Senior High School (SHS)

By Jordan Rocke (PA)

Introduction to Senior High Schools (SHS)

OK, so let’s get started. I’m Jordan, one of your PAs, and this entire ramble is going to be heavily based off of my own personal experiences in my 3 years in Ehime. First of all, I want to put the situation Ehime is going through into perspective. In January 2020, there were 14 public school SHS ALTs, and 2 private. As of summer 2021, that number will be either 2 or 3 public, 0 private. Not only is there going to be an enormous number of replacement ALTs, but we are also expecting 11 new positions to be created (while two previous positions have been removed from the JET programme). Ehime will, if all positions are filled, be at 25 SHS ALTs by the end of the year. This is a huge increase, and I think there will be a lot of changes to what our individual jobs look like as a consequence. I will go into this later, but I just want to flag that what I say when I describe my job and experiences, even if you end up in a very similar position to me, may be extremely different simply due to the fact that all our workloads are going to be lighter with more ALTs to divide it between.

But that’s jumping ahead. First, let’s talk about how schools in Ehime work. Schools are broadly broken into three categories. Elementary Schools (ES) take students for the first 6 years of their education, and Junior High Schools (JHS) take them for the following three. The two types of schools are very similar in many ways. Firstly, they take the students geographically closest to them. There’s not really much competition or selection about who goes where, as schools have set catchment areas. Secondly, both kinds are administered by the city. In Matsuyama, for example, the Matsuyama BoE takes care of ES and JHS schools, and ALTs employed by them teach there. Last, both types are mandatory. Although there may be some restrictions, broadly speaking, SHS is not actually mandatory. It is pretty much assumed most students will go to one, as there is a lot of societal pressure to do so, but it is not ACTUALLY mandatory. Some schools are combined JHS and SHS (Nitta, Imabari Higashi, Mastuyama Nishi and Imabari Minami are the once serviced by JETs in Ehime), and are called Secondary Schools, but we consider them SHS for the purpose of JET delineation and employment.

So what are SHS like? SHS take students for their last three years of pre-tertiary education, the equivalent of years 10-12 in Australia, for what little reference point that serves to those of you reading this. These schools are first and foremost competitive. Students can theoretically apply to any SHS, as long as they meet the academic requirements, or similar restrictions. Students having long commutes to a school outside their town, or even living in dormitories is pretty common. This also means that schools try hard to have competitive or unique clubs and programmes to attract students, especially due to the declining birth rate meaning there are just generally less students to go around. In that way, SHS tend to have a lot more individual identity than a JHS. A single JHS may have a big shift in

Secondly, they are administered by the prefecture, not the city. This means that we, as employees of the prefecture, can be sent outside the city to teach in multiple regions. I have worked across what would be four different city BoEs in my time here, although I doubt many of you will have to. Additionally, we can also be dispatched to other prefectural schools. This is mostly special needs schools, which also fall under prefectural jurisdiction. Don’t be surprised if a few times a year some of you will be asked to visit an all ages special needs school to help out. Ehime AJET has an article with one ALT’s experience of that here. The prefectural administration may mean you have a base and a visit school in different regions (I’ve worked in schools in 3 different regions in my time here), and when your teachers are transferred, they may be moved to the clear other side of the prefecture.

For private schools, the situation is a bit different. Although the structure is largely the same, you will instead be working directly for your school, and will not have to do any additional work for the prefecture. You also will not need to do any visit schools or events unless other private schools reach out to have you help with something.

Types of SHS

The most striking thing about the structure of SHS in Japan is how extremely specialised a lot of the schools are. Let’s go through some of the most common types. A quick note is that some schools are entirely focused on one specialisation, while others provide a “course” in a specialisation, which means the majority of the school is more generic academic content, without a specific focus, while one or two classes focus on a particular area. Other schools are divided between multiple courses. Some schools also only provide specialist courses for 2nd and 3rd year students, with the 1st year students being given a more general education for their first year then choosing a specialisation for the following two.

