Hi everybody, I’m a new ALT, just finished my second week at school!
A bit of background, before moving to Japan this year I was teaching ESL to immigrants at a community college in an English speaking country. I did some team teaching at the beginning and later transitioned to solo teaching. I planned all my lessons and made most of my content. I have a masters degree in education and I cared a lot about my role as an educator at this school.
Before starting this job, I heard ALTs are a bit underutilised in the classroom and we might have a bit of free time. I think I’m a little surprised how much free time I have! I’m really self motivated so I’ve been working on random lesson plans, organising my life, doing some unrelated projects on my computer… all while at school during non-teaching periods. I had a coworker at another job who said he literally just watched Youtube at his desk as an ALT. I feel like if there’s nothing for me to do, and I ask my JTEs every day for some way to help them, then the least I can do is be productive and contribute to a focused mood for my coworkers.
I’m just wondering what other ALTs think about this part of the job? I went to a meeting with my company earlier this week and noticed the other ALTs were much more invested emotionally than I was, which was surprising for me because I don’t feel like I have much control or say as an educator in this position. What do you do in your free time? Is it even normal to have a lot of free time…? I also heard the JTEs might give you more work after the first year. Please let me know your thoughts!
14 comments
Yeah my JTEs do what they want and I’ll go along with it. I’m just an assistant so I knew what I was signing up for.
Best thing to do in free time is study Japanese or work on certifications or other skills that would benefit your career in the future.
Alt work is definitely just a phase, a season, so make use of the paid free time while you can.
I personally study Japanese and talk to my Japanese coworkers (if they’re not busy). I’ve made a few friends/acquaintances this way and it’s great Japanese practice.
Edit: also finishing up my 120 hour cert with ITTT
Wait, you have free time?!
… I jest, a lot of ALTs have a lot of downtime. I’m not sure whether to envy them or feel for them. I don’t like having downtime myself, but I have the opposite problem, so…
A lot depends on who you’re working with and how much they feel they can ask you. In addition, if you can speak/read Japanese, there’s more you can do, so you’re more likely to be given more work. Just asking if there’s work to do also helps – I had a lot of downtime in the first half of my year, so I asked my JETs if they needed help with anything. Starting the second semester, I had plenty to do. By the third semester, I started to have too much work. Now I’m basically drowning in it (used to work with a colleague, but now it’s just me and the workload has only increased over time).
On the other hand, you can also study Japanese and/or work on improving your skill set one way or another. That may honestly make a lot more sense from a financial perspective, as your pay as an ALT likely won’t change even if you put in triple the effort.
As for me, when I’m not in class, I’m usually doing one of the following things:
* Lesson planning/preparation
* Making new lesson materials/prints
* Checking/correcting student’s work
* Grading tests
* Doing admin (mostly calculating student’s grades/putting them in the server)
* Checking mid-term/end of term tests for errors
* Designing/recording/editing listening tests
* A smattering of other tasks
I usually teach 5 or 6 hours a day, so all this work mostly happens in the afternoon/evening. It can be pretty exhausting in busy periods, especially during the second semester. I still prefer it over too much downtime though. Note that I’m a direct-hire ALT, not a dispatch ALT, so that also affects things – often the dispatch company has a plethora of rules (officially at least) about what ALT’s can and can’t do, and Japanese English teachers often prefer to avoid any potential headaches.
Are you ALTing both JHS and ES?
Back when I was an ALT:
Work. Make lesson plans, make worksheets and flashcards. If a JTE walks up and asks you what you have planned for page 73, you have something ready to go. Ask them if they have homework or tests that you can grade.
Integrate yourself into the school. Ask the art teacher, homemaking teacher, whoever is teaching something other than chalk-and-talk, if you can join their class. Does your school have a room for the kids who don’t take class in their homeroom? Go there and see if they need help with their English homework. My old school called those rooms the ほっトルーム.
Study Japanese.
Read some language teaching journals and get some ideas for lessons, warming up activities, whatever.
*Discreetly* look for a university job. You have an MA in education? If you have 1 or 2 publications you can probably find a lecturer job easy-peasy. ALT is a fun job but unless you’re direct hire it’s a total shit pie.
