paperwork or preparation, or to hang out with other teachers, who are also often at a loss as to what to do. Try walking around saying hi, offering to help out, or even organise a volleyball game in the gym (happened at a JHS I worked at).

English in Elementary School

Potentially very big news for ALTs, the front page of the Asahi and Mainichi today were concerned with the announcement of new courses of study for Elementary Schools.

In a nutshell, the following changes will be implemented in Spring 2011:

• the period of integrated study (sougouteki na gakushu) will be reduced by 1/3
• more time will be used for the five core subjects
• 5th and 6th graders will have an hour of English per week

Given the fact that very few homeroom teachers in ES are ready to teach English by themselves right now, this could easily result in a huge increase in the number of ES ALTs.

Personally I think that ALTs are most influential in elementary schools, so this is great news for ALTs. Hopefully not just the number of jobs, but also the range of jobs will also increase, with better pay and stability for experienced teachers…

First Classes

For everyone starting out at a new school, you may want to check out this article by Andrew Clarke about self-introduction lessons:

http://www.c-english.com/files/selfintroductions_ac.doc

Good luck with your classes!

Survey results

I sent out a survey to ask for feedback and advice concerning the idea handbooks. I would like to thank the 29 people who took the time to reply to the survey. Some results:

-97% of respondents have a copy of one or more handbooks. This is great, but this should really be 100%. Please remember not to take or throw away your Idea Handbooks when you leave your school. New ones with new content are produced every year, so you should leave old copies for your successor.

-86% of respondents have used the handbooks to plan lessons. Your contributions *will* help future ALTs and JTEs.

-93% of respondents found the handbooks useful.

-78% of respondents thought that the handbooks should be provided in written form.

Many people seem unaware that all the submissions for the last couple of years can be accessed (and searched for) at:

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com

This year we will continue to provide a printed copy for each ALT, as well as uploading all content to the website. Thanks for your help with this ongoing project, and any comments or feedback are welcome.

Feedback

Lots of good feedback coming in about the Ideas Handbooks. Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in the survey, and everyone else keep it coming!

In a couple of weeks I will post the results here, along with comments.

Ideas Handbooks survey

This year, before making the Ideas Handbooks, I thought it might be a good idea to get some feedback on them and see what people think. Please click on the link below and fill in the short survey. It won’t take more than a minute or two:

survey

Yes, this is my new toy, but I promise I won’t be doing any more of these for a while!

SHS Working Hours Survey

We are currently conducting our annual investigation of SHS ALTs’ working hours. If you are a prefectural SHS ALT, please follow the link below and fill in the survey. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two.

Survey.