This article was originally published on 9 April, 2008. It’s been reprinted below for the new school year.

By now you know that in Japan, the school year starts in April and a few teachers leave at the end of March, with new ones rotating in to replace them.

The holidays are dead if you are not vacationing. Likewise, the first week of school will be a testing time for the students. It might get boring for you. But you should NOT (just) veg out at your desk! Here are some things you can do:

Network with the new teachers.

At this point, if you have not introduced yourself to the new teachers at your school, you should do that. Especially if the teachers are either administration or teachers whom you will be directly working with.

The stock phrase here is “Hajimemashite” and of course your name. If you can say in Japanese “I’m the ALT for xx school” or “I come every week on Tuesdays,” this would be good. The teacher may or may not ask about your history. I don’t give a jiko shoukai to them, though, because I think it’s unwieldy. They can slowly find out about you over the next few months. The last thing you should both do is a “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” to express your desires for a good working relationship.

If I am working with a teacher (for example a JTE or a person who coordinates schedules at the school) I always give them contact information. You can make neat little business cards on the computer during your free time. It’s easy. I got fancy and printed English on one side and JP on the other. It sounds hard, but you don’t really need to know much grammar to make business cards in Japanese! On them I have contact info for my base school (base school JTEs might get keitai email or my home/keitai number for emergency use). I might handwrite my email address and stuff like “kantan nihongo demo ii desu” — you can email me in simple Japanese, as well.

If you don’t have a card, when you are first introducing yourself, that’s cool. Just put it on their desk later, or stop by when they look free.

*I* think it is VERY important to attend the farewell enkai (the last chance you may have to see teachers you’ve worked with all year!) as well as the welcome enkai for new staff. You can not only show that you are NOT an island off on your own, but that you are a nice person. You can also get a feel for what they are like–and how they drink!

Last year, I made a coffee cake to welcome the new teachers. It might be a little over the top, but I wanted to ensure that we got off to a good start and was too cheap to buy omiyage or welcome gifts. Occasionally when the office seems tense or unfriendly and there are no enkai in sight, I find it helpful to bring food to work to share. Last week, one of the leaving senseis thanked me for bringing food the summer before. I had totally forgotten, but evidently, it made an impression on her.

Think Ahead!

If you have more than one school, this is the time to coordinate your schedules. Some ALTs have more freedom in scheduling than others. I am allowed a bit of leniency: I cannot control my outreach schools’ schedules but I can choose my classes at my base school to work around them.

You should have received a big master calendar (ours was in a packet) at one of the meetings over the break. In this calendar, we have the school’s schedule for the year. The important stuff to note is when your school holidays are, when you have to work weekends, and if your school makes everyone take daikyuu (a compensory day off for weekend work), what day that is.

I found that a lot of times, my daikyuu for one school fell on a workday for another. So in essence, I wouldn’t have a “day off”. This year, I am informing my shougakkou of when my base school is not in session so we can pre-schedule make-up days.

If you plan your shougakkou curriculum, this needs to be done now. Some schools plan it, some schools don’t. But I find that at least having a year-plan (even if you don’t have specific vocab words and games worked out) fill give your lessons direction. Sarah Cardenas gave a workshop on elementary teaching and she has great resources for lesson planning. Also, even if you think you are too hip for Genki Richard’s style, his website has great sample curricula.

If you are working from a previous curriculum, consider what worked well and what didn’t. (Too hard, too boring, too useless, whatever.)

In my opinion there are two kinds of curricula: short term and long term.

Short Term

* Also called “1-year”
* Good for ALTs who might not be around much longer.
+ Easier to plan.
+ Reinforces knowledge
- Boring for the kids. Especially if it covers material they had last year.
- Limited in Scope. You can only teach so many topics.
- Doesn’t account for varying interests of different ages.
- Might be hard for the ALT to adapt between grades.

Basically, you teach the same topics across the grades. 1nensei and 6nensei learn the same thing. The ALT needs to rework the lessons to make them easier or harder for kids at different ages…but the theme is the same for everyone. This is good because it requires a minimum of lesson material preparation. I think it’s popular with teachers, but I don’t think it’s very good. It’s incredibly repetitive, which might make your job less fun, and the kids will be turned off if they feel they already learned this. Another big minus is that it limits the topics you can teach in a given year and that the kids learn.

Long Term

* Also called “vertically integrated” or “multi-year”
* Good for ALTs who will think they will be at the same schools for a good while.

