School Lunch (Kyuushoku)
Junior high schools have a provided traditional style lunch provided every day, you will be charged a very small amount. You may decline the offer and bring your own. High schools generally don't have provided lunch.

It will be prepared and placed on your desk. In the classrooms the student cooperate in arranging the class and serving the meal. It often consists of a bowl of plain white rice, soup, and okazu. In a traditional meal rice is the staple and okazu is the small tasty dishes that go with it. Fried chicken, boiled vegetables, pickles and often something sweet such as a (small) piece of fruit. School lunch includes a bottle of milk.

You may like to get into the habit of eating with the students, you'll probably be more than welcome. Try to move around between the groups and don't always sit with your favourites. Make a roster or use your visit as a reward. Conversation can be a problem, see below for ideas.

Students
The stereotype of quiet, polite, hard working students may not be what you find. Junior high school students tend to be well behaved especially in the earlier years but in third year it is obvious many students are being left behind, have no intention of going to high school and have no motivation to study, certainly not English. You need to remember that your desire to teach is not necessarily matched by the desire to learn, but teaching is only a part of your job.

You can distribute card for each student to write his or her name on.

Boys are addressed by family name KUN, eg Yamamoto Kun. Girls are addressed by family name SAN eg Yamamoto San. Boys generally don't like being called SAN. You might call some of the girls by their given name or nickname, but again boys generally don't like this, in fact some will be offended. You'll get a feel for this quickly. Girls often have a nickname based on their given name often with CHAN, for instance Natsumi can be Natsu or Natchi; Yukiko can be Yuki, or Yu-chan. Despite gender, your students are may get offended if you start calling them their nicknames right from the start, but once you get to know each other better, listen for what the students call each other and you can copy it.

At elementary and junior high school students wear name tags, but usually not at high school. Of course you probably can't read the names as they are written in Japanese, even Japanese have problems. Many common names such as Yamamoto, Nakagawa, Yamaguchi are very easy to read and you'll pick them up easily. In each class room there will be a seating plan. Every time the class seating plan changes ask a student or two in each class to write out the new plan with the names in hiragana. Each boy and girl has a number, you can call on students in case by "girl number three" or "boy number five".

The variation in standards of high schools means you could be placed in teacher's heaven or hell. Finding a way to reach out to the bad kids can be a major problem.

The students probably want to befriend you but starting a conversation is difficult for both of you. A good idea is to learn something about the latest entertainment fads, not easy with limited Japanese skills, then they will always have a starting point. The students have a plastic sheet which they place in their exercise books to prevent smudging previous pages. These are usually theme based, pop stars, sportsmen, cartoon characters and occasionally something academic. These are a good indicator of their interests. You may be surprised at which foreign bands are popular particularly with high school students; a few years ago Offspring's "Ixnay On the Hombre" was very popular.

Japanese people take their fun very seriously. Choose a favourite band and if possible a favourite member. If the students don't approve find out why. Encourage the students to tell you about their favourites, to bring magazines or newspaper cuttings in. You may find mini-discs or even CDs given as presents or loans. Don't express strong dislikes but say you prefer others. This can be the basis of an English project, the students design posters telling about their favourite pop star.

Similarly with sport. Japanese players who are successful overseas become superstars at home and it is hard to avoid them. Sumo is not particularly popular with students but they will be impressed if you know a couple of names.

Many of the boys will have computer games at home, "ge-mu" in Japanese.

Being both friendly and firm can be a challenge for both you and the students. If you are in a position where you have to discipline (not physically please) make an effort to seek out that student afterwards and show you are not still angry (may take some acting though). It is possible to turn the bad students into loyal devotees.

Speaking Japanese is a real dilemma. Your job is not just teaching English but also "Internationalisation". If you do speak Japanese you can discuss international things and broaden their horizons. The risk is the English classes become Japanese classes. Getting the students to drill you in Japanese can be fun. Practicing counting, verb conjugations (inflections) and learning onomatopoeia (words that mimic sounds) is useful for your Japanese but also can encourage the students to study English.

The School Year
The beginning of the academic year is April but you will arrive during summer vacation for the beginning of second term. Dates vary but the following is a useful guide. Remember rule number one?

First week of August	Arrive at new home
Second week of August	Obon, a group of national holidays during summer vacation
end of August or beginning of September	Second term starts. Areas that have a lot of snow start one or two weeks earlier as they have more time off during winter vacation.
December 22	Second term ends. Earlier for private schools
January, end of first week or Tuesday of second week	Third term starts Some snow areas have a break in late January
March, end of third week	Third term ends.
April, end of first week	First term starts
April 29, May 3, 4, 5	Golden Week, four holidays called Golden week. A few extra holidays can stretch this out.
July 19	end of first term.

