FurukawaHS_typicalday

LIFE at Furuko is great. I mean shoot, I have the time to do cool things like make this web page! I will try to save my comments about the JET Program in general for a page dealing specifically with that issue. For now, I just want to give some general details about my typical week at school - the teachers, the students, and that krazy element of English class known by High School ALT's all over Japan simply as - "OCA" (Oral Communication "A").

(This is Kate, the previous Furuko ALT. She's living in the UAE now, teaching English at a University. Heeeyy SUGOI! The teacher in the foreground is Abe Sensei. He's still here - a very nice man who likes to study French and watch movies!)

(While classes aren't generally this large, the picture does give you an idea of the atmosphere of a typical classroom - very large, ordered, and (usually) lecture style. My thoughts on this system can be found here.)

There are actually two kinds of ALTs on the JET Program - those contracted by the Prefecture (most commonly in High Schools) and those contracted by local cities or municipalities (most often Junior High, and in some cases elementary school ALTs). Being a high school ALT (contracted by Miyagi Prefecture), I don't have weekly face-to-face contact with my contracting organization - something which depending on the situation can prove to be either a blessing, or most often a headache. Each weekday, I report for duty at Furuko at 8:20 am, and I am officially allowed to leave at 4:00 pm. I teach only 6 classes a week - once a week for each of 6 first-year classes, which leaves me with around 34 hours of "off time". I try to spend this time being as productive as possible - studying Japanese, visiting with other teachers, planning lessons, and most recently - starting a web page! Of course, I have been known on occasion to slip off to the library to read...