+ Interesting for you and for the kids because it doesn’t repeat very much.
+ Wide in scope: you can teach many subjects.
+ Works well for schools with lots of siblings: older sibs can teach their younger brother/sister English, too!
+ Considers the students’ ages and levels.
+ Easier for the ALT to keep track of who was taught what. Lessons don’t have to be modified as much.
- May not offer enough review.
- More involved planning and preparation since (in a given year) you don’t repeat.
+ But pays off the following year(s).
- Can get disrupted. If you schools change or your school changes HOW they teach English.

This is how I teach. I give the 1-2nensei the same topics, 3-4nensei the same topics, 5-6nensei the same topics. That way, the learn certain things at certain points in their elementary school tenures. It also allows you to work on more complex or abstract topics or projects for the older students and use simpler concepts (”hello/goodbye!”) for younger students. MEXT emphasizes the differences in kids’ development, and I think it’s really important, too.* The biggest problem is that if another ALT takes over or your schools change or if the school decides to use their own curriculum or discontinue English education for certain grades, those kids are left out in the cold. But this is a risk you have to take. The benefits are worth it, I think. Your students have a sense of pride in learning stuff their siblings aren’t. You also have more freedom to integrate with the subjects the kids are studying in other classes.

–
*See Resource Materials and Teaching Handbook, p.96 in the 2006 ed.

Work Ahead

I actually find this one the hardest to do: I’m not motivated until I have a deadline looming. But if you are inclined, consider actually working up lesson plans (for shougakkou) ahead of time. Print out flashcards, buy magnets, etc.

For chuugakkou, go through the textbook and try to remember the worksheets and props and activities you used last year. Scrape up these materials and get them organized where you can pull them up when you need them.

I can’t offer advice for high school ALTs, since I have no idea what their work is like. Please comment if you have experience with this!

Also consider extra projects: planning/making English boards, planning a skit, making a mailbox for your kids to write you with, designing fake money or “sticker passports,” writing small quizzes or talks for announcement time or whatever.

Refresh

The other teachers do this in the days before they move the desks in the staffroom: get rid of crap that’s accumulated at your desk: old papers, books you don’t need, post-its, memos, old schedules.

Give everything a dusting.

If you want to reorganize your desk layout (by making a hutch for your laptop, adding a small bookshelf, etc) this is a good time to do it. If you are unhappy that your LAN cable is wonky, now’s the time to swipe a new one!

Don’t Forget About Japanese

If you are taking the CLAIR Japanese course and plan to be gone for Golden Week, you should get an earlier than usual start on the CLAIR test. Remember that you will come back once May is underway, so you will also have less time to complete the final book.

If you are interested in the JLPT, you only have about 6 months at this point to get ready for it. Now is a good time to grab a guide or two and start drilling kanji or whatever.

Fun Stuff

Now that you have the master calendar for the year, you can also figure out when you want to do travel over the next year. This allows you to not get into a rush to get all of your travel plans in at once, to request nenkyuu earlier, and to book flights while they are still cheap. At the very least, get an idea of when you want to take off and how much you will have saved up between vacations.

Office dress can be confusing when you’ve come straight out of uni and suddenly need to not wear t-shirts and jeans. Here is a basic guide for what to wear in the office. Since I’m male, my advice will focus on that. Maybe one of the female ALTs will add her thoughts.

There are two basic rules of thumb to follow:

1. Dress up REALLY nicely the first day. You will need a suit and tie.
2. From then on, it’s up to your BOE/schools’ culture. Look at what other teachers of your sex and approximate age are wearing, and match them.

But how, then, can you possibly pack if you haven’t yet SEEN your school? Here are some more guidelines. Bear in mind that you can buy clothing here at UNIQLO (or the GAP or wherever). You can also order from online stores and either have them ship to you in Japan or have your family/friends forward them to you.

Remember when I said to look at your “closest peer teachers”? The obvious exception is P.E. teachers, who are always dressed down. You probably won’t be able to get away with this, except during the vacations (like summer!)

You’ll want to wear a suit the first day (ick) and probably on “special days”– that is, open/observations classes and formal events like graduation. Conversely, I found that when I arrived, ALL of my school’s teachers were dressed down because classes were not in session. Actually, on my first day, we had a Big Cleaning– and it kind of sucked to be in a suit doing dirty work, but I think my teachers appreciated that I was game enough to do it.

Many teachers change during the day (especially before club activities). I do not like hauling clothes around and I really don’t like changing clothes gratuitously. So I don’t do this.

For men,
I usually wear khakis and polos (solids, not patterned) on shougakkou days.

For non-shou days, a short sleeved shirt in the summer or a broadcloth, button-up oxford shirt in the winter/fall/spring. I sometimes wear a tie–but never on a day when I’m around elementary school kids. It’s dangerous!

