I arrived in Tokyo on July 24th so this is slightly more than a month. The disclaimer that my experiences will likely vary since this happened when the borders were still closed to individual tourists. I am not dead yet, so I consider that a success. Here are some initial thoughts:
- Trains are nice and can get you to many places, but as soon as you leave major urban areas their schedule becomes very unreliable and infrequent. Plan accordingly and prepare to spend time waiting because you missed the train and the next one doesn’t come for an hour.
- Surviving in the inaka is doable without a car but I would recommend one if you can afford it / have a license because riding a bike in the summer is not fun.
- Everyone has a bike. And I’ve noticed that very few people lock their bikes. Not much fear of bike theft, huh.
- Every time I walk on the side of the road I wonder if I’m going to die. Not having sidewalks on a busy street was a shock for sure compared to my US city.
- Everyone gushes about how ‘clean’ Japan is. But have they ever been inside the restrooms at an unmanned train station? Not so clean.
- Having to receive most packages face-to-face gets annoying. But at least you can schedule what time you want it delivered.
- Thank goodness for online grocery delivery (AEON).
- Low credit card acceptance sucks. Going from mostly cashless to having to carry coins around is an inconvenience. And even online there’s a nonzero chance your US credit card isn’t accepted (looking at you, Demae-can).
The first week of actual teaching has come and gone. I have two takes. One completely doomer and a more rational take.
- No wonder why English education is completely doomed/why very few people in Japan speak good/fluent English.
- These are first year junior high students who have just started learning English. I need to figure out how to get them interested.
Completely different takes, right?
Here’s a rapid-fire list of things I’ve observed over the 5 classes that I have taught so far. All five classes featured my introduction lesson and ranged from first year students to fifth years.
- Kids will get bored FAST if you ramble about your life for ~40 minutes.
- Some kids just don’t care about English and will be asleep at their desk. You simply cannot make everyone excited and interested in learning English.
- Try to make it interactive, but not too interactive. Kids aren’t interested in hearing you talk for 40 minutes without any breaks. Ask trivia questions, make them think and talk to each other. Get them interested because you would be bored too if you had to listen to someone talk about their life for 40 minutes.
- Kids are really really shy. You will most likely have to use the seating chart and call on people for answers. Unless you enjoy being stared at by 30-40 people in silence.
- Every class is different. (*loud groan*). Yes yes ESID but this is absolutely the case here. Some classes will have the least energetic students ever with zero passion in learning English while other classes have students who want to go to college/university and are actually interested in learning English. Enjoy the good/energetic classes, and tolerate/scrape by the ‘meh’ classes.
- Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want it to. And that’s okay. Part of being an ALT is being able to adapt.
That’s about it for now. With introductions mostly out of the way, I look forward to actually assist with teaching English. Until next time.