This is the jtes job. They claim they don’t know what to do, and then try to pawn it off on you. If you’re overwhelmed, and they’re not willing to support you, it falls on them to create the curriculum for these students. They get job stability, so they should be doing their job. Do what you can, but don’t burn yourself out over it. Keep pushing your jtes to make a real curriculum for them.
Seconding this. This kind of the thing is way above and beyond what you should be doing or being asked to do as an assistant. I completely understand wanting to help out but the school and your JTE should not be putting you in anything even remotely resembling a T1 role in that kind of situation.
This isn’t even T1 though. This is Special Education pull-out/push-in remedial grouping. It requires certification and training to do in every educational context. Even in Japan.
This exactly. And if you’re not comfortable confronting your JTEs (understandable if this is your first time teaching in Japan) you should try to get your company involved. They should be advocating for your (of course this is entirely dependent on your company and it’s office staff but it’s worth a try.)
If the licensed teachers can't handle this situation, what makes you think you can? There's entire degrees centered around doing exactly what you've been asked to do. Your school/BOE needs to assign these kids someone who knows what they're doing and can provide them the support and instruction that they need. This isn't a dig at you, but this is WAY above your paygrade.
Found myself in a somewhat similar situation but after being involved with ‘schools’ (note: I am not calling myself a teacher) for over 20 years I know enough to know that I don’t have the first idea about putting a curriculum together. So take the pressure off of yourself. However, I was an alt for a short time. So I’d suggest these few things:
The dispatch company or the BOE to which you are working for should have an English curriculum in place for all kids, even if it is outdated and discontinued. This should give you quick and easy access to a whole bunch of worksheets and lesson plans that are ready made. I’ve worked in 4 different prefectures. These things exist. Something is wrong if they don’t give these to you to work from.
Raid the text books and reuse them, mine them for all they are worth to make your life easier should you be put on the spot to have to make or deliver lessons/activities.
Have you done any kind of level check to find out where they are at with English? That might be a good start, at least you will be able to see what you are working with. Check for all 4 skills if you can. You mention that you were teaching one of them the days and months, so I’m guessing they are passed a, b, c and onto basic vocab and phrases? Can they recall anything of what you’ve taught them so far? Are you noting it and reviewing it?
An online resource I’d recommend that has a lot for free is ETJ (English Teachers of Japan) and the download sister site - https://ltpdownloads.com/
Can you get them picture dictionaries? Those would be very useful resources and you can set challenges / word games / comprehension quizzes that they have to solve.
If at all possible with the limited time you have, try to think of as you can adapt what you are teaching the rest of the class to have activities that work for their level. That way you don’t need to split yourself into two. This might be gap fills, missing letters, word searches from the vocab list for the lesson, tracing the vocabulary. Try and involve them as much as possible. This might be a including them in simple warm ups and reviews at the end of the class and get the whole class involved in self introductions, simple phrase mixers (we used to do these playing the rock scissors version of the game evolution) getting them involved in class choral repetitions of vocab or phrases.
To keep my classes engaged and on their toes I’d often play point games (tic-tac-toe was popular) where I’d give points for teams that report back what another classmate had just said. (Its even more fun if you remove points for not being able to answer)
Ask questions with all activities and have the other classmates support them - the best way to show you know something is to be able to accurately teach it to someone else. Win win, peer learning and your output is maximised.
If it is possible, can you adapt the learning they do so it is centre around what is coming next in the classes? You could be pre teaching the material to the new students to give them a head start on what is coming in the following lessons that way.
Find resources like pictures of things that are relevant or salient to them (perhaps avoid talking about Peru and home/family in case that is distressing) but music, fashion, books, subjects, friends, clothes, instruments, school things, food and so on…. And build from their level of comprehension into short phrases, longer phrases etc. Attune these to the goal for the class though.
Good luck. Hope that helps. If not, no worries, it’s just an amateur attempt.
This is all good advice… for the jte. OP works at multiple different schools, and this is their first year teaching with no experience. This stress of designing all of this with no support and no knowledge is not worth what an alt is paid.
I stand with curiousalticidae:
>This is the jtes job.
This. And the head of the grade. And the vice-principal. All the way up to the ministry of education.
>Since I'm a first-year ALT with no teaching background, this is really challenging for me.
I bet! And you don't speak those students' L1 or the language of the classroom well, to boot. Every person higher up the chain of command from you should be absolutely humiliated that they make more money and have more job security than you, but they've passed the buck to you.
