Assistant Language Teaching: Stretching Yourself
Kairakuen Park Bamboo Forest Stretching to the Sunlight, Ibaraki, April 2019.
Like many kinds of work, teaching is a challenging profession. Teaching in foreign country with little teacher training and variable expectations? That gives a lot of opportunities for growth and learning. Because every teaching situation is different, what we teachers need to do more than anything else is know ourselves and discover how to be most effective in our particular situations. This requires safe stretching.
When I first started my job as an assistant language teacher (ALT), I was told by both my predecessor I never met in real life and by another ALT, who had been here for two years before me, that “quiet personalities struggle in this job.” What does that even mean? They gave it in the context that you need to have fun with the kids. Okay, that makes sense. Then I was literally told that ALTs are not so much teachers, but more like English clowns or entertainers. So I’m supposed to act like a loud foreigner on some Japanese TV program. I’m supposed to fulfill some stereotype that people may not even believe in. I would rather think that the people I meet are smarter than that. I will not waste energy being bothered by those who are not able to see me an individual person.
It took six months for me to figure out the better advice I wish I could have had when I first came: Find your own style. Some things in life need to be learned through experience, and developing your way of doing things well takes time and experience. A good book also helps. It took me those six months to get back into reading books, and the first one I read was Susan Cain’s Quiet. It was just what I needed to look at my experience from a new perspective. It has been over a year since this realization, and I’m still learning more about myself and my job. I am much happier now. I can be myself more when I teach rather than entertain.
I would like to also note that the source of information on how you can improve is important. Is the advice coming from another ALT who has their own set of assumptions and interpretation of their work based on what previous ALTs told them and their own way of teaching, or is it coming from the Japanese teachers who actually know the kids and how you are affecting the class? None of the teachers I worked with said anything about me not being loud or active enough with the kids. Honestly, my job doesn’t give me much feedback at all. I have to ask the teachers I work with to let me know what I could do better in class. Usually this feedback only extends to whether a particular activity was effective, not my presentation of it. So that leads back to the obvious advice for anything you do with people in life: communication is important. Communicate with yourself, too, to make sure you are stretching safely.
Self-discovery takes time, effort, and an ability to see past what others tell you is the “right way” to do things. You don’t have to fit into the personality someone tells you is part of your job unless it is written in your job description or contract. In that case, you are signing up to act that way in your job. But there is always flexibility. Through my own experience, I know that I will be quite awkward and have a tendency to be quiet when trying something new. It took knowing me for a year for one of my college roommates to say, “Wow, Kate. You are actually quite funny.” I’ve improved on first impressions since then. The point is, it took time to warm up to my role in my job, and trying to act like someone else is stressful and less effective for everyone. So whatever your new job may be, find what works, play with it, and find your own style. I’m all for stretching yourself, but don’t injure yourself by trying to do something that goes against your comfortable stretching zone. You can get more flexible as you test out new styles step by step.
Find your path. Take advice from others consciously to improve yourself, but critically examine whether it actually works for you. Try stretching a little because you want to improve your skills and life, not because someone told you how you should act differently.
If you don’t get advice from smart and helpful people in real life, consider some books. Check out the books I’ve read since coming to Japan on my Recommended Books list. They helped me as much as my friends have in transitioning into life after college and my first job. Just pick whatever one calls out to you and try it out.