ALTI 004 : Fighting the Tape Recorder ONLY Role

In my opinion, the best way to work in JHS is as a member of a team with your JTE's, rather than being resigned to a role of tape recorder, provider of a 15 minute activity every class, or having to run the whole class myself. In this podcast, I give some strategies to help you work towards that goal of having the most fun in your Junior High Schools with as many of your teachers as possible! Resist. (Right click here to download the MP3) Things Mentioned in This Episode: FY Obituary Tape Recorder Role Warm-Up Game Working with your JTEs Envelopes Eating Koalas Last Minute Games Say No to Stickers Thing to do: Leave a Review in itunes! (Click here) Transcript: Expand to Read Transcript James: Hello ALT Insiders! Welcome to episode 004, the ALT Insider podcast all about how you can be more than just a piece of electronics at your junior high schools. If you want to, of course, let's get to it. Tantalizing Announcer: Welcome to the ALT Insider podcast dedicated to making you have the most fun possible wild living or dreaming about living in Japan. Whether you've been for years or just starting to consider it, we've got you covered. And now, your host, broadcasting from somewhere in Japan - James. James: Okay, guys. Yes, it is James from the ALT Insider podcast, welcome to episode 004. And today, before we get going, I want to get into why the intro has the epic guy's voice and I come in with the stupid "James," and that is because, well, on the website, I used to go by the name F.Y. until I said I wanted to be James at the website. You can read all about that, altinsider.com/FYobituary. But after I came out, as using my real name James, I had to change the guy's intro. So instead of hire him again to make the voice intro, I just did it myself that's why it sounds way less cool than his voice, but we work with what we have, right? Okay, so I hope you guys are having a great time in Japan. In the beginning of the show, this is where I read the iTunes review and I have one here from jetjackson5 and he says, the title was, "Subbed," and he says, "Keep it rockin'." And I do keep on rocking it, if you would like to leave a review, please do and I will read it on the next podcast possibly, of course. Okay, so today's topic: how to resist the role of "tape recorder" when you're working in junior high schools. So first, let's go over what a junior high school ALT does. Now for me, it's kind of like four choices, four uses that ALTs have in junior high schools. One is the ALT that is only a tape recorder. Now what this means is, the teacher does their class and every time they would use a, push a tape recorder to read a vocab, to read a dialogue, they have you do that instead. That is the definition of your job, you're a tape recorder, you are the natural pronunciation machine. When they need something repeated, they repeat after you. Now there's another way, now, adding on to that, some teachers use a different method. So while you're also a tape recorder, you're also maybe a 15-20 minute activity producer. So what that means is, while also doing the tape recorder role, you say at the end of the class or before the class, you'll be given 15 minutes to do an activity, whatever you want, that has to do with that, whatever the grammar points are that you're covering in the class. Of course this is a little bit better, a little bit more work for you but it does give you an opportunity to actually do some stuff in the class rather than just be a piece of electronics. This is probably the most common use of junior high school ALTs. Oh, by the way, elementary school ALTs usually do the whole class. Of course there are some situations where the teacher does more but most of the times you do everything, but today we're talking about junior high school. Okay so we went over the only tape recorder, we went over the teacher who does 15-minute activities plus tape recorder,