I’m sure this is a dumb question but what is it you guys actually do? Like how does your day go? Are you back to back lessons, researching or doing admin? What sort of things are you teaching? Dry grammar, literature or practical exercises.
I ask because I did four years of ALT and have an MA and wanted to make the change but really couldn’t see much in the way of actual daily routines or just general information on how your daily life looks.
Sorry again of this a dumb question.
7 comments
First started as a limited-term FT instructor, worked 12-koma, no meetings/admin work, focused on getting publications during my summer/winter breaks. Salary was marginally better than ALT, but benefits were much better. Sacrificed a lot of personal time for research/workshops/networking. Sent about 80+ applications during my contract.
Moved to another lateral position in another prefecture, 9-koma, no meetings/admin work, salary was about the same, but was under their uni wage scale. No research budget, so I relied on JALT for funding. Obtained a Ph.D. Met some wonderful people that helped me get my current job (after submitting another 50+ applications).
Finally got a tenure-track position at another city, 6-koma, teaching 3 1/2 days a week, but had at least 4-5 hours of admin work/meetings a week. Research funding was plentiful. Finally started to be able to comfortably support myself and family financially. Was also able to take actual vacation “weeks” to visit relatives and go on decent sightseeing places without worrying about money.
Currently tenured, department head, 4-koma classes, 2 of which are graduate seminar classes. I teach 2 days a week, 1 day of “research”. However, I’m now in 6 different committees, with a minimum 10 hours of meetings a week with the office and other department heads. Salary is on par with other higher-end industries.
I think I can speak on behalf of a lot of professors and wish we could be in the classroom more. I’m in meetings more than teaching students. Such is the life in university academia; however, my path isn’t the only one. (I’m sure there are other golden positions)
I had a few universities where friends/associates/former employers had asked to hook me up. While I didn’t have an MA; I’d published frequently for some time, including refereed journals and also as a referee for some journals. (This is easy – just about every JALT publication could use another reader). Most importantly, I had helped edit and review people now employed at these institutions.
I taught up to five koma per institution, one an A-rank university, one a… nearly N-rank university. The latter helped me get into the former for sure.
Previous to Corona, I stayed in my lane primarily teaching communication based courses like speaking, listening, and then specialized in research and academic writing. Vexingly, my communications based classes might have just 18-25 students, whereas my writing classes were damn near 44 at times – awful.
I used a basked of in-class observations for formative assessments, which is where we could negotiate the rubrics, and then hit them with about four or six summarize assessments. I’d need to also put together a mid term for some courses, as was obligated for some first-year compulsory syllabi. I had small vocab development quizzes throughout pretty much regardless of class, which may be a crutch, but it helped my basket of grades, and quizzes were almost always thrown into the syllabi.
As you can guess, if you do paper-based free response / fill in the blank kind of quizzes, you can make your life hell with grading, and if you go in for matching/multiple choice digitally, you can be done as soon as they turn it in. I did the former, because I’m an idealist, and it also allowed me to ask them to re-test themselves.
Ultimately, I didn’t beat anyone over the head with a lot of homework, but I did ask that we keep progress notebooks, Of which in-class note taking, language study, model examples, corrections to incorrect answers, and personal independent study were all a part. Despite this being a pretty big deviation from other classes, it was extraordinarily clear who did and didn’t do their work, and more often than not people did.
In terms of time, I’m better at grading closer to when I can provide feedback, so if I had class at 9, I’d be in a coffee shop at 7 or earlier, grinding out scores, seeing where the problems lay, and working through it. I regularly used 1-3 hours of prep per Koma, and the only thing that made it really work is that A) a lot of my work could be done in-class, such as scoring work or notebooks while they had pair or group activities, and B) I’d simply have the same course twice, OR I had taught that course previously. I think I always overdid it, but I was always proud of my work. Writing classes were always more difficult than communication because frankly I gave myself too much work.
Finally, and I have found this to be true at the ALT level too, a “good” school is a million times easier to teach than a “bad” school. Motivated students makes everything easier; admin that is not early as worried about recruitment as others is also a major deal.
I didn’t earn very much – that’s what will happen if you don’t have a masters, but when school was out of session for four months of the year, and I’m still getting paid? That was great. I made between ¥18,000 to ¥22,000 per Koka per month, with that latter pay grade being inexplicably well rated. I feel like they simply made a mistake.
I’m a full-time contract teacher.
I teach about 10 koma per week. When I’m not teaching, I’m grading or prepping. That takes up about 80% or so of my working hours. When I can wrest some time away from those other things, I’m working on my own research.
As a contract teacher, I’m not required (allowed? lol) to be on any committees. I don’t teach any seminar classes or anything like that. One of the higher-ups at my department mentioned something about a monthly meeting but so far we haven’t done that.
I’d imagine it’s the same for most contract teachers.
Not directly stated in posts here, but to do the other duties outside of teaching, committee work and so on, you’ll need decent enough japanese language ability (generally including reading/writing).
I was an instructor for 13 years at a national university (finished at the end of March this year).
Had 8 koma a week, very little admin duties. During term time I would work four days a week, go in a bit early and prepare for class, teach two koma a day, grade student work. Could usually leave by 16:00 or so.
Outside of term time I would go in once or twice a week to prepare or work on things. Also did a fair amount of writing, etc. at home.
There would be a couple of meetings a month, and then annual things like open campus, grading the entrance exams, etc.
Overall I was paid very well for the amount of work it involved.
Teach 2 1/2 days a week, chair one committee, manage pt teachers, write entrance exams, write textbooks, some research, grow vegetables.
my experience is a bit different from most of the gents/ladies/persons in here.
I started when I already had a PhD in a humanity.
First year: 8 koma/semester for about 2-3x what an ALT makes, no committees, small research budget.
Second year onward: 3 koma / semester, same pay, no research budget, 2 to 3 committees depending on the year. Some advising duties but no zemi.
In both capacities, I’ve kept doing my own research whenever I have down time, but my research is not in SLA.
Since I’ve been doing this for several years now, my courses are pretty quick for me to grade and no one is monitoring when I’m there or not. As in I can disappear for a day or two during the semester when I don’t have classes and no one knows. During the summer or winter breaks, I could disappear and people wouldn’t know for weeks. (Please don’t kidnap me!)