gunmajet.net

Before I begin I just would like to make sure I am correct about what a JET ALT actually is. Which is, a person who helps Japanese students with spoken English, communication skills, and living in the community helping rid Japan of xenophobia ... all at the grassroots level. Right?

First off one of the most active enzymes in the breakdown of the program as a reputable entity is the JET.

Just before I came out here Maxim ran an article about the "Top 10 Jobs" and the JET program was ranked 3rd. It pretty much said that Japanese women are 軽い, good way to see SE Asia, something about Aussies (I forgot), and that the pay was good for the amount of work you actually had to do, which is none. Whether you agree with it or if it's true, whatever.

The point is that the rhetoric like that tends to perpetuate and does influence people in one way or another. It could possibly deter someone from applying for the job who might have been a better choice than someone who comes here in hopes that the article was spot on.

The worst part about this whole ordeal is it can be a thorn in the side when applying for a job back home. Especially if you actually benefited from the program and garnished some good skills.

However, I think the problem runs a tad bit deeper than that. A governmental program is not solely being deconstructed by a four year old Maxim article. There are many, many, many avenues to why the program is in its current state.

I'll just touch on one that directly effects my expirience, the 入学試験. These tests render an ALT useless. Truth be told a kid is not going to get to 東大 with good communication skills and a lessened fear of foreigners. Just not going to happen. Everything is based on a test in Japan, everything. And what we have to offer as ALTs based on our job description is not tested on as far as I know.

On a side note, did you know that a persons salary is based on where they went to school. Meaning if I went to a 2 year college, which I can't do because I am a man and two year schools are only for women, and you went to a four year school even though we have the same exact job you would get paid more. So where you go to school does matter, I even heard if you were good on a sports team it could get you a job over someone else.

Yeah, So basically in this system this job is virtually meaningless in JHS to some extent and just about totally useless in a HS. Like it or not the most effective place for an ALT is in elementary education but that is a whole different thing to get into.

What needs to be worked out is what IS an ALT's function NOT only in the classroom BUT in the whole scheme of a students movement through the system. So, who is up for the task to figure that one out?

Thing is that we are here and IF we do care we just have to try our best to do whatever is asked of us and make ourselves available to whatever the cause is. But I must say that giving up and saying eff this job is the wrong way to go about it. Why? 'cause then you would just be being a dick. And who really wants to be a dick? On second thought, maybe some people do but that just brings us back to the maxim article.

A solution?

Well to be honest I doubt this will happen, but then again I did doubt that Obama would make it as far as he is now.
VOTE OBAMA by the way!
If the JET program gave the ALTs more responsibilities like helping out in choosing books, even having a say in who their replacement was, helping kids study for entrance exam tests, and interviews. It really adds to the job and makes the over all expirience better for everyone.

In the end, I don't think the job has changed at all. The novelty is just gone. It sounded like a great idea when it began but it wasn't thought about in the long run. Things changed. I dunno, maybe we should start seeing other people?...

Nah, but seriously, What was the plan? What was the goal of the program when it began? What is the plan for the program for the next 5 years? These aren't questions that an ALT or JTE should be dealing with. There are kids that need to be taught and that is all we can worry about.

So yeah, my 5th and last year on JET I am going to aim to do better than I did last year and do my job the best I can. Maybe get hired as an full time ALT, maybe work for some big time company in Japan, or maybe go back to NY and in 3 months time all of this will have seemed like it never happened. I don't know.

But as for the JET program, ALT issues, jobs privatizing, and all that jazz. What can we really do? Can our ideas and voice really make a difference? I hope. But in the meantime all I can do is watch the band play.

The JET Programme is an amazing program; it remains one of the largest and earliest models of a government-sponsored systematic introduction of foreigners into a non-native English speaking country. The fact that there are over 45,000 people who have participated in the JET Programme can attest to that. But the problems of the JET Programme are systematic, on-going problems.

The problems begin with the application process. Although all applicants are required to interview at an embassy, the process varies widely. Promotion and recruiting for JETs varies widely as well. When I was interviewed, I was asked, “How do you feel about sexual harassment?” and “You look Asian, how will you prove you’re American?” As you can imagine, the first question prompted visions of innocent JETs being sexually harassed at their schools, while the second stumped me. Other people had interviews where they were asked "Do you like Japan?" and "What will you do if you have long periods of time where do you nothing?"