Let me put it like this: Your job is to be kind. Your job is to be friendly and welcoming to those students, giving them every reason to open up to you without pushing them to do so before they are ready. Your job is to make your classes fun, make them educational, and make them not punishing for anyone who lags behind. Just doing that alone is a skilled job worth way more than you likely get paid. If you have down time after doing all that (though based on my own experience ALTing at elementary schools, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you don't), then putting together some visual-heavy worksheets that get across meaning without depending on translation would be icing on an already pretty great cake.
Anyone who wants you to do more than that needs to adult-up and start doing *their* job.
Just teach as normal. At that age they'll sit there confused for a few months then they'll assimilate enough vocabulary and start making connections.
I know this sucks for you and them, but this isn't an uncommon experience. I have a Hispanic friend in the USA who grew up speaking Spanish at home and he spent the 3 months of school pretty darned confused and just "following along". The teacher didn't fuss over him or draw attention to his confusion and with time he got it.
Bingo. IMO people are over-thinking this one. Their parents and teacher will give them support (they probably have other support mechanisms...etc) and then they'll magically be fluent at Japanese within 6-12 months.
TBH I think it's a good thing they're in mainstream classes as I've seen a few people get excluded (and made to do language classes at the international centre exclusively) because they're not Japanese. While I get the theory behind this, I reckon struggling in mainstream for a few terms is a better way to catch-up.
I have plenty of training in teaching English to people who I don’t share a language with. I’ve taught Spanish speakers, Arabic speakers and Polish speakers. But in your shoes, I’d probably just get some ESL for Spanish speakers worksheets from TPT. My training involved so much demonstration and speaking that there’s no way I could do it in the back of a room where other lessons are taking place. How on Earth are you supposed to teach through worksheets?
Except for a few schools who deal with large immigrant communities most Japanese schools really have no idea how to handle Japanese Language Learners. Sounds like your school is doing better than many I have been in actually. Most places in states do a dual immersion. Learn subjects in L1 then l2. Been a while since I was looking at the studies but this seems to be the go to.
If it helps, in my prefecture I had a 17yo friend from a Chilean background (met at the international centre and they got us doing a radio program together for a local station).
She spoke what I'd consider 'fluent' (pretty much native level) Japanese and her younger brothers (primary school age) were also pretty damn good. However, the prefecture didn't let any of them into its schools. Instead they just took language classes at the international centre as it was thought they were 'not good enough'.
This is really difficult. When I was in high school there were some students who only spoke Spanish. They’d attend our Spanish classes and the teacher would give them English worksheets, and during our English literature class they were completely separated out to have special ESL classes, but in those cases the teachers could both speak their native language fluently. I agree that this is above your pay grade.
Forgive me if this seems obvious, but... if the JTE needs to seperate these kids out, they're teaching English incorrectly.
Their native language should not really matter - it's an ESL class. They should be teaching in simple English, with barely any Japanese.
I know this is a stretch for Japan because the English teaching here is terrible, especially in JHS. But in this case, I think it's a good opportunity to make this point to the teacher.
And also you should refuse to pick up their slack, because it shouldn't be necessary at all. Offer to help them actually teach in English, not make seperate worksheets.
It actually isn't an ESL class. It is an EFL class. It's an important distinction to make, regardless of how bad instruction in Japan is. But, instruction in Japan IS extremely bad. It is done almost entirely in Japanese. I'd wager 80%+ of what is said in most English classes is in Japanese.
"My JTEs have asked me and my co-ALT (who only comes 2x a week) to help prepare worksheets to help them learn while the class continues with the lesson."
What kind of worksheets? The one silver lining I could see is if you make simple worksheets for the two sisters from Peru. Simple as in easy to comprehend, then it should be usable for all the students. Public school students, generally, are low level. Sounds like you are quite busy, so I would follow other peoples advice. Help if you want to, or if it aligns with your general work. Don't go out of your way to do someone else's job. It's a crappy position to be in, I know, but do what you feel is right.
This is what actual ESL (and JSL) would be, and what an actual ESL teacher/program would be needed for. As someone else mentioned, not only does being T1 in general require actual training and study to do right, but ESL is another specialized step above that, and no one should be putting that on you.
Those students have a very real need that if it isn't accommodated for absolutely will have severe negative impacts on their life. A lot of people will probably just say soldier on and do what you can, but that might result in these two children ending up illiterate at graduation in both English and Japanese. I know you have no power in the situation, but the BoE really should be informed that no one at your school is actually equipped to educate them.
