Changing Schools

Hi There!

Sorry for the lack of update last week - changing schools was a major project so I was spending a lot of time doing that.

As I mentioned in the March 26th update, closing ceremony and my last day with those students was on Friday, March 24th.

I took the following Monday off from work then went to the elementary school the rest of the week (Tuesday-Friday). I spent most of the week cleaning up my desk and packing up belongings.

On Wednesday, the ALT that would be taking my spot at the school visited, so I spent most of that day showing her around the school and how to use various resources.

There were other teachers changing schools and their "last day" at the school occurred on various days throughout the week. Some had their last day early in the week while others stayed until Friday.

Other remaining teachers rotated in and out of the school throughout the week.

Thursday seemed to be the day on which the most teachers came to school. There was a special ceremony that day.

At first, I did not really understand what the ceremony was about - two 6th grade students (a boy and a girl) came to school all dressed up with their families. And some of their friends also showed up. The teachers who were at school that day gathered in the gymnasium and we did a ceremony for them.

At first, I thought maybe this was some sort of occasion to maybe give these two students special recognition for academic achievement. But, overall, it felt very similar to the prior week's graduation ceremony.

It was not until later from talking to another teacher that I realized this was a "make-up" graduation ceremony. These two students had been absent the prior week, so they missed the original ceremony.

Outside of this ceremony, I arranged with the staff to make my last day at the school be Thursday and I would take Friday off to get some rest. It was a difficult day to say goodbye to the staff and administration that were at the school.

But, in my mind, I had an idea that I would stop by the school briefly on Friday. There was one teacher who was also leaving - he took a new job to become a vice-principal at a new school. Every day that I was at the elementary, he would be at the front gate greeting students and we would normally talk to one another for a bit. He speaks a decent amount of English.

He was not at the school until Friday, so I wanted to stop by to see him before moving onto the new school. So late in the afternoon on Friday, I stopped by the school and spent some final moments with the teachers.

Some of the teachers were cutting up tennis balls to place on the ends of chairs and desks. I helped with that for a while before heading out. It was a good way to wrap up my time there.

My first day at my new school was the following Monday. Like I mentioned before, my new school is a high school and I will be there from now on. I will also be working with another ALT (assistant language teacher) at this school - she is also new to the school and is from Jamaica.

On the first day, there was a staff meeting and all the new teachers briefly introduced themselves. We then had an English department meeting later in the day to discuss class schedule and decide who would teach what classes and with whom.

For me, I will be teaching an introductory speaking class and an introductory writing class. I will also be involved in several other, more general "communication" classes. For the speaking and writing classes, my initial impression was that I would be taking more of the "lead role" teaching the class and the Japanese teacher would be assisting.

Like I mention, for every class, I am assigned a Japanese English Teacher who will work with me for that class. It seems like that for at least the speaking class, the Japanese teacher and I will work together as a team to both teach the class.

I think I feel mostly okay with this setup - as it means I will have a lot of help but it also means that I might not get the full experience of being a teacher that I thought I would. But that is okay for now.

For the writing course, I have not yet met with the Japanese teacher - she is coming back from maternity leave and was only at the school a brief time this past week. We will meet next week to discuss how the course will work.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time putting together some class plans and syllabus-type information. For the speaking class, though, it seemed like a lot of that type of work might have been unnecessary as it seems that the Japanese teacher will take a much more active role in the class that I previously thought. We will see how it works out for the writing class.

Outside of those classes, I mention that I work with other teachers to teach a "communication" type class. From what I understand, all "freshman" at the high school are required to take these courses. I am not sure yet what my role will be with these classes, but we have a meeting next week to discuss with the teachers.

I say "freshman" because in Japan, they are actually referred to as "first graders." That is one difference between Japan and America - whereas in America, we say things like "freshman" or "9th graders," in Japan when it is a student's first year at a level of school (elementary, junior high school or high school), the new students are referred to as "first graders."

In Japan, elementary school is 6 years long, then junior high school is 3 years (whereas America is usually 2 years) then high school is 3 years long (whereas America is 4 years long). So the first year high school students in Japan are actually age-equivalent to American high school sophomores.

Also, from what I understand, high school in Japan is not compulsory, but most students choose to attend anyways.

And, they pay tuition to attend high school. I have not yet figured out how much it costs to attend high school.

Overall, many people at the school speak English. And there are about 15 teachers who specifically teach English, so they speak at a very high English level. But I can see why they need ALTs - while their speaking level is high, they sometimes do not speak as clearly or as confidently as a native speaker would.

And the vice principal speaks English at a near native-level, which is very different from my prior school. So I think I will be able to learn a lot and communicate well with the teachers at this school.

The school also has many club activities, all kinds of sports and activities. I will get more involved with those in the future months. It seems like every teacher gets assigned a club activity, even if they are not strong in that particular activity. For example, last year's wrestling coach told me that he cannot wrestle, but he was the coach of the team.

For the baseball team, it seems like the coaches for that sport are pretty specialized. Those coaches do not rotate to other sports. I spoke to them briefly and plan to go to their practice once I get to know the students better and settle into my role.

The baseball coaches plus many others have already asked me to come to their club activities.

This coming week, we have opening ceremony on Monday with the students, then English classes start on Thursday.

Until next time,

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