Life as a JET

In 1999-2000, I lived and worked in Japan, teaching English through the JET Programme. For those who don't know, the JET Programme is run by the Japanese government and recruits and places native English speakers from around the world into teaching jobs in Japanese public schools. I was placed in a public junior high school in Ageo City , in Saitama Prefecture, about an hour north of Tokyo.

On arriving in Japan, I did not speak any Japanese, as this isn't required for the job. It does make getting around a bit difficult though! I spent over two hours in store the first time I went grocery shopping, and wound up buying fruit and several unidentifiable items. I had to buy both sugar and salt so I could take them home and figure out which was which!

Each JET is assigned to their own school, which means you will spend the majority (if not all) of your day being the only non-Japanese person around! This can be very lonely if you can't communicate. Levels of English very widely, from region to region and school to school, but in general expect most Japanese not to speak English. Even if they do, they may never speak it to you. There were people in my school who spoke very good English but did not tell me this until I was leaving at the end of the year!

Since JET's are not required to have any teaching experience (and most don't) the lessons can be quite interesting. Though you teach in tandem with a Japanese English teacher, you are expected to do most of the lesson planning yourself. Needless to say my lessons consisted of Simon Says, Duck Duck Goose and many variations of Jeopardy! The students are mostly all eager to learn though and greatly look forward to the lessons with the "gaijin" ("foreigner") teacher.

I could write pages and pages of what it was like to live in Japan for a year and will probably write several more articles on the subject. For this one, suffice it to say, it was an amazing experience, a fascinating culture, though I'd be lying if I didn't say it was lonely at times. The best part was being able to travel all around Asia on vacations and see many amazing countries and people.

BY: Alana