If you're still forced into it, they will need time in your class separate from other students, and you will have to learn/plan a real ESL curriculum for them. Just winging it with what you've got won't be enough.
I have found that lots of teachers (JHS in particular) just do the bare minimum, have their lesson plan and just stick to it no matter what. So when a student comes that throws a spanner in the works (doesn’t speak Japanese), that student generally suffers. It’s good that the school has a translator to help, but it sounds like your JTE doesn’t really care. The JTE is a trained teacher and should be the one dealing with the students who struggle the most. You are an assistant and as such should be helping with the class and not leading a whole different lesson in the corner. Ask for a meeting with the JTE and the 教務 to discuss the best way to move forward with these students. The 教務 and JTE need to prepare a plan for these students. It’s not on you!
Not really your place to deal with it. The BOEs should have resources allocated towards helping them. In Yokohama they have a ton of resources and after-school programmes for immigrant kids.
That said, I don't see how it affects your lessons as you shouldn't be using any Japanese anyway.
I was told we had a Brazilian kid “at the back” who had just arrived and that they’re trying their best but don’t worry about them. Turned out they were Peruvian and had been in Japan for years. Moral of the story, the JTEs don’t give a flip.
it's going to be tough for these kids, but they're young and they'll get japanese in a year or two, so don't worry about them
i've had foreign students with no japanese or english before, and they are often kind of shy and overwhelmed, but they will be very friendly to ALTs who try their best with them. i once spent a couple months on duolingo casually studying a language, and when i used it with a foreign student, they lit up in excitement... i was totally unfluent with it, but just me trying a couple times got that kid to try much harder in english in return. they saw me struggle, so they got a lot less shy themself.
with elementary school, english classes are so basic that a spanish speaker of the same age is probably pretty far beyond their classmates already... and learning two languages at once is pretty brain-boggling but they'll get it eventually. Obviously it depends on your co-teachers but these kids would probably be best served just staying with the rest of the class in English. they'll be behind for a while but will eventually catch up with time and encouragement.
main thing is, you shouldn't be putting incredible extra effort into helping them; that's their homeroom teacher's job. you are just there to assist and support to give these kids the motivation to go through their pretty difficult time.
This is the jtes job. They claim they don’t know what to do, and then try to pawn it off on you. If you’re overwhelmed, and they’re not willing to support you, it falls on them to create the curriculum for these students. They get job stability, so they should be doing their job. Do what you can, but don’t burn yourself out over it. Keep pushing your jtes to make a real curriculum for them.
Seconding this. This kind of the thing is way above and beyond what you should be doing or being asked to do as an assistant. I completely understand wanting to help out but the school and your JTE should not be putting you in anything even remotely resembling a T1 role in that kind of situation.
This isn’t even T1 though. This is Special Education pull-out/push-in remedial grouping. It requires certification and training to do in every educational context. Even in Japan.
This exactly. And if you’re not comfortable confronting your JTEs (understandable if this is your first time teaching in Japan) you should try to get your company involved. They should be advocating for your (of course this is entirely dependent on your company and it’s office staff but it’s worth a try.)
If the licensed teachers can't handle this situation, what makes you think you can? There's entire degrees centered around doing exactly what you've been asked to do. Your school/BOE needs to assign these kids someone who knows what they're doing and can provide them the support and instruction that they need. This isn't a dig at you, but this is WAY above your paygrade.
