Moving up in the world
My current job as an ALT (assistant language teacher) could be described as the McDonald's of jobs that requires a degree. I get paid about $30,000 a year to stand up in front of a class of about 40 Japanese kids that have no interest in learning English, and read the text book. (Elementary is more exciting; that part of my job could be described as an English activities director and I have some margin of control over the lesson content.) A lot of times, the English the text book teaches is out dated: "How pretty you are!" strange: "I like ice cream better than broccoli, and I like pizza the best of the three." or something that American English teachers try to get kids to not do: passive voice, or beginning a sentence with the conjunctions and, but, or so. Pointing out these inconsistencies with native English and textbook English, even in the most diplomatic way possible, makes the Japanese teacher assume you are questioning their intelligence and English ability. I've had a teacher tell me before that she has been speaking English longer than I've been alive. Forget the fact that the total time she spent in English speaking countries has been less than three months, or that her grammar and pronunciation are awful. I'm usually told once a week that I'm pronouncing something wrong. At first when I started doing this job, I really tried to improve upon the outdated grammar etc... but the teachers here have no interest (with maybe the rare exception) from veering away from the textbook. After all, the textbook is based on the high school entrance exam and EIKEN (Japan's English as a foreign language assessment), so if kids want to get into their choice schools, they have to pass the test even if the grammar that is being tested is incorrect. That's one of the biggest problems with teaching English in Japan. Japan isn't interested in learning English, it's interested in passing tests. (Interestingly enough, I read last week that Japan scored second lowest on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) last year, only beating some South East Asian country-- Laos, or Cambodia... Can't really remember...) But after getting shot down or scolded, or corrected for three years, I'm just not trying anymore. If Japan wants to improve their international English test scores, they need to stop basing everything on the EIKEN or the high school entrance exam, and they should get a native speaker or two (or 100...) to work on the textbook and also have the English teachers learn how to teach a foreign language. All this to say: I turned in my letter of resignation last week. Starting from the 27th, I'm going to begin training to work at an international preschool outside Tokyo, not as an English teacher but as a teacher. I'll be teaching stuff that preschool kids need to know like math, and reading and science and shapes, but I'll be teaching in English. I'll be officially starting on the first of April and I couldn't be happier. Also I'll be making more money and the school will be paying for my transportation fee. Not a requirement, but definitely a bonus! This is also going to mean less down time, which I'm super happy about. You might think having only two hours of work in an 8 hour day would be awesome, but I don't have a computer at my desk, so all I can do is study and play on my iphone. Even if I divide the time equally between the two, that's 3 hours of trying to learn Japanese, and 3 hours of checking facebook, twitter, my email, texting about doing nothing, playing sudoku or doing a word search. (I used to bring my kindle but they decided that reading was a waste of time.) Anyway... NEW JOB, WOOO HOOO!! |
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