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JET Masterpost

Trying to collect a ton of resources here for JETs, current and prospective. Some of the links are straight up blog posts, others are asks answered by JETs that might be useful. With all of these, remember (all together now) Each Situation Is Different:

Applying for JET:

Becoming an ALT in Japan (not only JET)

So you’re considering JET…

How much does JET care about tattoos?

What does JET look for anyway? - Info from older sources, but still V relevant

The JET Application isn’t Free - (A US based post about potential costs on the route to the JET program, but relevant everywhere)

The JET Interview (ESID, so collating posts from many sources):

The British Interview - My Experience, Tips, Ideas

The Dreaded JET-erview

“What is the best way to respond to questions about “how would you deal with harassment/gender discrimination in the workplace?”

After Acceptance/Prepping for JET:

Why does JET want me to bring so much money? ( @nihongogogo‘s informative post on why JET asks you to bring so much, and why you should bring it)

“Do you have ideas for questions to ask your predecessor?”

What to pack for JET? - @tofugu‘s guide to the essentials

“How do you pack for JET?” - hints and tips on extras and things to double check

After you arrive:

JET Program Survival Resources - Tofugu (A frankly incredible list that should be in every JET’s faves bar)

Changing a UK (and some others) Driving Licence to a Japanese one: Part 1/Part 2

All kinds of cellphone info (correct at time of writing! May have changed)

Being a JET with health problems

Mental Health Services on JET (thanks to @maia-abroad and @nihongogogo)

Cool Biz/Work Outfits Masterpost (For Ladies) - via @readysetgaikokujin and Extra Tips from @nihongogogo

What to do before work starts (Thanks @greetingsfromfukushima )

Other:

Shopping:

The Meat Guy (Meat. Lots of it. Mystery Bundles!)

Travel:

Hyperdia (The only train timetable site you’ll need)

Learning Japanese:

English Grammar terms in Japanese (via @hotmesssensei)

Anki Flashcards - Spaced repetition with many shared decks for Japanese learners (iphone, android, PC, Linux, Mac, web)

Kanji Koohii - Flashcards and mnemonics for those using Heisig’s Method

There are many online dictionaries around, find the one that works for you - the two most used I’ve seen are WWWJDIC and jisho.org - Jisho is often good for quick lookups, where WWWJDIC has many specialised dictionaries to search.

JLPT Guides - Here, Here, and here - as JLPT doesn’t publish study lists, many of these are gleaned from past tests. Still a good resource to find your basic level.

Maggie-sensei - a fun Japanese learning blog that’s helped me out with grammar a few times

Japanese Four Character compounds/sayings - more interesting than anything else, a good way to unwind while still using Japanese

JETs on Tumblr:

peraperapeter - Aomori-ken

readysetgaikokujin - Aomori-ken

greetingsfromfukushima - Fukushima-ken

Lesson Plans/Class Resources:

Tips on how to support English Language Learners

Irasutoya - Free cute images

Many of these links were provided by other JET tumblrs, thank you so much! If there are any links you’d like added/removed, or if you wish to add your tumblr to the JETs on Tumblr section, message me!

tundrafoot

And some of y'all will still say there’s no chance of dating in the inaka.

EDIT: Alternative title: Are these herbivore men I keep hearing about.

sagaprefecturejet

If you wanna get ahead you’ll give this cabbage patch kid a chance.

jeshikawa

Anyone up for some Q&A? I want to say I’m doing this to help incoming JETs that are picking at the tag for research but I’m honestly just a nosey person and want to know too. Long time snooper, first-time asker. Reblog with your answers. Be as vague or a specific as you want because I get sensitivity! ありがとうございます。

Where are you from?

Why JET?

How long do you plan on doing JET? If you’ve already left, how many years did you do?

Did you speak Japanese before coming on JET?

How have you learned/improved your Japanese on JET?

How helpful was your predecessor?