I the winter, I throw a sweater over the shirt, collar out English style). I justify this because I teach in unheated classrooms. And, honestly, the other teachers wear coats and things as well. The sweater thing has the added sneaky benefit of making ironing unnecessary, which makes my mornings happier.

You don’t have to spend a crazy amount on your work wardrobe. With the exception of the suit, everything I wear to work comes from either UNIQLO or Old Navy.

Shoes are a funny thing here. Your workhorse “outside” shoes need to be the kind that slip off and on. I have some brown ones that have a little elastic on the sides so they are easy to slip off and on. And slip them off and on you will. I think I must change shoes about 6 times a day–so the easy on/off thing is of utmost importance.

Inside your school, you will wear sandals or slippers. The most important thing here is that they never have been worn outside. Outside shoes and Inside Shoes are delimited in certain (but oddly, not all) places in Japan (read: schools). I see a lot of shower shoe style here. It’s really bizarre to see men in suits wearing these super casual sandals, but whatever. I wear birkenstock knockoffs. Note that the slippers are what you will actually be wearing throughout the day. Also note that they are not worn barefooted (pantyhose is okay for ladies). So thongs are not a good idea, unless you have toed socks.

Speaking of socks, I usually just wear white or black cotton ones. It’s not too big of a deal. But they DO need to be in good condition (no holes!) because you will sometimes be in your stocking feet when you go to special rooms like the gym or computer lab.

I have two pairs of slippers: one for my base school, and one I keep in my car for whenever I’m doing an outreach school. If you somehow forget your slippers, you will have to wear the narsty plastic ones that guests wear and they won’t fit well and they will be ugly. But probably not as ugly as the slippers your kids will be wearing as part of their uniform. Don’t worry about a second pair of slippers if you aren’t sure that you will need them: I was able to pick up my second pair here in Japan for about 9 bucks.

That’s about it. I hate wearing dressy clothes, but I think that dressing at least somewhat professionally is important if you want to be taken seriously. However, elementary schools tend to let the teachers dress more casually, and I know of JETs who wear jeans and t-shirts to elementary. It’s probably best to start out on the conservative end and gradually loosen up as you figure out what you can get away with.

Discovery School’s Puzzlemaker

Great for making crosswords and word search puzzles.

English Flash Cards

A collection of "English conversation illustrations."

ESL Kidstuff

Flashcards, worksheets, games, etc. Some for free, some require a membership fee.

Three Wise Monkeys

Collection of games, activities and teaching ideas by language teachers in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

Out of Sight Japan

Founded by Kagawa JETs, Out of Sight’s mission is to educate about and fundraise for dire causes that are ignored by the Western media and by key international figures. Out of Sight will provide you with background information and lesson plans (in English and Japanese). These resources can then be used in class, elective English, English club or whenever the JET sees fit.

Japanese Association of Language Teachers

Website for the Japanese Association of Language Teachers with everything from research articles to teaching resources to special interest groups.

I put this together from my junior high school’s schedule for the year distributed in April. Some dates and activities may vary in other schools but the months and main activities will generally correspond.

July (shichi gatsu)

Summer (natsu). Extremely humid and hot right through the day and night.

19 July

Marine Day (umi no hi). National holiday.

21 July to 24 August

Summer break (natsuyasumi kakikyuugyou). Many students will still come to school, although formal classes are suspended. It is a good time to wander around and familiarize yourself with the school and get to know the students. You’ll find them hanging out in the library, in the classrooms and practicing for the upcoming sports day (taiikutaikai).

August (hachi gatsu)

Summer (still hot).

If you are interested in sitting the Japanese Proficiency Exam in December, you need to get your application in this month. The application forms and study material can be bought at the major bookstores in Fukuoka.

6 and 9 August

Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing anniversaries. They are marked in the school by an assembly and presentations on related themes.

15 August (and surrounding days)

Obon. Buddhist ancestor memorial rites. This is not an official holiday period, but many Japanese will take time off to return to their family homes. Because the focus is on immediate family it is not an especially social time. There will be obon dances held throughout the region.

24 August

School starts back.

25 August

Sports day practices (renshu) begin in earnest.

30 August (Monday)

Substitute holiday (shinkyuu), as there will be a Sports Day rehearsal on Saturday, 4 September that everyone will be attending.

September (kyu gatsu)

Summer/early autumn (aki). Still hot but temperatures will start to cool over the month, especially in the mornings and evenings.