Commercial schools (Shogyo): Commercial schools are focused on giving students skills in book-keeping, and other transferable skills that they can use in an office environment. Basically, this is where the Salarymen and OLs of the future go to school. Shogyos are definitely the most common specialisation amongst our base schools, as office work is obviously a very common career to go into.

The level of shogyo kids, having briefly worked at Matsuyama Shogyo and Imabari Kita, is a little higher than general education students, but both schools are at a relatively high level anyway.

Shogyo base schools: Matsuyama Shogyo, Imabari Kita (general academic with a shogyo course), Saijo )

Technical Schools (Kogyo): Technical schools are focused on industrial and manual jobs, with the exact focus of the school varying. Kogyos can offer anything from robotics to construction to textiles to chemistry to shipbuilding. Students at Kogyos are guaranteed a job upon graduating, unless they opt to go to university instead, which is relatively rare. English is normally not a priority at these schools. Kogyos arent’t given a base ALT in Ehime, and instead kogyos are universally visit schools.

Agricultural Schools (Nogyo): Ehime is a very agricultural-focused area, and as such several schools offer courses specifically focused on training students how to become farmers. These courses are often very hands on, and there are facilities dedicated to allowing students to experience real agricultural work.

Nogyo base schools: Imabari Minami (general academic with a nogyo course)

Elective Schools: Although only three of these schools exist in Ehime, these some of the smallest base schools that host an ALT. The “elective” element is rather limited, but after their 1st year, students are allowed to select some of the subjects they will take. The schools are able to offer some shorter subjects that larger schools with bigger classes can’t provide. For example, my base is this type, and we appear to be the only school in Ehime that offers Korean. In addition, my students can elect to do three different courses of English simultaneously if they really want to focus, and having classes of 6 students or less is not uncommon. As they offer a lot of English options, these schools are guaranteed to have an ALT. I wrote an article about SHS for the Ehime AJET blog a while ago which rehashes a lot of info here, but also talks a little about what my elective base is like, so feel free to have a look at that for some more info if you’d like.

Elective base schools: Kawanoishi, Hojo & Niihama Minami

Secondary Schools: Although “Secondary” is thrown around by city ALTs to mean “not elementary”, in SHS circles Secondary schools specifically refer to schools that are combined JHS and SHS. These schools are the exception to the general rule that JHS are meant to only take kids geographically close to them, and parents can elect to send kids who would otherwise be expected to go to a local JHS to a Secondary school instead. This means that the JHS level in Secondary schools is generally a little higher than in city JHS, but there’s no set rule. After three years, JHS students at a Secondary school can either opt to take the “escalator”, and continue at the same school as an SHS student, or apply for a different SHS. These schools normally don’t have a specific focus (like a Shogyo or Nogyo), but are a unique type of school to teach at. For more info from a current Secondary ALT, the Ehime AJET blog has an article here.

Secondary base schools: Matsuyama Nishi, Uwajima Minami

There are other types of courses provided, but to be blunt, I don’t really know much about them. For example, Toon and Nitta both have sports courses, but I have no idea what that actually entails. In the same vein, Uwajima Fishery School is, obviously, a fishery school, but beyond the details of the Ehime Maru disaster, I don’t have a lot to add, as it seems to be a very unique school. There’s also island schools, which are, big surprise, on islands, and tend to have a unique culture as a result of that (no base schools are on islands). Schools also have academic focuses like humanities, science or English, but the details of those will vary from school to school. With exceptions, most schools have a thing which sets them apart, or demonstrates a particular focus. 