For those people who were accepted, they enter Japan already influenced by rumors of JET alumni who brag about never doing any work, being lazy, hating their co-workers etc. How many people do you know blog on bigdaikon.com or ithinkimlost.com? How many people did you meet after you arrived who talked about spending their day on the internet or planning trips? What about pulling “sickies”? At the opposite end, how many times have you heard sometime brag about the great lesson they planned? Or the hours they spent after school helping out the students? I don’t know how it was for other JETs, but when I arrived, the number of JETs who spoke of working hard were far outnumbered by the number of JETs who spoke of slacking off. I think that by the time JETs begin their classes, their perceptions of what is acceptable behavior for JETs has already been tarnished.

The JET Programme in many ways, is like a social experiment; how will a person behave when there are no “real” punishments and no “real” rewards for your behavior? In most of our home countries, being consistently late for meetings, taking “sick” days so we can travel, or having a poor attitude at work are enough to get us fired. But in Japan, even when ALTs are caught pretending to be sick so they can travel, shop, etc, there have been no consequences. Even in exceptional cases where the ALT is consistently late, has a bad attitude or exhibits other unprofessional behavior, the ALT is very rarely fired.

This is not to say that ALTs are bad people, or bad employees. I believe they all have the potential to be stellar teachers. Even for those who are inclined to work hard, how do they know if they are doing a good job? Although there is a formal evaluation form, this form is optional. In fact, in Gunma Prefecture, only about half of the Contracting Organizations perform performance evaluations for their ALTs. Of those who do, most of them are done by the Principal or Vice Principal without ever consulting and discussing the evaluation with their ALT. In many of our home countries, this lack of communication not only hampers the ability of the ALT to improve, but also indicates that their presence and their efforts are not valued. In an apathetic work environment, how many people would be motivated to work harder?

I would argue that the JET Programme exaggerates a person’s professional flaws. If you tend to slack off if not encouraged or pushed, it will be even harder for you to work hard when you have no one to hold you responsible if you do not communicate with your JTE ahead of time. If you tend to be tardy, it will be even harder for you to change that when oftentimes, no one will even mention that you are late. If you have a bad attitude at work, you may not even know or care, and it is unlikely that you will, because the worse that will happen to you is probably that your JTEs will not want to work with you and avoid you. In such an environment, what the JET Programme will test is your professionalism and your character.

I agree with Phil's assessment; the JET Programme's system creates a lot of problems, but there are equally as many problems caused by the Japanese education system. Anyways, just my two cents. Maybe things have changed since I came in 3 years ago. Thanks for bringing up the topic.

Judith
CIR/PA
Gunma

"I would argue that the JET Programme exaggerates a person’s professional flaws"

"[What]the JET Programme will test is your professionalism and your character."

Couldn't agree more!

...well I was gonna post something new, but then it got away on me and it turned out to be 3 pages long...
...so in a nutshell "Accept and Adapt".

PS* thanks for the responses. Very thoughtful posts, I was worried I'd just get moronic garble. You know the "I love it here. What are you on about?" or "it's all Demon Kogure's fault" backwash.

...to be continued.

I'll try to keep it short, no thats a total lie...sorry...I'll try not to repeat what you guys said, I agree with it all so far. As I am still on my first year here, I'v been trying to suspend judgement, but since you asked, here goes.

I think more than anything, as mentioned in some way already, anyone performing any kind of job would hope that what they are doing actually achieves some purpose. Whether it be well-founded or hersesay, there is no shortage of information regarding the actual benefits of the ALT system.

Online blogs are indeed famous for bagging the whole concept, citing with some truth, that here we have many highschool graduates with 5-6 years of formal English education and not a lick of communication abilty. There are the few students who step out of thier shell and find that English can actually be used as it is intended but they are a minority I feel. I don't think we can blame the students for this however.
>>Think of it in comparison to when we all went to school. If Japanese was compulsory for us from the age of 12/13 do you think many would have even cared, or reached any acceptable level of use? In fact, those who excelled would probably have been ostracised to some extent. Perhaps many of us who arrive here have thier bubbles burst. There are not always classes of eager Kids who can't wait to learn about us and our language. But thankfully I do have a few of those, and they make this job worthwhile. Honestly without those classes, I don't think I'd be able to stay on.

