a large part of my life as an ALT here comprises sitting in the office and being bored. well, i borrowed a DS Lite off a friend with a kanji recognition tool and started trying to read japanese books - my electronic dictionary doenst have the kanji writing pad, which makes it a pain to find out the meaning of kanji i dont know - which has stopped me from feeling bored or reading newspapers on the internet too much. but the long and short of it is that i dont have enough lessons in school.
it's the final term of the school year, and teachers are focusing on revision and have no time to allow their students to play games with ALTs. this means that down from my already light load of 2 to 4 classes a day, i now have only 1 to 2 classes a day, which is A LOT of free time if you're at work from 8.15am to 4.15pm. all this free time sounds great if you're interested in mugging really hard for JLPT or something, but i've unfortunately completely and totally lost interest in studying all those grammar and impossible-to-remember-the-reading-of-them kanji. everyone says that i might as well try for level 1 since i've already come this far, but i'm really doubtful as to whether i'm up to it or not.. I barely passed 2, and that was based on luck and my ability to recognise and guess the meaning of kanji due to my chinese ability!
anyhow, it just makes me wonder why the teachers here dont give me more work to do. they know my schedule and i'm sure they know i'm really free, yet they're handling all these things on their own that they could easily pass on to me. like some of my students are preparing for the Eiken Test, which is the English equivalent of JLPT for japanese students. there's an interview round that they have to sit for too, and that teacher is training them for that component. she rushed in and out of my room to prepare for that session with the students, which made me wonder why couldnt she just have passed them on to me.
same thing with another teacher, which actually pissed me off yesterday. we team-teach a class, from which 1 student is taking the Eiken test. however, yesterday when the Brit and I were sitting at our desks, both equally absorbed in our own non-work activities, he approached the Brit and asked him to train that girl instead of me!
now, the Brit is indeed friendlier and bothers to chat with this teacher more often than i do, and it's understandable if he feels more comfortable asking the Brit for non-work related favours and so on. but this is work, and this girl is a student of mine and not the Brit's, and no matter how i look at it i cant say anything but that he ought to have asked me to do this and not the Brit. it wasnt even like they were chatting and he happened to bring this student up with the Brit; he walked into the room, called the Brit and started telling him about this girl whom he needs to coach.
i just cant help but feel like this teacher broke some rule that i didnt even knew existed till he broke it. asking the Brit to coach a student whom he has no relation to whatsoever when he could have easily asked me who was sitting just 30cm away? ZETTAI DAME. at first i thought that perhaps the Brit has something to offer that i dont - like a british accent, which some teachers think is better for recordings and stuff - but no. zilch. nothing at all. there's even the possibility that i can even do a better job than the Brit, cos i can explain things directly to the student in japanese rather than requring this teacher to translate my english so that she understands! (this teacher, by the way, has rather bad english, and sometimes doesnt even translate the brit's advice or explanations to the student accurately...)
it just pisses me off and makes me feel UNWILLING to help him or bother to try to chat with him. urgh. there's just NO REASON why he should have asked the Brit and the fact that i teach that girl should make me more or less the default person to ask if she needs help from a native english speaker!! urgh.
anyway, dunno lah. the government is spending so much money on hiring us JETs and not making full use of us. and i feel even more under-utilised at times, as i do know enough japanese to be able to help with translating not-too-complicated things from japanese into english, like student essays for speech contests and so on, and depending on the student's intelligence and english level (and the teacher whose job i'll be taking over) i can help them with whatever tests or questions that they might have. i just feel like they ought to make use of me more since i have this extra language skill that JET doesnt even require, and they can tap me for it while not having to pay me extra!
beh. i just wish they'll give me more things to do during school hours.
0 comments:
Post a Comment