The ALT in the school

So what does life as an SHS ALT look like? No matter what I say to answer that question, please do not treat it as anything more than an attempt to outline some potential job types. If your school uses you more or less or differently, it doesn’t mean you are doing anything “wrong”, or going about the job in the ways I will describe is “correct”. One of the real unique things about SHS is how much we are on our own in regards to the wider JET community. Sometimes comes in the form of allowing us to shape the job to let us use our strengths and really be ourselves in the classroom, and sometimes it comes in the form of feeling insecure or uncertain about how we’re handling our workload or lack thereof, with nobody else in our particular position to talk to about the specific issues we’re dealing with. For better or worse, there’s nobody on earth who will ever have the exact same work experience as you will.

With that all said, SHS ALT life can really, really, REALLY vary in workload, both person to person like I said before, but also during the year. The summer and winter holidays are holidays for students only. You will mostly just be sitting at your desk the whole time, unless you happen to have time off (nenkyu) saved up. For lower level schools, exam period is the same, but for higher level schools you may be drowning in both marking for the students and requests from teachers about if the exams they have written are grammatically correct. Another big factor in workload is school size. School size is normally measured in classes per year. A class is normally 30-40 students, and how many classes are in a year gives a rough estimation of the size. A school with 8 classes per year, for example, will have around 1000 students. The largest public SHS school I’ve seen in Ehime had 9, and looking only at base schools, the smallest is likely mine, with 3 per year. Generally, if there are less classes, you will have less lessons, although this can definitely vary. As an additional note, in many higher-level schools, the 3rd year students will not have classes with ALTs, so as to allow them to focus on their university preparation.

Schools have 6-7 50 minute classes every day. I have had days with 0 classes, and days with 6 classes (not recommended). Technically, we’re meant to have three or less hours of teaching a day, and I don’t want to say all schools will disregard that guideline, but I will say it isn’t followed strictly. If you are given too many classes and are overwhelmed, please don’t suffer in silence. Talk to your supervisor about reducing them. How difficult you may find a workload is not dependent just on the amount of classes. For example, a class in which I am T2 and simply have to do maybe a warm up game and then help the JTE read a dialogue is not particularly taxing, but writing a last minute class explaining a grammar point (which is luckily relatively rare in my particular placement) in which I am T1 drains me as much as 3 or 4 of the former. In addition, as educators, we all have different strengths. I’m pretty good at review activities and things that are more interactive, but maybe you will be more at home explaining grammar or doing writing projects or assigning presentations. What you can handle is gonna vary, and don’t be afraid of being honest with yourself when you get near that limit.

Anecdotally, I have heard that private schools, Secondary schools and high academic schools, when they are your base, have the heaviest workloads. I know at least one private school ALT who felt like they were a full time teacher rather than an ALT, simply due to the size of her workload, as well as the influence she had on the curriculum. High academic schools often also have a high  As someone based at an elective school, I mainly feel the other way around. It’s something of a perfect storm, as my school has low level students and a very small student population, meaning I’m not particularly in demand.

As for what ALT classes actually look like, a lot will depend on how your JTEs wish to use you. Some will want you to write, teach and essentially do everything in the class, while they have minimal involvement. I’ve had classes around exam season where the JTE is writing or marking exams in the back of the room while I teach something or other. Other teachers will ask you to write the meat of the lesson, but you’ll both be involved, or the other way around. Some will present you with a neat lesson with your role clearly delineated. Some JTEs will request half-classes, some just do not use ALTs at all. You might have classes and wonder why on earth the JTE is even there, and have other lessons where you wonder why on earth you are there. There’s no hard and fast rules for what an ALT lesson should look like, and I recommend going into every school and every situation not expecting classes to work in any one particular way.

As for lessons, for me, I tend to do games and review. Some schools genuinely just ask you to run some simple games. It’s sometimes a way to reward the kids, sometimes a way to break up a dull textbook, and sometimes a way to get disengaged kids to have a bit of fun with English. Even if you don’t end up needing to do this, I recommend having a few games on hand for warm ups at least. The best games are flexible, easy to teach and adapt to different levels and time allowances, and also can be repurposed as a review game. As an emergency option, if you are asked to do a warm up with no prep, try English Shiritori with limits about word lengths, which letters cannot or must be used, or the like, depending on level and time permitted. For a review game, in a pinch, make some paper planes, draw a target on the board, and kids who answer a question correctly get to throw the planes. Letting the students name the planes is a nice touch, and you can even ask them to make them if you really want.