4 September (Saturday)

Sports day rehearsal (taiikutaikaijunbitou)

5 September (Sunday)

Sports day (taiikukai). The ALT role will probably be limited mostly to that of a spectator. A staff party will probably follow; your first of many enkai. If you don’t want to drink alcohol here are some strategies: take part in the kanpai, take a sip of your beer and then leave it and request oolong cha (other teachers will be doing the same). If you accept alcohol as part of the sake cup sharing etc, it is acceptable to discretely empty most of it into an ashtray (grab one early in the night and position it under the table by your feet).

6 September (Monday)

Substitute holiday (shinkyuu) to compensate for working Sunday.

20 September

Respect for the Aged Day (keirou no hi). National holiday.

23 September

Autumn Equinox (shuubun no hi). National holiday.

October (juu gatsu)

Autumn (aki). The inter-school English speech contests (anshoutaikai) will be held in November. Ask if the students who will be representing your school have been selected. Get involved in coaching them. In previous years, representatives have delivered their speeches at the school’s cultural day as well (30 October). Students are selected to represent each grade level. Students from across Higashimatsura-gun learn the same speeches (”Marbles and Kendama” for ichi nen sei; “The Sound of the Whales” for ni nen sei; “Martin Luther King” for san nen sei). All the Higashimatsuura-gun ALTs judge the speeches. There will probably be an organizational meeting involving both JTEs and ALTs some time this month.

Also in preparation for cultural day, the students go to sites around the town to make sketches of the scenery. The resulting art is displayed at the culture day. When this will be is not on the schedule; ask if you are interested.

4 October

San nen sei are to go on a tour of township. You might want to ask to go along (furusato mawari).

7 October

End of the first school term. School wide cleaning to be followed by the closing ceremony (ichi gakki shuugyoushiki).

8 October to 14 October

Autumn break (akiyasumi shuukikyuugyou).

11 October

Sports Day (taiiku no hi). National holiday.

15 October

Beginning of the second school term. Opening ceremony (ni gakki shigyoushiki). Practice will begin in earnest for cultural day (bunkasai), scheduled for 30 October.

25 October (Monday)

Substitute holiday (shinkyuu), for Saturday, 30 October, cultural day.

30 October (Saturday)

Cultural day (bunkasai). Your role will probably be limited mostly to that of spectator.

November (ju ichi gatsu)

Autumn. Weather will become rapidly colder.

There will also be township wide workplace health check-ups (shokuinkenkou no jisshi). You will be expected to present with a stool sample (they will give you the bag and scooping implement the day before). Basically what happens is that everyone is given a scheduled time in which to turn up at the community center hall (which will have been taken over by a mobile medical unit for the week). The unit’s nurses and doctors will perform a series of hearing tests, eye tests, blood pressure tests, take blood and urine samples as well as chest x-rays, your heart rhythm (I think — will be tested in a process involving gel and electrode-looking things being attached to your body). You will also be asked not to drink after midnight the night before and not to eat breakfast. If any of it really freaks you out, cross your arms and say irimasen (I don`t need). You might want to pre-arrange with you JTE to get out of the x-rays, since you already had some done for the JET application.

1 November (Monday)

Subsitute holiday for the education festival, 6 November (Saturday).

3 Novemeber

Culture Day (bunka no hi). National holiday.

6 November

Education festival (kyouiku fuesuteibaru). All the pupils and teachers from the local schools gather in the junior high school gym to take their turn up on stage doing various cultural performances.

23 November

Labour Thanksgiving Day (kinroukansha no hi). National holiday.

December (ju ni gatsu)

Winter (fuyu). The weather will become really cold. It will probably snow over late December/early January. In the event that it snows heavily on a school day, school will be cancelled. Ring in to see if you need to come to school. You might want to buy some kairo from the local 7-Eleven. These are the heat packs that the students and teachers carry to keep themselves warm. Haru are the kind that you can stick on to parts of your body, while the other kind can be carried in your hand or pocket.

Later in the month there will be a rush of year end parties (bonenkai). The staff may plan a weekend away at a hot spring resort. You might want to send New Year’s cards as per the local custom to anyone who you have become close to. You can arrange for the post office to deliver them on New Year’s Day. The cards are called nengajyou. The standard greeting written on them is, “Oshogatsu omedetou gozaimasu. Akemashite.” There will be a list of your teachers’ home addresses somewhere in the staffroom. You will probably be given your renewer’s contract and be asked to consider whether you will stay on for another year. The deadline from previous years is January 13.

23 December

Emperor’s Birthday (tennoutanjyoubi). National holiday.

24 December

Regular classes finish for the year (toukikyuugyou) and do not resume until 11 January.

29 December to 3 January

The new year holiday period. You are not expected to turn up to work, and if you ask can stay away until 11 January.