Stinks of “you are gaijin, therefore you must know how to help other gaijin”
Found myself in a somewhat similar situation but after being involved with ‘schools’ (note: I am not calling myself a teacher) for over 20 years I know enough to know that I don’t have the first idea about putting a curriculum together. So take the pressure off of yourself. However, I was an alt for a short time. So I’d suggest these few things: The dispatch company or the BOE to which you are working for should have an English curriculum in place for all kids, even if it is outdated and discontinued. This should give you quick and easy access to a whole bunch of worksheets and lesson plans that are ready made. I’ve worked in 4 different prefectures. These things exist. Something is wrong if they don’t give these to you to work from. Raid the text books and reuse them, mine them for all they are worth to make your life easier should you be put on the spot to have to make or deliver lessons/activities. Have you done any kind of level check to find out where they are at with English? That might be a good start, at least you will be able to see what you are working with. Check for all 4 skills if you can. You mention that you were teaching one of them the days and months, so I’m guessing they are passed a, b, c and onto basic vocab and phrases? Can they recall anything of what you’ve taught them so far? Are you noting it and reviewing it? An online resource I’d recommend that has a lot for free is ETJ (English Teachers of Japan) and the download sister site - https://ltpdownloads.com/ Can you get them picture dictionaries? Those would be very useful resources and you can set challenges / word games / comprehension quizzes that they have to solve. If at all possible with the limited time you have, try to think of as you can adapt what you are teaching the rest of the class to have activities that work for their level. That way you don’t need to split yourself into two. This might be gap fills, missing letters, word searches from the vocab list for the lesson, tracing the vocabulary. Try and involve them as much as possible. This might be a including them in simple warm ups and reviews at the end of the class and get the whole class involved in self introductions, simple phrase mixers (we used to do these playing the rock scissors version of the game evolution) getting them involved in class choral repetitions of vocab or phrases. To keep my classes engaged and on their toes I’d often play point games (tic-tac-toe was popular) where I’d give points for teams that report back what another classmate had just said. (Its even more fun if you remove points for not being able to answer) Ask questions with all activities and have the other classmates support them - the best way to show you know something is to be able to accurately teach it to someone else. Win win, peer learning and your output is maximised. If it is possible, can you adapt the learning they do so it is centre around what is coming next in the classes? You could be pre teaching the material to the new students to give them a head start on what is coming in the following lessons that way. Find resources like pictures of things that are relevant or salient to them (perhaps avoid talking about Peru and home/family in case that is distressing) but music, fashion, books, subjects, friends, clothes, instruments, school things, food and so on…. And build from their level of comprehension into short phrases, longer phrases etc. Attune these to the goal for the class though. Good luck. Hope that helps. If not, no worries, it’s just an amateur attempt.
This is all good advice… for the jte. OP works at multiple different schools, and this is their first year teaching with no experience. This stress of designing all of this with no support and no knowledge is not worth what an alt is paid.
I stand with curiousalticidae: >This is the jtes job. This. And the head of the grade. And the vice-principal. All the way up to the ministry of education. >Since I'm a first-year ALT with no teaching background, this is really challenging for me. I bet! And you don't speak those students' L1 or the language of the classroom well, to boot. Every person higher up the chain of command from you should be absolutely humiliated that they make more money and have more job security than you, but they've passed the buck to you. Let me put it like this: Your job is to be kind. Your job is to be friendly and welcoming to those students, giving them every reason to open up to you without pushing them to do so before they are ready. Your job is to make your classes fun, make them educational, and make them not punishing for anyone who lags behind. Just doing that alone is a skilled job worth way more than you likely get paid. If you have down time after doing all that (though based on my own experience ALTing at elementary schools, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you don't), then putting together some visual-heavy worksheets that get across meaning without depending on translation would be icing on an already pretty great cake. Anyone who wants you to do more than that needs to adult-up and start doing *their* job.
Just teach as normal. At that age they'll sit there confused for a few months then they'll assimilate enough vocabulary and start making connections. I know this sucks for you and them, but this isn't an uncommon experience. I have a Hispanic friend in the USA who grew up speaking Spanish at home and he spent the 3 months of school pretty darned confused and just "following along". The teacher didn't fuss over him or draw attention to his confusion and with time he got it.
Bingo. IMO people are over-thinking this one. Their parents and teacher will give them support (they probably have other support mechanisms...etc) and then they'll magically be fluent at Japanese within 6-12 months. TBH I think it's a good thing they're in mainstream classes as I've seen a few people get excluded (and made to do language classes at the international centre exclusively) because they're not Japanese. While I get the theory behind this, I reckon struggling in mainstream for a few terms is a better way to catch-up.
I have plenty of training in teaching English to people who I don’t share a language with. I’ve taught Spanish speakers, Arabic speakers and Polish speakers. But in your shoes, I’d probably just get some ESL for Spanish speakers worksheets from TPT. My training involved so much demonstration and speaking that there’s no way I could do it in the back of a room where other lessons are taking place. How on Earth are you supposed to teach through worksheets?
Except for a few schools who deal with large immigrant communities most Japanese schools really have no idea how to handle Japanese Language Learners. Sounds like your school is doing better than many I have been in actually. Most places in states do a dual immersion. Learn subjects in L1 then l2. Been a while since I was looking at the studies but this seems to be the go to.
If it helps, in my prefecture I had a 17yo friend from a Chilean background (met at the international centre and they got us doing a radio program together for a local station). She spoke what I'd consider 'fluent' (pretty much native level) Japanese and her younger brothers (primary school age) were also pretty damn good. However, the prefecture didn't let any of them into its schools. Instead they just took language classes at the international centre as it was thought they were 'not good enough'.