A related topic is review. A lot of my job in particular is using various games to get students to review things they have recently read. A review class will normally include a warm up game, me reading through the relevant passage and having them repeat line by line, and then spending the rest of the class doing a larger game reviewing elements of the text. If the review is of a grammar point it becomes a little less structured, depending on the grammar point, but is largely the same. Jeopardy, Mario Kart, Typhoon, Darts and the like are my bread and butter, but I can in no way guarantee that you’ll be asked to teach these kinds of lessons with similar regularity.

Next is lessons about grammar, in which you have to help explain grammar points. I don’t do these very often, which is fortunate considering I’m terrible at them, but be prepared to have a textbook thrust in your face and be asked to explain a grammar point that you haven’t looked at since primary school if ever. It’s a challenge, but it’s definitely doable if you coordinate with your teacher.

There are also occasional culture lessons. Sometimes this will be about your own culture, but just as likely it will be about whatever is being discussed in the textbook. I’ve given presentations about schools in Australia and Christmas in Australia, but I’ve likewise needed to give presentations about Scotland and Hawaii and Halloween (which I don’t celebrate). Don’t take it too personally if you’re asked to talk about something completely out of your wheelhouse. Odds are it’s from the textbook, but if you think there’s a genuine misunderstanding about what is or isn’t something from your culture, just quickly check. In addition to a pretty regular mix up about if Australian halloween exists, I once was asked to give a presentation about the UK. I put something quick together, but when I asked for further details on what to focus on, it became obvious my JTE had just presumed my accent was British and was actually asking for me to talk about home. Communicating with teachers clearly and politely is the best advice I can give, and try to clarify details if things seem impossibly broad. Sometimes it’s a teacher leaving the specifics to you, and sometimes it’s the teacher expecting you to talk to them about the specifics.

So, let’s talk about a more practical element of the workload: your schedule. If you are working at one school, with no visit schools (this is guaranteed if you’re at a private or Secondary school), you may work on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly repeated schedule. It will vary school to school, but if a school can guarantee you’ll be there regularly, they will normally try to schedule you in on a regular basis. If you are at a school with visit schools, that does not even remotely exist. We tend to get our schedules in two packs, one running from April to August, and one from September to March. 

Visit school days tend to be absolutely random, and with little rhyme or reason, and will generally disrupt any attempts by base schools to establish a regular rotating schedule with you. For bigger schools, visit days tend to be in pairs, once or twice a month. For smaller schools, such as branch schools (schools so small they are administered by the staff of a larger school) or island schools (which are all branch schools), you will likely only have them once a month. Visit schools can sometimes be difficult to plan with. Most will communicate via fax at first, and if you would like to get them to communicate via email or LINE, you will need to make the suggestion when you are there. That said, some will just say no upfront, and others will accept your idea and then proceed to only use faxes. It’s a pain sometimes, but it’s not the end of the world. Just make sure to be punctual on days where you have early lessons at visit schools to ensure you have time to discuss things before class. Considering the increase in SHS ALTs, either a lot more of us will be based at just one school than previously, or the visit schools will be more evenly distributed. Either way, they will likely less of a part of the ALT experience than they have been in the past.

