Hey everyone! I’m an incoming Tokyo JET placed in Hachioji and recently found out that I don’t have a predecessor at my school. In fact, my school has never had a JET. For those of you who have been in a similar situation, how did you find the experience joining a school that has never had a JET before? Any advice?
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My predecessor was so mentally checked out that he refused to contact me or talk about anything JET related with anyone, he just left the job and peaced out. Essentially what this meant is that if there was any information I needed, I had to be pretty proactive in asking about it. The rest depends on your organization really. Your school doesn’t have much experience with JETs so they’re probably going to be figuring out how to use you at the same time as you are trying to figure out what to do, it’ll be a learning and adapting process. Lack of a pred just means no smooth introduction at the beginning.
1 They definitely had an ALT before, from a dispatch company probably.
2 Your job would be exactly the same as last persons job, the only thing that will change is the schedule, days off and contract, but the job itself will be the same.
3 This will lead to some misunderstandings at first, like people thinking you are leaving early for example, so make sure to remind them of these changes the first weeks. So it would be great if you could find out everything about the last ALT.
4 You will be expected to do the same things but better, which is hard at the beginning (which is why you need to find out as much as possible about this person). They will get used to you in a month (3 months top)
5 There is this school I have where there where 3 ALT in one year, they didn’t quit they just finished their contract, put a sub in between the new and the old ALT. There is this other school where the same person stayed for 5 years.
While they’ve never had a JET before, it’s possible they’ve had ALTs before. One you arrive in Japan, you’re not a JET. No one knows what JET is. You’re an ALT. Ask if they’ve had previous ALTs and see if there are any previous materials to browse through to get a taste of what the previous set up was like.
Everyone’s situation is different anyways, so when you arrive make sure to be proactive in asking for rules, help, and explanations. If you have any issues, try to resolve it with your school first, but if not reach out to your PA.
Be flexible and understanding as it might be awkward and what not for both you and the school.
JET’s the programme, not the person.
They had an ALT prior to you.
It’s best not to focus on what the previous ALT did anyhow, unless you meet the person directly, a lot of it is bound to be hearsay. They want you to do A, so they tell you “the last ALT did A.” Be open to helping them, just ask them what they would like instead of making it about the last ALT. You’ll be able to tell what the ALT was like (generally) because there will often be leftovers from the previous ALT in your desk.
My pred left over 6 months before I arrived, and never left any contact info, notes, or any sort of ordinary pred communication. I’ve now been here for over 3 months and I can count the number of times my pred has been mentioned on one hand.
Like others have said, you had a predecessor, they were likely just not a JET. Your schools will have experience with ALTs, that is a certainty.
They probably never had a JET before but they most likely had an ALT from a dispatch. Usually if the BOE or school had a very poor experience with the cheaper dispatch ALT and are moving to the more expensive JET ALT for a hopefully better experience.
Assuming they were the type that checked out, it’s probably better you didn’t have any communication.
As for your personal life it just gives you extra steps to go through. Think of it as a clean slate and lean heavily on your Homeroom teachers (especially the English speaking ones like JHS HT) or your BOE supervisor. Once you arrive you get a get out a free jail card since you are new. I suggest getting any and all question out of the way.
Good luck
Just to contrast what most people are saying, I was the first JET at my school and I was **also** the first ALT they ever had. They had dispatch native teachers there before, but they taught their own courses by themselves and were not at the school full time, so in my case the school/English teachers had no experience with team teaching and working with an ALT. So it’s not a 100% given that your school will have experience with ALTs.
My one bit of advice is you have to be proactive- take the initiative in asking questions, in establishing what your position will be like. For me and my school personally, it was a learning experience for everyone and took a while before we created a good system. My school didn’t really know what to do with me when I first go there, so I had to be explicit about what my role as an ALT should be like. But it was nice since there were no expectations from prior ALTs so I could really do what I wanted.
Outside of the classroom, with things like set-up, my school had no idea about a lot of procedures and things I might need help with. So, I also had to be pretty proactive about asking for assistance and staying on top of everything since the school just literally didn’t know about a lot of things. But for life stuff and info about setting-up, the JET tokyo wiki page is really helpful and has so much life saving info, so I really recommend reading there.
Protip:
Join the Yamanashi English Teachers International (YETI) facebook group, they may not be in Tokyo but they are pretty close and they run events as close as Otsuki. Great way to meet other local JETs that are not Tokyo based.
It is likely some or all teachers there are familiar with ALTs. The chaos will be around paperwork and moving in stuff, not around teaching.
Well, I was in 2 schools (in a super small village) where they never had a JET or ALT before. The elementary school kids never had any English before (this was back in 2009, I think there might be a requirement now? but there wasn’t then). They handed me a piece of paper with my schedule on it and those were the hours I was going to teach English. To kids who knew no English. There was a teacher in the elementary classroom but they just did other work while I taught.
My example is probably extreme but here is what I did. I made contact with the closest JETs in my area, and started collecting lessons and ideas from them. And I did A LOT of research online about teaching English. I made a lot of laminated vocab cards, we did simple sentence structure, every lesson had a theme. I made folders of the different lessons/themes and sometimes we would repeat so they could remember but with slightly different games. That too, so many games.
The school accepted me fine I guess. They were nice to me. I stayed 3 years. I was never going to be one of them but that was fine, I went on a lot of trips like snowboarding or beach trips with the other young teachers in the village. There are a lot of opportunities in being the first. No one is ever going to say “so and so who was here before you was better.” See it like the gift it is. 🙂
Am a CIR here, but I can still answer as I am active at the nursery schools and high school in my placement.
First off, there are benefits to having no predecessor before you. Some teachers will not feel compelled to compare you to the previous JET who may have been a Superstar ALT or CIR. Get to know as many people as you can, ask questions about how you can help, and do your best.
The downside, however, is that you will be the frame of reference these teachers have for your successors should they teach at the schools too. It is a lot of pressure, but as long as you stay kind, professional, and do your best, then you should be alright. Best of luck to you!