Teaching at 10 schools?

[JamieSommerfelt]

Do you know any JETs who have/had to teach at 10 schools?

Asking because I found out that I'll be assigned to 4 JHS and 6 ES from April.

Currently, I teach at 4 JHS, where I have between 16~20 classes (hrs) per week. Already i felt overloaded as I have to plan the lessons for ALL my classes. I am the MAIN teacher, whilst the some of the JTE simply stands at the back.

Now that the almighty BOE is going to give me 6 more ES, i wonder how things will turn out, and whether any other JETs have similar experiences.

Oh, to make things worse, my dear BOE did not even bother informing me of the new plan. I found out through a JTE during lunch chat. Seems like everyone else was notified except me.

[Gizmotech]

Ya, the 3 BoE employees out where I am have 3 JHS each and 6-7 Elementary as well. Woot Travelling Circus routine.

[AVN]

I teach at 11 schools. 1 shs 1 jhs 4 ES and 5 NS plus the after school club. I think the key managing it all is be organized. I made a binder for each grade I teach, I counted how many hours I teach each grade a year and then I made a curriculum/outline. Then you repeat the lessons across the varied schools. If some schools have more or less plan an outline for the one with most and just cut ones off the end for the schools you go to less.
I think keeping journals really helps me. I have one small note book for each school and one page for each grade. Then i just write the date the target I taught and any other note of import, like if I said I would bring something next time or if something went wrong.
Let me know if you have any other questions I would be happy to help.

Also in my case I visit multiple schools in one day will you be doing this?

[Namisuke]

DItto on the schedules! If you want to check out my advice on managing your day, check out my blog here: http://lifeinjapan.blogdns.com/?page_id=869

Scroll to the bottom to see the organizational charts I have made that could help you out. I presented these during Mid-Year Conference last year and people said they found them useful.

Once you get officially notified, I would suggest planning a meeting with ALL of your JTEs to discuss what their goals will be with having you in their classroom as you will only be there once in a while now. State that it will be impossible for you to plan 100% of the lessons if you have to do specific things for each class. It will be really easy for you to plan 100% of the lessons if all the students do the same thing, but just tinker it for different ability levels. Of course you will have to do different lessons for ES and JHS, but if you think about it, that might mean planning 2 lessons (1 for ES and 1 for JHS) per every 2 weeks or so, depending on your rotation. Many ALTs I know who are on heavy rotation (haha) end up with 4-6 classes a day because every school wants to get the most out of you. They usually let them do the same thing with each class because of this.

I am in the same boat as you where I am the main teacher essentially, and the JTE is like my ALT. This is not a usual circumstance, but many people would kill for that instead of being a typical assistant. It will look much better on a resume for sure. Once you start to get overwhelmed, I find it helps to spend any spare time hoarding lesson plans from online sources. Going on trips during times with no classes also helped me feel less stressed.

On a side note, I heard teaching ES totally rocks. I was hoping to get to visit an ES once a week or so, but I am only a HS teacher. I have to watch my friends have all the fun...

[KIKKI.K]

I have had 8 schools these past 2 terms (all ES, all me as main teacher), so my advice is definitely to a) make sure ahead of time you discuss with the JTEs/HRTs before the day you're scheduled to teach at that school what stuff you want them to prepare for the lesson, and b) make a curriculum and keep a note book to keep track of what you've taught... even if you have to spend a lot of time outside of contracted hours at first to organise things, it'll be well worth it in the long run^^ faito!

[JamieSommerfelt]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

It seems the way is keeping things organised. I am also worried about handling 2 different curriculums (JHS and ES). Looks likes more late nights planning for lessons.... nope, definitely not plugging in to AKB to stay awake.

Guess I just couldn't get over the fact that my BOE and supervisor, till date, had not informed me of my new workscope. The rest of the schools had recieved some offical Japanese letters instructing them to make arrangements with thier respective ES.

Well, thanks again. At least I know now that I'm not alone.

[catsup]

This is very interesting, thanks for the link to your site Namisuke, some really useful information for a JET hopeful.

[jarrod]

I teach at 13 schools (three JHS, 10 ES) and do two eikaiwas on top of that. It depends on what schools want from you, blah blah, and like others said, be organized. I keep a file on each school and do write-ups after every lesson so I don`t repeat anything.

Your biggest concern should probably still be JHS, because that takes the most energy. Sure, for ES you gotta be on your feet and stuff, but the best thing about it is you can make it all games. Don`t waste time or thought on grammar, aside from the extremely basic. Games, games, and more games.

Whoever said something about meeting with JTEs, I second the idea. Tell them you cannot do the lesson plan for every class, but you`re willing to do it every other month, or something like that... so for even number months, you take care of five schools, and for the odd number months, you do the other five schools... But honestly for JHS, you should not be the main teacher anyway.

[AVN]

Just to add ES students have the potential to learn A LOT and should be taught as such. I agree you shouldn't focus on grammar and games are great but I still think it's important to set targets that build on one another and make sense. Especially for the grade 5-6 as they have 35 hours a year now. So games yes but throwing it together without thought or effort is a waste

I made a very simple curriculum that builds from one grade to the next all through ES. I also teach 1-2 basic ABC recognition each class, 3-4 get basic phonics and 5-6 get writing and phonics recognition regularly.

Also there is no reason you can't use games at JHS and for them I also made binders and over summer holidays I made 1 activity for each target they learn.

It's true you shouldn't always be the JHS main teacher but if that's what they ask of you then run with it

[darlo]

I have 13 schools (3 JHS 10 Elementary, the furthest being just over an hours drive away), but I know someone with 17. It is an arse as you can't get to know students as well as would be ideal. But at the same time it does have it's benefits.

[Namisuke]

I'm curious what budgets per prefecture are like. Some prefectures are stretching more and more ALTs thin across schools, and some areas like Akita are gaining more and more ALTs each year to decrease the load on ALTs who aren't that busy in the first place.

[KIKKI.K]

I'm curious what budgets per prefecture are like. Some prefectures are stretching more and more ALTs thin across schools, and some areas like Akita are gaining more and more ALTs each year to decrease the load on ALTs who aren't that busy in the first place.

I know that my city's budget is quite stretched... Mostly at the moment because of all the reconstruction work and relocating schools whose buildings/areas were too damaged by the quake and tsunami... Fortunately though, they're not cutting any more positions this year....

[JamieSommerfelt]

Mine's in a pretty bad shape, as far as us townsfolks are aware.

The city cut close to 40 per cent of the ALTs a few years ago, and caused major bad blood.

We have a major problem with unfinished railway tracks because of funding.

Snow's piling up everywhere and the city annouced we'd ran out of removal fund.

Welcome to boom town.

[KIKKI.K]

Mine's in a pretty bad shape, as far as us townsfolks are aware.

The city cut close to 40 per cent of the ALTs a few years ago, and caused major bad blood.

We have a major problem with unfinished railway tracks because of funding.

Snow's piling up everywhere and the city annouced we'd ran out of removal fund.

Welcome to boom town.

T_T

Faito!