The government has announced that national holidays will be moved to make long weekends.

School Staff Positions
All teachers are given the title "sensei" which means teacher. In most cases you will address teachers as family name sensei, eg Yamamoto-sensei. You can simply call them sensei, particularly if you can't remember their names.

The principal of the school is known as Kouchou-sensei his is not called by named, he usually has his own office separate to the teachers room. He, there are very few women Kouchou-sensei, does not teach but is more like an executive. He gives speeches, entertains dignitaries and gets thoroughly bored. Watch out, if he speaks any English at all he'll become your best friend, maybe.

The Vice-principal is known as Kyoutou-sensei. He is really the head teacher; he runs the academic side of the school, teaches, and is responsible for both student and teacher discipline.

Kyoumu-sensei is the senior teacher. He is responsible for teaching related administration, including schedules and rosters in addition to his teaching duties.

Teachers usually only teach one subject.

Each class has a home-room teacher. At Junior High Schools the teachers sit grouped together by the grade (year) they teach, although most will teach several grades. The Gakunen-shu-nin is the head of each grade. The JET will sit with one of the grades next one of the English teachers. This teacher is supposed to tell you what is going on (good luck).

At High Schools the teachers are grouped by subject. Kyouka-shu-nin is the subject head. Obviously ALTs will sit with the English teachers, although sitting with the Physical Education teachers would be a lot more fun, well if you're a guy.

Getting to School
Junior High School ALTs will probably live quite close to their schools and bicycle is the most likely mode of transport. However in some cities the ALTs change school every term meaning everyone has a long way to travel.

During the winter a friendly teacher may pick you up.

Trains and buses are very efficient but can be very expensive. The bus timetables can be very confusing and of course the names of suburbs impossible to read, get help to understanding the timetable. Learning the kanji for each of the subjects will be very useful.

Many JETs buy cars. A good small second hand car can be bought for 100,000 to 200,000 yen. If you are not proud 60,000 to 80,000 yen will buy a car. You need to be aware of shakken, the road worthiness certificate, on older cars it is due every two years and cost around 100,000 yen although it can vary greatly. Insurance of 90,000 yen a year is typical, but you have a lot of choice of options. Some Boards of Education try to prevent ALTs even owning cars or preventing use during work hours. You can worry about this after you have arrived in Japan, talk to your predecessor. The Boards are obviously concerned about your safety, physical, financial and legal, but no Japanese citizen would accept similar prohibitions. CLAIRS official policy is no one can prevent you from owning a car.

High School ALTs often live downtown close to each other but having to commute some distance. Your supervisor (maybe with a bit of prompting) will advise you how to get to school.

Daily routine
The daily routine varies slightly between regions, as well as between junior high school and high school, but is similar to the following. High schools do not have school lunch so the students will often leave the class to eat.

8:15	teachers meeting, students arrive at their home room and organise themselves
8:30	home teachers go to their classrooms
8:45	period 1 (50 minute class, 10 minute break)
9:45	period 2
10:45	period 3 (some schools have a longer break before period 3)
11:45	period 4
12:35	Lunch. Junior high: home room teachers go to home rooms. Students form desks into "lunch groups" and nominated students serve lunch. ALTs usually eat in the teachers room you can probably eat with the students. After lunch the students have some free time.
1:20	period 5
2:20	period 6
3:10	school cleaning (some clean the school after lunch)
3:30	home room meeting
3:45	clubs
6:00	go home (varies greatly on season, can be as early as 4 in winter)

The authors schedule was 18 periods a week, this was a bit higher than many of his friends. You will probably be free to go home at 4 to 4:30pm. Those last two hours can really drag out.

You will be given a timetable that will show all the teachers (high school: just the English) teachers and who they are teaching. You will appear as (for example) an asterisk against another teacher's name. This is your "team teaching" class.

There will be daily changes to your schedule and holidays. Unfortunately you probably will not find out until you arrive at school, instead of having three periods to prepare you have the first three classes. This is very common but totally unacceptable as these changes are planned and documented months before. Insist on copies of the calendar, even if you can't read it. Arriving in the morning to find a closed school happens occasionally.