The Bureaucracy

Let’s talk about the chain of command in SHS. The most important person is the principal (Kocho-sensei), followed by the (normally two) VPs (Kyoto-sensei) and the head of the office. For you, the people you’ll be directly dealing with for more bureaucratic things are the head of English and your supervisor. In a lot of places, these may be the same person. The head of English will be the person in the know about the larger calendar, and will likely field requests for your attendance, such as at contests or camps. Your supervisor is the single most important relationship you will have in this job, and whatever you do, I strongly, strongly, strongly advise you to always be nice to your supervisor. They are your direct support for whatever you need help with in Japan. Of course, be mindful of their time and be careful how busy their existing workload is, but for everything else, they are the person to talk to, unless your school indicates otherwise. You will mostly already know this, but it never hurts to have a reminder.

While city ALTs have a lot more interaction with the BoE which they work for, SHS ALTs will almost never have direct interaction with BoE bureaucracy, and any communication from them is most likely to come through your supervisor. Keeping good relations with all your co-workers is important, but your supervisor is your lifeline. For private SHS ALTs, there isn:t even that bureaucracy, so the relationship with school staff is even more important.

ALT Schedules

Once again, this is extremely subjective, and will heavily be based on my own experiences. However, the general expectation is that ALTs will be at their desks in the staff room in time to attend the morning teachers meeting. This generally starts between 8 and 8:20, and can go for various amounts of time depending on how many topics there are to cover. Schools will have various ways of marking attendance, and more strict schools will require you to bundy in as you arrive, while others may simply require you to stamp a page in your timebook at some time during the day as proof you showed up. Make sure to see what your school requires of you, and allocate the requisite time to fit that into a regular routine.

After the morning meeting, teachers normally have a short meeting with their homeroom students (called Short Homeroom or SHR for short sometimes). Not all teachers are homeroom teachers, so you can use this time to check in with teachers who are available, or just to plan for the first few periods. Classes begin proper around 8:45-9, going for 50 minutes, followed by a 10 minute break after each. After 4th period is lunch. SHS ALTs have 45-1 hour breaks in their contracts (please check yours for details), and you are welcome to eat out, buy food at combines or even go home to eat as long as you can ensure you return to school in time for classes to resume. After lunch is cleaning time, in which students will clean the school. Teachers are assigned to supervise students in various areas. Some schools will request you help out, others will insist you stay in the staff room, but if you are unhappy with whichever one you are told to do, discuss it with your supervisor and they may be flexible. It is a good chance to talk to students, but it is also a decent amount of time to prepare for afternoon classes.

Afternoon classes will vary school to school and day to day, as some schools have 7 lessons, some have 6, and some have different amounts on different days. For example, my base school has 6 lessons every day except Wednesday, when there are 7. In addition, Thursday is different as we normally have assembly in the morning. Talk with your supervisor about if your school has quirks like that. Finally, your school will let you know what time you are expected to leave. Most of the time, I believe this is 4pm, but please double check and do not take that as gospel. Some schools may expect you to stay longer, or potentially start later. This is only my experience.

For visit schools, particularly visit schools that are further away, many will expect you to come to your first visit in time to attend the morning meeting and give a self-introduction, but may be more flexible for future visits.

Working With Classes & Students

If you have experience teaching in English-speaking countries, or even just generally interacting with children, the number 1 thing you will notice is that Japanese students behave far less maturely than students of the same age in places like Australia and America. However, they have far more responsibilities than an average teenager has there. Many students have already decided on their path to the future by picking a school and, especially in their 3rd year, are dedicating themselves to that. Students are also normally in a club, and practice for the most demanding clubs (such are baseball or rugby) can consume their evenings 6 days a week. Students often fall asleep in class or otherwise disengage. For many English is irrelevant to what they want to do in the future, and they are exhausted from other tasks, so please interact with empathy.

As for class sizes, this will vary a huge amount. At my base school, I have a regular class with just a single student, while I have some classes at visit schools with 45 students. As such, I can’t really give universal advice for being in a classroom, but generally I advise being energetic and eager, and even if you’re feeling garbage and teaching a dull or difficult class, try your best to hide it. Earnestness and energy is the best approach to keeping a class awake and engaged, and you may be able to keep them engaged just a little longer because you have more novelty than their teacher.