This is really difficult. When I was in high school there were some students who only spoke Spanish. They’d attend our Spanish classes and the teacher would give them English worksheets, and during our English literature class they were completely separated out to have special ESL classes, but in those cases the teachers could both speak their native language fluently. I agree that this is above your pay grade.
Forgive me if this seems obvious, but... if the JTE needs to seperate these kids out, they're teaching English incorrectly. Their native language should not really matter - it's an ESL class. They should be teaching in simple English, with barely any Japanese. I know this is a stretch for Japan because the English teaching here is terrible, especially in JHS. But in this case, I think it's a good opportunity to make this point to the teacher. And also you should refuse to pick up their slack, because it shouldn't be necessary at all. Offer to help them actually teach in English, not make seperate worksheets.
It actually isn't an ESL class. It is an EFL class. It's an important distinction to make, regardless of how bad instruction in Japan is. But, instruction in Japan IS extremely bad. It is done almost entirely in Japanese. I'd wager 80%+ of what is said in most English classes is in Japanese.
"My JTEs have asked me and my co-ALT (who only comes 2x a week) to help prepare worksheets to help them learn while the class continues with the lesson." What kind of worksheets? The one silver lining I could see is if you make simple worksheets for the two sisters from Peru. Simple as in easy to comprehend, then it should be usable for all the students. Public school students, generally, are low level. Sounds like you are quite busy, so I would follow other peoples advice. Help if you want to, or if it aligns with your general work. Don't go out of your way to do someone else's job. It's a crappy position to be in, I know, but do what you feel is right.
This is what actual ESL (and JSL) would be, and what an actual ESL teacher/program would be needed for. As someone else mentioned, not only does being T1 in general require actual training and study to do right, but ESL is another specialized step above that, and no one should be putting that on you. Those students have a very real need that if it isn't accommodated for absolutely will have severe negative impacts on their life. A lot of people will probably just say soldier on and do what you can, but that might result in these two children ending up illiterate at graduation in both English and Japanese. I know you have no power in the situation, but the BoE really should be informed that no one at your school is actually equipped to educate them. If you're still forced into it, they will need time in your class separate from other students, and you will have to learn/plan a real ESL curriculum for them. Just winging it with what you've got won't be enough.
I have found that lots of teachers (JHS in particular) just do the bare minimum, have their lesson plan and just stick to it no matter what. So when a student comes that throws a spanner in the works (doesn’t speak Japanese), that student generally suffers. It’s good that the school has a translator to help, but it sounds like your JTE doesn’t really care. The JTE is a trained teacher and should be the one dealing with the students who struggle the most. You are an assistant and as such should be helping with the class and not leading a whole different lesson in the corner. Ask for a meeting with the JTE and the 教務 to discuss the best way to move forward with these students. The 教務 and JTE need to prepare a plan for these students. It’s not on you!
Not really your place to deal with it. The BOEs should have resources allocated towards helping them. In Yokohama they have a ton of resources and after-school programmes for immigrant kids. That said, I don't see how it affects your lessons as you shouldn't be using any Japanese anyway.
I was told we had a Brazilian kid “at the back” who had just arrived and that they’re trying their best but don’t worry about them. Turned out they were Peruvian and had been in Japan for years. Moral of the story, the JTEs don’t give a flip.
What ward is this to get a translator twice a week? My ward provided no English help at all and surely that's easier than Spanish.
You're doing the right thing. Keep up with the online resources and make sure they're following the flow as much as you can.
it's going to be tough for these kids, but they're young and they'll get japanese in a year or two, so don't worry about them i've had foreign students with no japanese or english before, and they are often kind of shy and overwhelmed, but they will be very friendly to ALTs who try their best with them. i once spent a couple months on duolingo casually studying a language, and when i used it with a foreign student, they lit up in excitement... i was totally unfluent with it, but just me trying a couple times got that kid to try much harder in english in return. they saw me struggle, so they got a lot less shy themself. with elementary school, english classes are so basic that a spanish speaker of the same age is probably pretty far beyond their classmates already... and learning two languages at once is pretty brain-boggling but they'll get it eventually. Obviously it depends on your co-teachers but these kids would probably be best served just staying with the rest of the class in English. they'll be behind for a while but will eventually catch up with time and encouragement. main thing is, you shouldn't be putting incredible extra effort into helping them; that's their homeroom teacher's job. you are just there to assist and support to give these kids the motivation to go through their pretty difficult time.