One disappointment is that ALTs have lots of free time but the students don't. It is difficult to find more time with the students outside of your normal classes. A solution is to tell the other teachers that they should feel free to take you along to any classes if you are free. The author ended up going to 3 out of 4 first year classes with his favourite teacher, but often just floated around checking textbooks or being a speaking dictionary. More often than not standing at the back watching her fill the blackboard with Japanese, but it was better than sitting in the teachers' room staring at the walls.

Classes are held two Saturday mornings every month plus extra activities such as sports days. ALTs aren't expected to attend Saturday classes but are expected to attend weekend sports days. The Education Department has announced that Saturday classes will be stopped, but this only applies to government schools.

Clubs
Junior High School students must attend a club whereas at High School they are usually optional but very popular. Clubs are supervised (to varying degrees) by a teacher, less commonly, a parent.

Clubs include

• Sports: judo, kendo, baseball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, karate (rare), basketball
• Music: brass band
• Academics: English, Mathematics
• Culture: painting, drawing, tea ceremony,

Most clubs are gender segregated, boys tend not to play volleyball and girls tend not to play baseball. Tennis is usually the only club that has equal numbers of girls and boys. Of course they don't play together, or even talk to each other.

ALTs can participate in some clubs. Tennis is good for mixing with the students. You may like to learn Kendo or Judo. ALTs occasionally run their own clubs, but for first year ALTs this is usually not practical.

Relations with the Teachers
ALT relations with teachers varies greatly. In general the more Japanese you speak the better it will be. In general the teachers will have no idea what it is like for you to travel across the world to work in their school.

In general the better English teachers will be glad to have you while the poor teachers will not. The dichotomy of JET is the good teachers want you the most but need you the least, the teachers who want you the least need you the most.

Working with good teachers can be hard work, they will be at you to help them with coming up with new ideas, checking homework and organising or being involved in cultural activities. Of course that's why you've come to Japan.

Working with bad teachers is not necessarily a bad thing. You could find yourself as nothing more than a human tape recorder. This gets boring and tedious "Chiaki Mukai was the first Japanese woman in space. She said that..." But you won't have much preparation to do and you"ll be largely left yourself. Finding things to do can be a real hassle. Offer to check workbooks and work-sheets. Simply because you are a native speaker you can quickly check stacks of work and find mistakes that the other teachers would spend hours on and not find most mistakes. This is especially important for the first years, they will often write characters incorrectly, backwards ("dog and bog"), or make blatant spelling errors. Getting these early is important. The order students write is likely to be wrong, "t" is written vertical stroke first then horizontal, whereas the kanji for 10 (ju) which resembles a cross is written horizontal first.

Finding out what is going on is the biggest problem in school. The JET mantra is "I never know what is happening". The teachers simply forget you don't know or do not want to bother you. Consequently you may find the teachers leaving you at the school alone with admin staff while they go to a regional meeting and the students go home. Do not accept this.

The teachers may assume you have no social life and invite you to everything from tennis competitions to the local community flower-arranging club. On the other hand you may have no social life and be desperate for anything. Make it known if you want to be involved in school activities or other events.

Often there will be garbage collection days, visits to cultural events and projects around the school during school hours, and concerts and competitions at other times. You may not be asked to help, as it's not part of your job. If you are "invited" you need to watch the language being used "Please come to the concert on Friday" may sound like a command but it's probably meant as a request. "You must come to the sports day on Sunday" may sound rude, but at least you know that it is your job. Generally for obligatory things a day off in lieu is given.

It's these areas that communication in English can be difficult. If you find that you are told about obligations far too late make a fuss but comply. For example if you are told about a weekend sports day on the Friday before, claim you had planned to visit Kyoto with some friends. Wait until this has made it up to Kyoutou-sensei then tell them you'll change your plans.

First Term
High school ALTs may have been sitting at their desks during August not doing much, being busy during the first week of school will be a relief and not too much of a shock. Junior high school ALTs may have been at the Board of Education or taking it easy somewhere else, the first week will be the first dose of your new reality.

You will be introduced to the staff at one of the morning meetings a very short speech in Japanese is in order, see example. Later there will be a formal welcome ceremony in front of the whole school in the gymnasium. Everyone else will be standing but as the guest of honour you'll be seated. The principal with make a speech about "this special occasion" and you'll be called up to the podium you can either make a simple speech in Japanese or speak in English while one of the teachers translates from a transcript you wrote earlier, see example. As you approach the podium principal will most likely be standing next near you, deep bow to him. Turn to the students, approach the podium and shallow bow, they and the teachers will return the bow. There will be complete silence. Make your speech, when you've finished shallow bow to the students; they will return the bow. Turn to the principal and deep bow, he will return your bow, scoot off. Easy when you know.