This should go without saying, but respect boundaries with your students. In Australia, we have the phrase “be friendly, not friends”. In Japan, ALTs are in a difficult position as we often sell English based on our novelty and personalities. We are both the teacher and the subject, so it makes sense that students want to know us very well. I cannot give you hard and fast lines to draw. Obviously DO NOT date students, which I wish I did not need to say, but the lines between “friendly ALT” and “friend” can be hard to define. You will decide these for yourself, but please make sure you decide them. A similar boundary should be set in other regards. How late are you willing to work in exam season? How many classes are you willing to teach? How personal will you allow student questions to be in your self-introduction? You may have to actually settle in and get a feeling for the job before making hard and fast rules, but these are things to consider, as well as the best way to respectfully communicate to your co-workers when you feel these lines are being crossed.

Self-Introductions

The first series of classes you will be teaching are self-introductions. If you make a bad self-introduction the first few times, don’t worry at all: you will get plenty of chances to improve. I have taught my self-introduction more than 100 times, and although a lot of that comes from visit schools, you will likely be doing in a ton. For example, even in a single school of 6 classes per year, even if you don’t teach the 3rd years, that’s 12 self-intros, plus another 6 in April when new students arrive. Find something you can repeat easily.

As for general advice, I tend to split my self-introductions into half about where I am from, and half about me. I show Australian flags, ask questions about the geography and population, quiz them on famous animals and places, and then move on to asking them to guess things about me. Afterwards, I show them pictures of my family and friends, and then open the floor to questions. Asking them to guess things is a great way of making the presentation interactive. Teachers will ask you to teach for various amounts of time, and you may not always have props/projectors available, so make sure you can adapt. Generally, I would recommend having a 5 minute, 10 minute, 15-20, 25-30 and 40-50 minute version of your presentation. My personal experience is normally 50 minutes, or 40 minutes due to word quizzes at the start of class, but my schools are generally lower level. You may not need them all, but having a full-class lesson that can’t be whittled down at all can be untenable. Some teachers will also ask you to do a short quiz afterwards, to see how much they remember, so it might be a good idea to incorporate that into the presentation in the planning stage.

My advice is to write a self-intro, expect it to be pretty average, and then cut or re-write the stuff kids find confusing or dull, and expand upon things they find interesting. Where you are from will be one of the most interesting things for them. If you’re from America, you can focus on your state. Most kids are exposed to a decent amount of US media, so you can be a bit more specific. If you’re from outside the US, expect to need to do at least a little work establishing where your country is and what it’s notable for before you really zero in on your specific area. You can also just talk about your country overall if you would prefer, which I do. You will learn the stereotypes and connotations kids have with your area, and you can integrate them into your presentation. 

When I arrived, two existing ALTs talked about how they had quickly learned that when talking about the state of Georgia, all the kids knew was the brand of coffee of the same name, and they used that as a pivot to talking about coke. For Australia, I quickly learned to focus on the animals and famous places, as they are often covered in the textbook. New Zealand is an island where only rugby exists for many children. Find what kids know about your place (if anything) and lean into it, and explaining things that are completely different from these expectations can really fascinate them. Seeing Australian snowfields or a herd of Aussie camels makes kids see the country very differently, and always remember you’re here for cultural exchange, so don’t feel a need to perpetuate stereotypes.

Finally, try to moderate for English level. Even inside a single school, levels will vary. Speaking speed is the foremost way of moderating difficulty, but also the difficulty of words, the amount of translation you or the JTE provide, the difficulty of questions you ask the kids, and how much detail you go into can all help. The level of English kids speak and how engaged they will be do not have a set relationship. I’ve had very low level students be extremely engaged even if they don’t follow the details, and high-level students falling asleep, as well as the opposite. Don’t assume low-English students will be less engaged, but do be aware they are more prone to completely lose track of the presentation and disengage, so find ways to keep them involved where possible. You will have different ways of presenting, and find your own way to engage with your students, so experiment and never feel like you’re failing, even if you get a rough string of classes. You’ll find your niche.