January (ichi gatsu)

Winter. An ALT conference will be held some time in late January or early in February. The renewing deadline will be coming up. Exam preparation begins in earnest. A slow time of year as team-taught classes are mostly put on hold.

Preparations will begin for the new school year starting in April. The new ichi nen sei students and their mothers will come for a school observation visit. The graduating san nen sei students will be busy preparing for exams and moving on to high school.

11 January

Coming of Age Day (seijin no hi). National holiday.

February (ni gatsu)

Winter, still cold.

11 February

Foundation Day (kenkokukinen no hi). National holiday.

14 February

A day is spent playing a traditional card game, hyakuninisho. The game works on the same principle as “Snap.” The object is to be the first team member to pick up the card with the same poem on it as the poem being read aloud. It is held in the school gym so come dressed for the cold.

March (san gatsu)

Weather will be gradually coming warmer.

The first and second grades have internal exams, while the third grade will be sitting the exams, which determine which high school they will be going to (entrance exams, nyuushi). Exams for the private high schools and the public high schools are held days apart. Generally students who are less academically able will be sitting exams for private high schools or less prestigious public vocational high schools. Through a lot of pre-testing, the exam results are pretty much a foregone conclusion.

7 March (Monday)

Substitute holiday for Saturday, 12 March (graduation ceremony, sotsuyoushiki).

12 March

Graduation ceremony (sotsugyoshiki). Time to dress up formal. The ceremony itself is very formal. You will only be expected to sit there with the other teachers beside the stage. The conclusion is very emotional. Many students and teachers will be in tears. The reason for the heightened emotion is that most of the students have been with the same peer group since kindergarten but will now be going their separate ways to different high schools.

21 March

Vernal Equinox (shunbun no hi). National holiday.

25 March to 5 April

The end of the Japanese school year (gakunenmatsukyuugyou) Spring break begins (haru yasumi). If you decide to go away on holiday remember that this is the season when staff rotations take place. The teachers do not choose which schools they teach at but are assigned by the prefectural board of education. They are transferred after anywhere between one to eight years. This is done as a way to limit the potential for corruption to develop in the system. Generally they know by mid-March if they are to be transferred. You need to be ready for two things: coming back from holiday and finding that some teachers are gone and new ones have replaced them, and finding the staff room seating plan rearranged. If you are not at school during the rearrangements, you will probably come back to find that your desk contents have been emptied out and moved to a new location. You might want to anticipate this by cleaning out your desk and slacking its contents in some boxes before you go on holiday. You might also want to make sure that you have a name list of the new incoming ichi nen sei, so that you can get their names right. In previous years, a group school photo with names has been sent to the junior high school from each elementary school. Try and get a copy so that you can identify the new students. The schedule for the entire new school year will be drawn up and circulated around the staffroom. If a copy doesn’t land on your desk, ask for one.

April (shi gatsu)

Cherry blossom season. The weather will become significantly warmer.

Anticipate a few cherry blossom viewing party invitations (hanami). Hanami, combined with farewell and welcome staff parties will probably take a toll on your liver. Gambatte ne.

6 April

New school term begins (ichi gakki shigyoushiki). There will be a farewell party for departing staff (jininshiki).

7 April

Welcome party for new staff (buninshiki).

9 April

Entrance ceremony (nyugakushiki) for new ichi nen sei. This is a big deal. Dress up as school photos will probably follow. A series of ability tests will be held.

29 April

Green Day (midori no hi). National holiday.

30 April

Substitute holiday for Sunday, 25 April when the teachers and PTA will have a joint meeting.

May (go gatsu)

Weather will be getting warmer. The rainy season (tsuyu) will begin sometime over May/June.

The Golden Week holidays fall 1 May to 5 May. There is the annual school trip away for the san nen sei scheduled for 26-28 May (shuugakuryokou). You may try and combine it with the Kobe ALT renewers conference which will be held some time in May. Do not expect to be able to go on the school trip as of right. The students have been saving and planning since first grade for their two days in Kyoto/Osaka, but do let it be known if you would like to go.

3 May

Constitution Day (kenboukinenbi). National holiday.

4 May

National Holiday (kokumin no kyuujitsu). National holiday.

5 May

Children’s Day (kodomo no hi). National holiday.

26-28 May

School trips (shuugakuryokou) away. In the past, the first grade have gone to Fukuoka for the day, the second grade have gone to Nagasaki for the day, while the third grade have gone to Osaka and Kyoto for three days).

June (roku gatsu)

After rainy season the weather will turn to summer proper. No national holidays or significant school events.