You will produce work-sheets and may check student notebooks. Correct answers are marked with a circle (maru in Japanese) not a check (tick), and incorrect answers with a cross (batsu). Good work has a huge spiral drawn over the entire sheet in a coloured felt tip pen. Submitted work usually gets a stamp in the bottom right. You will need rubber stamp and if you can, little "well done" stickers. Your signature could be one of the most prized possessions.

Reward good work in class with clearly defined set of rewards. All correct (or rather finished) work gets the big spiral over the whole sheet. The first three students get an additional five pointed star and signature. The next ten get just the star. You may have some "special" students that try hard but simply don't have the ability, find some way of encouraging them.

You may have hundreds of students, in fact over 500. You can't give gifts to them all but if you produce a merits system you can reward students in each class. For example you mark the students notebooks with your hanko (name stamp) every time they (attempt to) answer a question, finish a worksheet, or do well in a test. You can provide bonuses for writing you a letter. A bit of effort can make this more interesting, make a sheet with a series of squares that lead through a path. Perhaps they can become a Jedi English Master or tour a map of your country. You must not be too kibishii (severe) with handing out rewards.

Culture shock is real, no matter how flexible you think you are, you will experience culture shock. See separate section of culture shock.

First term you will be so busy you will struggle to really catch up on what is going on. If you want to travel at Christmas time you'll want to plan this early. Unfortunately planning a holiday when you have only just arrived may not be very diplomatic but you need to plan early. See travel section.

Self Introduction Class
"My name is Tom. I am American. I like cats. My hobby is movies."

Your first classes will be a self-introduction. You'll work with several teachers and they will have different opinions of what constitutes an introduction. You may have only ten minutes or a whole period, may need to produce a work sheet or activity based on your introduction.

Bring lots of visual aids, photos of family, pets, family home, car, city, map or make one, and some favourite items, this way students who don't understand any English will follow, hopefully this will be the one class they don't sleep through. "She's holding up a photo of her holding a cat, probably her pet. Two older people, probably parents"

For junior high school you'll have to keep it really simple. "I like CATS. This is MY cat. Her NAME is sooty". For high school students you can provide some comparative data on your country to Japan, size, population, exports/imports. For example Australia is much bigger than Japan but has much less people, why? America has people from many countries but Japan has only Japanese, or does it? Japan plays soccer and baseball but England only plays soccer. Photos of Japanese things in your home country, such as a Japanese restaurant, will be very interesting.

First year junior high students are still crazy and you'll be able to involve them directly. "Who likes cats?" You may find third years completely unresponsive.

Middle Term
During winter vacation think you want to accomplish and about the problems you've had and discuss them with fellow ALTs, you'll find your experiences are similar.

Most teachers probably want a "tame" ALT, one who doesn't have too many ideas, but don't let that put you off.

As mentioned above knowing what is going on in your schools is the biggest problem. Be ready to solve these problems straight away, suggest solutions if you can. Problems with teachers are a more difficult problem but if they are serious escalate them quickly. It may be difficulty to deal with an incompetent or lazy teacher, but offensive and inappropriate behaviour needs to be fixed.

It is best to resolve these issues when you are fresh back from winter vacation rather than later in the term during the end of the academic year stress.

You will be asked about your renewal preferences early in the year. The second year can be great seeing your students graduate and you are more competent in your job and you get a greater feeling of belonging, you'll be here another 18 months not 6, you can make yourself more comfortable travel or study Japanese over summer vacation. On the other hand if it is not rewarding now the last 6 months will be dreadful. The JET Programme can be great, but are you developing yourself or just putting off making important decisions.

At the end of third term, the middle or second term for you, the third years will graduate and go of to high school or start their adult life. You'll be surprised how little you really got to know them.

Last (?) Term
In April you'll find new teachers have replaced some of the old. You may not even have been told that they were leaving. This change can be slightly disorientating, just as you were getting life sorted out your teachers change. If you've become attached to a teacher over several years this might be one of your first goodbyes. However this can be an important change, if this is your last year you may find life dragging on, the change can be refreshing.

You'll need to start planning your departure or plans for summer.

Seating plan
Each class has a seating plan. This changes regularly, perhaps once a month. In each class there should be a diagram of the class with the family name of each student. Ask one of the students to write the names of all the students in hiragana above the kanji or make a new plan for you with the students preferred name, nickname or family name

Attendance book
In the teachers room is a book which you'll stamp with your hanko (name stamp) every morning.