SHS ALTs & Community

It is very easy for SHS ALTs to disengage from the local JET community. We are isolated from the bureaucracy and organisations that connect city ALTs with each other. Most likely, you will only work with other JETs in a professional capacity several times a year, as opposed to city JETs having monthly meetings, observation lessons, and in some scenarios even sharing a school. We need to make an effort to reach out, build those connections, and ensure there is a space for us in the JET community.

First of all, some ALTs come here with the idea that they want to have a social circle comprised entirely of Japanese speakers both as a way of improving their Japanese skill and becoming fully involved in the culture around them. This is a really admirable goal, but I strongly advise anyone who thinks this approach should involve attempting to remove themselves from socialising with other JETs reconsider. Staying in touch with the JET community can help ease homesickness, can give you a community that has a largely shared experience adjusting to life in Ehime, and will also ensure that your successor will not need to build these connections entirely on their own.

SHS ALTs in some parts of Ehime have a bad reputation. As we teach older students, and generally are given more freedom in the classroom, many of us are seen as elitist or self-segregating from the wider ALT communities. Some SHS ALTs have arrived in their placement only to find that, due to their pred’s complete isolation from the community, they have to establish a space for SHS ALTs within the regional JET community, where they were often just overlooked by the other JETs. Even if it’s nothing more than being part of a regional groupchat or saying hi to your RAs once in a blue moon, just making sure you aren’t completely isolated is vital, especially now when physical meetups are rare and risky.

At present, none of the RAs in Ehime are SHS ALTs. I was an RA two years ago, and despite trying my best, it is hard to keep the issues and concerns of those from other job types in mind quite as much as your own. As much as I’m sure I overlooked some concerns of city ALTs and CIRs, despite their best efforts, the RAs may do the same with prefectural ALTs. Please be sure to be proactive in reaching out if there’s an issue, and advocate for yourself. If you feel nobody is helping you with a problem, even if others are in the same position, it may 100% be that nobody is aware of it. Reach out, and hopefully somebody can help.

All that said, the prefectural BoE will be the second largest CO in Ehime, when all the vacant positions are filled. Even if we are still really spread out, I’m optimistic that we can actually form a stronger community than we had before, or even have now, where we are really disconnected. I may only get to see the fully sized Ehime SHS group a bit before I have to leave myself, but I’m really hoping to leave behind a successful and supportive community.

SHS Errata/Personal Opinions

Here are some dot point thoughts that either didn’t fit elsewhere, came to me later, or were suggested by my students:

• Don’t go in with preconceptions about how much you will actually be considered part of the school community. Some folks are invited to every event, get to be involved with a lot of extra projects, and are treated a little closer to a full time teacher. Others live at their desks. You can talk to your supervisor if you feel you’re being asked to do a little too much of either extreme, but it may not change a lot. What is more possible is that this may completely change when your supervisor switches, so be prepared for that to impact your school life.
• There may only be one or two western style toilets at your school. Get used to the Japanese style johns, or be prepared to wait.
• After lunch almost every day, students have cleaning time. Normally, for about 10 minutes, music will be pumped into the school, and you will see students running around with brooms and vacuums, so heads up for that. What exactly you do in that time is up to you. I generally just stay at my desk, other ALTs do some cleaning in the staff room, and some others like to go to the classrooms and chat to the kids while cleaning with them. As always, talk to your supervisor about expectations to see what you’ll be doing.
• Japanese schools can be strict. I know this will vary a hell of a lot based on where you’re coming from, but even at tame schools you may see kids getting shouted at by teachers, or hear about rules that seem pretty intense.
• Most classrooms have either a black or whiteboard at the front of the room, with a small raised stair between the lecturn and the board for teachers to talk from. If you’re like me and kinda walk about while modeling reading or anything, make sure you keep an eye out for where the stair ends in your periphery.
• Related to the board, students are expected to clean the board between classes, so don’t worry about leaving time clean the board at the end of class like I used to have to do in Australia. However, if you’re taller than the average student, keep in mind that some tiny kids may have board cleaning duties that day, so either write a little lower than natural, or quickly erase the top of the board on your way out to save them.
• Be realistic about learning names. Even if you’re teaching at just one school, there’s a good chance you’ll be teaching around 1000 students. It may be frustrating to work with teachers that know all their kids names, but remember most teachers have at max 5 classes to remember, while you may be teaching the whole school, plus visits. Focus on remembering your English teachers name, then high-level students or students you have often, as you’ll be talking to them more, and go from there. Just be kind to yourself if your memory isn’t as elastic as you want it to be.
• Although I may have mentioned it above, many schools don’t schedule ALTs for the 3rd year students, so as to let them focus on their final exams. It sucks, especially if you’re close to them, but just keep that in mind.
• I strongly, STRONGLY advise against joining clubs, especially sports clubs, until about 6 months in. SHS sports clubs practice 6 days a week, and I personally feel you may be shutting out a lot of potential experiences you could have in that time instead. Feel free to talk to the teacher in charge about if there is some way you can be involved, but definitely don’t jump in completely until you’re entirely settled in your position.
• ALT school attendence may be managed in a range of different ways. At first I had a paper sheet that I needed to stamp every day I was at school, but that was later updated to a bundy/timecard system, which keeps track of when I arrive and leave school. There’s no guarantee which system your school will use, but be sure to keep track of it.
• Compared to JHS, SHS tend to keep a similar type of student year to year. Yes, you’ll have good years and bad years, genki classes and quiet classes, but JHS are based on geography. Good or bad, they get all the kids near them. Kids have to WANT to come to any SHS, and although that might only be because you have a particularly good club, it does mean that a lot of your students will have similar interests.
• SHS ALTs don’t change schools. Your base school is your base school, and your relationship to your base school is what most ALTs have in their BoE. If you hear a city JET talking to their BoE about something, 9/10 you would talk to your base school for the same thing.
• Related to the last point, don’t expect all high academic schools to be fun and easy to teach, and low academic schools to be difficult and dull to teach. A lot will be based around your teaching style and personality. High academic classes are up for more challenges, but their classes are limited by their workloads, and they are often nrevous about making mistakes in front of their peers. Low academic classes may have more disruptive students, and the limited English can mean you have less options, but they are often energetic and the teachers are often more open to your ideas.
• Don’t get too focused on what your pred did. It’s certainly worth learning how they approached their position, but you will not be the same person they were in both good and bad ways, and should take their personal approach as a starting point rather than a gospel.
• If (like me) you need to take the JR train to any visit schools, there is no digital option, and you will need to buy paper tickets for every trip. Month passes are available, but you won’t travel often enough to break even. Instead, I recommend using the bulk ticket option to get 6 tickets for the price of 5. They last for 3 months, so you should get through them in time.
• You will 100% have some bad classes in the first few months, and likely at least a few every month. Don’t focus on them too much, and instead try to work out what worked and what didn’t work. We have a hell of a lot of trial and error in the job, so try to develop a thick skin.
• Due to the high English level of our teachers, SHS folks generally develop less necessity Japanese ability on the job. My Japanese is garbage, and I’ve met SHS ALTs with even less. It’s handy to have in day to day life, but definitely don’t expect to just pick it up in the process of doing the job.
  

Conclusion

Being an Ehime SHS ALT is an extremely unique position to be in, and I firmly believe you’re incredibly lucky. There will be difficulties and growing pains with the new state of the SHS BoE, but always feel free to reach out to the PAs if you have concerns, or even if you just need to talk. We are always available.

Best of luck, and I know you’ll do an amazing job!

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