Throwaway account for various reasons.
I’m a direct hire ALT, and have been working for the same elementary school for about four years now. My contract is part time with a 1100 hour contract for the year, which comes out to a work day of about six hours a day, but no more than 27.5 hours a week. Generally things are very good. I enjoy every minute regardless how busy I am.
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edit 1 and 2: I wrote this late last night. I was extremely stressed and I may not have had all my thoughts together. First, I want to thank you all for offering suggestions such as finding a new job (which I’m considering), or just doing the work that I’m responsible for. Perhaps a pay raise is in store, but my contract states no pay raises (even though I did get a pay raise once).
I need to state what I want. Of course I feel that need to have some sort of foundation in place before I start telling management that I feel like I should be paid more.
One idea that I had in mind was to have my responsibilities evaluated from year to year since I was hired and see if I should have more hours per year. In fact I went to HR back in 2021 and asked the then head JTE to do just that. He never did (and left back this past March), but apparently I’m on the record for asking for my responsibilities in writing from as far back as May of 2021.
What I want: more pay, more hours per year, benefits inline with other part time teachers working at the school. At the same time, I don’t want to rock the boats too much, hence why I’ve been trying as hard as I can while also remaining quiet. Calm like a Bomb, if you will.
I also didn’t mention how much I get paid. I make roughly 240,000 yen a month, but I’m out of classes for the majority of August and for the last week of July. The school however sends me elsewhere 15 days a year, and while I’m not paid by the school, I factor that into my wage because the school helped me with the connection.
No benefits other than social insurance and PTO.
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I’m in class for the majority of my time in school- an average of 21 class hours, and as many as 24 class hours a week. On a typical week, I usually have eight class hours that I can devote to desk work. Desk work time has increased over the years for various reasons beyond what I can control (the school has been losing a whole grade per year, so for instance, I had 22 class hours last year, hence why this year I have 21 class hours), and between the JTE and myself, I’ve been doing my best to use that time to make materials for the school- making Teacher Talk skits, presentations, etc, and occasionally a video to show the students on days that I cannot come in or when I’m tied up in another class.
Every year we lose classes, and in turn my work outside of class have increased. As of last year (five hours of desk work), I was responsible for the occasional Teacher Talk or video when requested, and made slide shows for 6th grade classes on my own time.
This year my responsibilities outside of class includes…
* lesson and curriculum plans for grades 1 – 4
* making skits, presentations and teacher talks for grades 1 – 4
* making class projects for the 3rd and 4th grade class units
* making new materials for class when necessary
* making presentations and videos for grades 5 and 6 when requested (typically once a week)
* scheduling classes in detail and coordinating those classes with the new JTE
* coordinating with the new JTE when classes need to be made up
* coordinating with the new JTE when I take time off or if I’m not in class so they can run the lesson
* training the new JTE… They cannot run a class on their own.
* And more…
All of this with no more than 6 hours a week of desk time. I’ve been keeping quiet lately. I’m frustrated, but I’m trying to keep a positive face and just keep on trucking along.
I can’t help saying this though… I feel like I’m doing the job of the previous full time JTE who left the school back in March. This was a large part of his job- scheduling classes, making presentations, coming up with class projects to do at the end of the unit. The new JTE that I work with now teaches 12 English class hours with me (as T1), as well as teaching music classes.
**\*\*** All this and there was never a conversation about my responsibilities increasing. Forget about conversations regarding my yearly contract hours or my pay. I don’t mind responsibilities increasing, but there seems to be no record of what my responsibilities are at the school or how they have increased since I started working. **\*\***
Perhaps it’s just the circumstance the school is in and they’re trying to do the best they can with the staff they have, but I’m seriously feeling like I’m being put to the test.
Also it doesn’t help that my boss (head JTE) is not someone who is easy to talk to. Everything has to go through him- I just can’t waltz into HR and talk about this situation without consulting him first. There’s so much to juggle… I’m a year away from being a permanent employee, so I’m afraid to rock the boat, but at the same time, responsible for roughly half of the English Departments lesson and curriculum planning that was not my job last year.
Needless to say, I’m stressed as hell… half of me is glad I only work 27.5 hours a week… but in all honesty, it’s not enough.
10 comments
That’s way too much for what you get paid. Sounds like
you’re doing the JTEs job who left, not to mention your ALT job, except they got paid 4 times as much. I think you were too nice and should start saying you don’t have time.
I’m lucky because I’m at a Japanese school in a different country. The new JTE i work with is horrible at teaching. Shes almost retirement age and cannot even talk to the students on Japanese or English. I guess she got this far by exploiting the ALTs. It makes me angry to think about how if we were in Japan, it would be my fault that she can’t teach.
Stick up for yourself, I would say. Like check your contact and stop being so good at what you’re doing. Tell the new JTE that all those things are their job and you had to cover.
Sounds like Saitama BOE
With greater job security comes great responsibility. On the plus side, once you have all of these materials planned and ready to use, you wont have to spend as much time on preparation in the future.
I’ve gotta say. What really surprised me reading this post was that You are training the new JTE.
I Never heard of a foreigner training a Japanese teacher. At least not someone working at a public school.
You deserve higher pay, that’s for aure
I hope you get paid well and bonuses are included. Sounds like a lot of work…
A friend of mine told me this is why you don’t want to stay at one school only. I work at preschool and they are using me for various of reasons just because I can do it….. I often think maybe it’s good to play dumb sometimes.
To OP, I quit my previous job at public school because of all the reasons you’ve just explained. I felt underpaid by training JTEs and subject teachers at JHS too. And I’m running into the same problem at preschool then I started to think it’s more of my problem. Luckily I make a bit more working at preschool but the stress aren’t worth the salary of what I’m doing.
You’re in a public school? Is it really possible for you to become permanent?
Anytime my responsibilities became ridiculous for my job title, I found another job. My guess is there’s a private school job (or one of the rare but existent higher level for foreigner public school jobs) out there waiting for you with your skills.
I’m guessing you’ve been pushing yourself to get all this done?
Don’t.
Do what you can reasonably do in your part-time hours. Ask what tasks are priority and tell them upfront things like ” I’ve already got 2 tasks / 8 hours of work to do. Should I stop one of those for this?”
Start making it apparent that you CAN NOT do the workload in part time hours.
Are you a direct hire alt for the school or for the BOE? If you are a 会計年度任用職員, the five year rule doesn’t apply. So just be careful of that.
I’m really interested what are these videos lol
I’m guessing you don’t want to work 2 extra hours a day for 2 extra hours of pay per day
It’s hard but do you have any relationship with another teacher like Kyoto who you could approach for advice about taking this up with your head?
Idk you might just have to say it’s too much directly but definitely act like it hasn’t been bugging you for a while already. It seems like your problem is more that you’re afraid to speak than anything else. So that’s what you should be asking advice for – how to approach him about the problem. My answer? Courage and just pretend it hasn’t been a problem for ages already so you don’t get emotional about it…