JET ALT

So, I was talking to some about this and they suggested that I blog about it. JET is a government program that allows people from other countries to come into Japan and work. The most popular position that covers for 90% of JETs is ALT or 'Assistant Language Teacher'. An ALT is pretty much assigned to a school (or several schools) and he assists generally with English class. (Actually, ALTs can be teaching any Language, but mostly English). ALTs have 2 major requirements: Be an native speaker in the language you teach and have Bachelors degree. There are some other age-related and how much time you spent in Japan requirements. More information can be found on their website.

But I wish to talk about my personal thoughts about this. I have definitely considered becoming an ALT almost as soon as I came here, even meeting kids with the primary purpose of seeing if I can handle this and getting some experience. My final thought is that, while I think I could work with kids, I seriously doubt I would do ALT now. There are several reasons for this. First, ALT is not a career and JET limits you to 5 years. This puts you in a rather silly position in Japan, where lifetime employment is a big part of the culture, and while it is fading, teachers do generally get lifetime tenure. As such you are not really teacher, since you have a college degree, it also seems like you should have a serious job at a company.

I have met some JET's and a lot of them feel like outsiders. They justify this because they are 'Gaijin' (a derogatory term for western foreigner), personally, however, I disagree with this assessment. I think they are outsiders because they are ALT's for the reasons stated above, rather then their nationality. This is based on my personal experiences at AIU versus what I've been told by JETs.

Having met some ALT's I can definitely see ALT as sort of a "finding yourself" thing. I think this why I got to do Study Abroad, my thoughts however, more and more, is that I do have the background to do a more serious job. Yes, I will have to learn Japanese, but this was my intention from the beginning.

And of course there is the little thing of ALT's getting pretty poor near minimum wage pay. Now, there is another position that does require Japanese knowledge (ALT has no Japanese language requirement) which JET CIR, or coordinator for international relations. They pretty much put you in a local government office to assist them with things such as translating, interpreting, maybe dealing with some international guests. Possibly, occasionally teach English. apparently this various quite a bit based on where you are.