Its easy to blame the ALTs, but as was posted earlier I am sure a great majority of people who set out for Japan on the JET programme, do not do it planning to slack off. The concept behind the programme and the original intentions of ALTs are just fine, the implementation just does not seem to be gelling, particularly in the JHS as Phil said, where exams take precedence over communication. Memorisation and rote learning over understanding.Throwing an entertainer in to a cram school doesnt make the medicine go down any more easily, and an ALT is not neccessary if the kids only need to memorise everything to pass an exam. A pad and paper and some flash cards does the trick just as nicely.
We perhaps need more opportunities outside of the classroom textbook setting to get time with the kids who really want to communicate in English. I know they are here at my school, but I hardly ever meet with them. The best I've managed is by joining in with sports, and helping with speeches etc. Things like an English club should not be optional for the ALT perhaps, maybe it can be once a week at least, where we get some say in how we showcase our language and culture, and break away from the text book. Something that does that would do a world of good for disenchanted ALTs.Obviously it would work best if it was also not compulsory for the students but then would run the risk of having no participant>.<

The following tries to give my opinion on some of the points raised:

Replacing people with a cheaper option because they appear more professional: does not mean a problem has been looked at fairly. Just because those people show more dedication due to the threat of less than water tight contracts, it doesnt mean they are any more suited to the job either. I was going to make some comparison to replacing human workers with robots, but the metaphore requires too much clarification @>_<@

Expecting higher standards of applicants: seems like an excuse not to address the issue responsibly to me as well, if that were the case, they would be seeking only people with teaching backgrounds, and they would have to pay even more to get them, hence defeating the first point. Most of the selction process I think is done through the applications, the interviews seem a way of quickly weeding out the real no-goes. There's alot of people to interview afterall. The problem lies in what happens when we get here.

The decline in applicants in NZ: Could be that our dollar is stronger than ever, and the Yen is not so, My sister did JET 10 odd years ago, and payed her entire student loan and saved 20,000NZD (can't find the dollar symbol on this keyboard) in a matter of two years. Would it also be an acurate guess that the salary has not matched the rate of inflation and general costs of living over the last 20 years? I would guess the same applies for the local teachers too. PS. Dont flame me, Im not whining about the wage, just noting that for many people back home, its not enough to warrant uprooting and relocating to a VERY foreign environment.

quote:
"The JET Programme in many ways, is like a social experiment; how will a person behave when there are no “real” punishments and no “real” rewards for your behavior?"

maybe I should have just used that quote and skip my speal,that sums it up pretty well. My last job involved waking up at 5am and all sorts of random unpleasantness, but I was always rewarded and commended for my efforts. No matter how hard it got, it was the institution that took responsibilty to make me feel a part of the team, and to make my job feel worthwhile. The positive environment served far better than any punishment/deterrent which in the end was never needed. The sense of responsibility and being part of something( that Im sure the regular teachers have) is a great motivator. It was not a case of being babied in the workplace, simply an effort to create a better working environment. I think the teachers here in Japan work damn hard and damn long hours, but they do love their jobs for the most part. Probably alot more than the average sarariman. I dont think it is easy for us to be integrated into this workplace though, and for some of us, myself included at times, being on the outside of a tightknit group is not conducive to creating a happy worker bee. Add that to the above mentioned stuff from you guys, and we have an obvious, but difficult to remedy problem.

Solutions\?: maybe all the pep-talk at pre departure should be saved for during our time here, and should be offered through our contracting institutions. Activities outside of typical classroom environment where we can lead and not follow. Education system to decide what they really want out of English education and why. The same job offered through the community for free to all, so as to skip the whole exam trap.
Yeah I know...just random ideas

Nah that's sweet man. We have to start thinking outside the box, what else can I do? And(I think)spend a little less time grinding "team teaching". I've been here 2 years and attended a stack of meetings and workshops. The one thing I've come away with is that a significant number of JTEs don't give a shit about team teaching, and sure-as-hell don't wanna do it. So following this scenario it's up to the ALT to find their place. How to devote 60% energy to your school but outdide the classroom.
Another thought came to me yesterday. How many of us actually want to be teachers. I mean who was a teacher before they came and/or had recieved any knid of formal teacher training? Hardley anyone goes home to be a teacher. So perhaps it's as simple as that. Lets not bullshit ourselves here, most of us didn't come to teach English, we came to live in Japan. Teaching was just a way to get a VISA and have a steady income. Maybe we should addresss that in the intial orientaions. Not 'how to be a teacher' but how to find reward in the job. How to self motivate. I mean the reason they hire university graduates is beacuse in theory we can stick at something for a couple of years. The down side is most people are here as part of and 'overseas experience', or a gap year. Not many of us take any of this seriously because it doesn't impact our 'real life' back in the 'real world'.
*Final point - "The Ring of Gyges" should be compulsory reading as part of the JET application.