Japanese teachers who just hate their ALT

[davidrhys]

How about JH school teachers who are totally clueless to the whole job of an ALT and "team-teaching"?

I work in a large school which I teach in several days a week, and one of the new 1st grade teachers who arrived in April is as mentioned above, clueless....etc
I've tried time and time again to engage him with the notion of team-teaching, I've approached him time after time to discuss possible lesson ideas, but nothing works. He is set in his terribly boring ways.
I even though I'd cracked it a few weeks back when he agreed on one of my classroom activities....then he totally ignored it in class, not giving me time to do the activity with students.

The ENGLISH lesson with a JAPANESE greeting, and small talk about the weather, day, news also in Japanese (which pisses me off), with me responding in English , then he'll just roll into his yawn-tastic repetitive drills.
Memorize this list, translate these words in to Japanese, copy these words 10 times....etc all whilst I do my best to walk around the class looking interested.
The real piss take is that when it comes to one of the textbook listening activities, he'll use the CD! Even though I'm stood right there! I've offered to read aloud, role-play the conversations, all offers falling on deaf ears.

The other teachers in the school are fine, they get the benefits of team teaching, and actually allowing me to "teach"!

I can't take leading into another term trying to plan a class with him, when it is pointless.

The thing is, in his previous school he helped his students IQs / test scores to increase quite substantially. I think this adds to the stubborn teaching style he has.

Thoughts on what I should do?

[moolooman]

Carbon copy of one of my teachers. Had them rote-learning "Is this your pen?". Meanwhile I went around the class and picked up different students textbooks, and asked them "Is this your book?". Blankfaceorama.

[Otaku]

Ask one of your other JTEs talk to the subborn JTE for you?

[Paul]

How old is the teacher? I had a newbie teacher like him once, and it was because of his lack of experience in being a teacher and his temp. position in the school, that made it difficult for him to do anything other than text-book related stuff.

[Kanashibari]

I've noticed teachers like that are generally the burnout type who do not genuinely enjoy their job, and are only teachers because their parents are teachers. I've worked with a few odd characters like that...... one decided to finally quit when a frustrated first year "mini-yanki" threatened to kill him.

As for hostile HRTs and JTEs, there tends to be a misunderstanding between a lot of Japanese teachers who are either new to working with foreigners or have worked with relatively few, and ALTs unaware of the general attitude/system in the Japanese workplace.

As an ALT who basically works part-time (compared to Japanese working hours and salary) through a company, and has none of the extra duties regular Japanese teachers are expected to perform, you are generally treated as typical rookies, AKA slaves, in an office.
In a lot of Japanese official workplaces, including schools senior workers are typically expected not to be nice to rookies. Most rookies, especially young men, are expected to go through "one year of hell"(or longer if they're the youngest staff member) before being accepted as one of the team, or treated as equals. It has nothing to do with you or whether or not the Japanese teacher likes you, it's how they were taught to act around newbies.
Luckily, most Japanese English teachers have spent enough time around foreigners that they understand this is not part of your culture, and are generally friendly, if not completely sympathetic to your situation. Unfortunately, there are others who don't.

Compounding this are the insane amount of unpaid overtime hours new teachers are expected to put in during their first year, and some of these old-school teachers may see your "going home on time" as a sign of disrespect, despite overtime hours being against your contract.
Again, completely cultural.

She probably has nothing against you personally, and I wouldn't spend too long brooding over it.
Just do your job the best you can,and if the hostility escalates, talk to the Vice Principal or whoever hired you about it.

[Kanashibari]

I'm saying this because, while I'm a f/t teacher now employed by the school and no longer an ALT, I started to suffer some of the same problems in this new school with the HRT, until an exasperated reaction from myself during test time forced her to take me aside and explain it all to me.
Generally, she explained how she had nothing whatsoever against me, and even thought I was doing an excellent job as a teacher, but that she's got to be tough on new teachers, no exceptions, and how a few years ago she used to have to go through the same shit I'm going through now.....

[davidrhys]

He has been a JH school teacher for many years.
If he was a younger teacher, I wouldn't mind so much having a word with him about the world of team-teaching. It is because he is an old guy, and seen as a highly experienced teacher by everyone else, that I think is making him so unwilling to play ball.
You all know that sadly test scores / learning the test language comes first in JH school classrooms, and a fun learning environment is pushed aside far too often.

I just don't get why this guy is so darn clueless and unwilling to involve me. As I mentioned, the other English teachers and I get along so well, and classes are great. They seem to get the idea that when the ALT is there, it is time for the kids to actually...shock horror...relax a bit and use the English they have been drilled with whist I was not there.

Hmmm...What to do. Speak to him again? Go to my coordinator? Causally bring it up at my next BoE meeting?

[jeisensei]

Hmm... Had a teacher or two or three like that in my past. It sounds to me like he hit on a teaching style that he thinks works and leads to higher grades on tests. I could be wrong but it seems to me like he has pride in his style and probably will not be willing to change it for anyone. When I had to deal with teachers like this I just went with it. It's not like you are loosing out on anything by not going with it.

If you really want to change things so the students are enjoying the class that may be a different story. I would talk with him and tell him that his teaching style is good and it may get a lot of good results on tests, but it may not be fostering a respect for and love for English in the heart of his students. You should mention that every so often it would be great if the students could play with the English so they could see how fun English could be. Tell him there is a difference between memorizing a subject and loving a subject and you want the students to have a little love for English as well as memorizing it for the test.

[Kanashibari]

At my school, there is an English class where the Japanese teacher goes through the test/exam stuff, while my class is called Oral Communication where it's basically the "let's have fun speaking English" class totally up to me.... Team teaching is by request only, pretty much. I think this system has worked pretty well so far.