I don’t have any free time, I’m constantly busy even during lunchtime.I prefer it this way. I fall asleep if I don’t have anything to do.
On the odd occasion I have free time and I’m not making lesson plans and materials etc i normally study or read something.
Generally in my downtime, I study Japanese. If there is something to grade or check from the teachers, I will do that as well. But being in elementary schools, I don’t get much other than the odd 1 or 2 free classes during the week.
In my case I have a second job as a photographer / videographer. When I have free time at school I usually just edit at my desk or book one of the empty classrooms and edit there.
So basically its advisable for you to find something that you can do at school, be that studying for some qualification or (if you’re lucky) some kind of extra work you can do at your computer.
I teach solo as school as well as some TT so I’m not as free as most ALTs might be but I do teach the same age groups every year so my prep time is quite minimal nowadays.
If I’m in the mood I’ll spend a lot of time working on some new material or activity I can use in class as il be able to use it in the following years.
If your JTEs grow to respect your ideas in the classroom, they’ll ask you to help more.
If not, you’ll have little to do. You just started, so I wouldn’t put too much thought into it, just put yourself out there when they are not busy.
(There are rare cases where a teacher doesn’t like foreigners or just wants to do only their own thing, but if you work with more than one teacher it shouldn’t be uniform throughout them all)
I studied Japanese like crazy until I got my N2, then studied programming.
When I was working at a JHS I decided to make a monthly English newspaper to hand out to students cause I was SO BORED. It was a lot of fun to make and I got the students involved in making it too. It had a theme to go with each month, easy English articles, drawing competitions which would then be published in the next month’s paper, and a little English game or puzzle at the back that they could hand in to me and I’d lucky dip a few each month for a small prize. It definitely kept me busy!
Current Rural ALT – 2 JHS – 〜85 Students Total
When I first came, it was making lessons plans 24/7. In my classes I am not the assistant (T2), I am the main teacher (T1). It’s been that way since the start. So the first 2 years was making activities, checking activities, brushing up on specific grammar (#1 complaint from JTE’s is ALT’s not understanding the specifics of grammar… I’ve been told). I also joined club activities to know my students better (many late practices until 7:30 at night). Once I had a core 10 activities and worksheet templates that can be mixed in and out for each grammar point, my life became less hectic. I could focus on the larger things that were spanning multiple classes and address those much better.
Once I became a direct hire ALT, my work load increased as I did more translation work for the city, free nightly classes for the citizens, and outreach for businesses looking to expand their marketability to foreigners.
But the downtime was and still is a great time for me to focus on what I need to do and how to do it. Many times, personal time and business time mix so my daily schedule reflects that. I have a lot of freedom compared to other ALT’s. I might run during 6th period on the ground if I don’t have a class so I don’t have to do it at night. But more often than not, that time is reflection time and as soon as I get back to my desk it’s 100% work effort. And even though my shift ends at 5PM, I’m usually at school an extra 30 to 45 minutes in exchange for the exercise time.
I’m now also a coach for my target sport and regularly get paid to officiate events on behalf of the board of education. Time spent on the weekends was with kids so the sport expanded into work as well. Pros and cons abound.
Currently, you’re looking at it. I have been looking into getting a TEFL, at the very least. This way, I can do something productive with that time and make myself more enticing to an employer, however little.
I do, however, make myself available for grading homework. They always ask if I have time, which, as an ALT, we do.
Honestly, I was really wanting to help out a lot when I first started and just sitting around felt wrong. So I kept bugging teachers for something to do and I think I accidentally annoyed the hell out of them and now they usually just send me home early without asking. 🤷🏻♀️
Oh well, extra free time for me.
Trim trees, mow the grass, rake leaves, pick weeds, plant gardens, join PE classes, etc. I work direct hire for a rural city (and they know that I went to the local agricultural college a few years ago plus now currently farm part-time.)
If you have a skill or interest, I say put it to use. When get to a school now, they often tell me what completely non-English related stuff they want me to do later that morning. Some days are just completely outside projects. If people only ask you for English (and abandon you in the teachers room the rest of the time), it’s because that’s all they think you can do. Let ’em know and then volunteer.
Of course, use your free time how you like. I like hard labor so that’s what I offer. Do what suits you best.