Where are you placed? Is it urban/suburban/rural? Is it what you requested/wanted? How do you like it?

Are there any other JETs in your area or are you the “only JET on the island?”

What grades do you teach? How many schools do you teach at?

Do you have a car? How do you get around (from school or for leisure)?

What kind of housing do you have? What was the state of your housing when you arrived?

What is your role in the school (from leading classes to tape recorder from planning lessons/grading to desk warming)?

Are you involved in English club?

Are you involved in any other clubs or activities (at school or outside?)

How much desk warming do you do?

What do you miss the most about home? Is there anything you’ve had a difficult time obtaining here in Japan (clothes that fit, medicine, ingredients, etc)?

Did you experience culture shock in Japan?

What’s one thing you love about your job and one thing you hate?

What do you do on your free time?

Are you down to answer any other questions?

tundrafoot

1. Quebec, Canada

2. That is tough. I knew I wanted to teach, though I was trying to decide between England, Japan, and Korea. I think what made me choose JET ultimately were alumnis telling me I would be great for the program, as well as my desire to continue martial arts. And yeah, I suppose a part of me always wanted to try living in Japan.

3. I’m in my second year, going on my third! I’m not sure yet about doing a fourth!

4. Ha-ha… I spoke almost nothing. Our consulate gives us a crash course on Japanese which really helped with the initial introductions though!

5. I have been taking classes at my local Kumon twice a week. It can be a struggle, but I do feel like I’ve improved a lot. I still got a ways to go though.

6. Very! Gave me the low-down of my schools and neighbourhood. Really got me pumped with a few pictures of my area.

7. I was placed in a city of about 260 000. My requests were I wanted a place that was semi-urban in Kyushu (ideally Fukuoka prefecture). So, I’d say I got pretty close to what I wanted. Sasebo, Nagasaki has been treating me well in general! Plus, Fukuoka City isn’t all that far off.

8. We have a pretty big group of about 18-20.

9. I’m at 7 schools, and teach elementary and junior high. I visit my JH schools weekly and my ES are rotated every Tuesday.

10. I do have a car! While it can be pricey at times, I do enjoy having the freedom driving. There are a lot of places I would not have visited without it.

11. I live in a 2DK apartment, fairly. It was nice and clean and furnished with the stuff I bought off my pred. Perfect for one person. I do have to pay everything however.

12. It varies from teacher to teacher. I plan activities, I lead classes, I am a human tape recorder, I create materials, I do listening tests, I (attempt) to do classroom management, and then… I desk warm.

13. Nope.

14. I do martial arts (naginata) once a week, I do koto once a week, and I’m part of a little art/writing group with some local JETs! I also sometimes do volleyball at my small JHS, though I’m terrible at it.

15. I feel it’s pretty balanced overall, though test times has me doing a lot of it. Usually my weeks are fairly busy though.

16. My friends/family, shoes, being able to speak the language fluently, certain types of food.

17. It comes and goes.

18. I love the freedom I’m given and most of my coworkers and students are awesome. Though I wish that I could do a little less classroom management and being the authority with tougher kids. I’m not great at it, so I’m not really viewed as the fun ALT. I also hate being viewed as an annoying bitch, but shoganai.

19. Gamesssss. And my other hobbies mentioned above. I also try to go around and try different restaurants in the area.

20. Drop me a message if you have any other questions.

life-in-the-inaka-deactivated20

1) South East UK

2) I honestly didn’t know what to do after university, a friend was signing up so I signed up too. JET is definitely one of the easier and safer ways to live and work in another country and honestly I just wanted that experience more than anything.

3) I’m close to going into my third year and it looks like I will become a unicorn and do all 5 years…

4) Zilch. Nada. I could barely even say ありがとうございます properly when I first came!

5) Mostly through self study and just picking it up from being here. Though nowhere near as much as I would have liked,… Currently I’m also using Kumons correspondence course and I use Wanikani a lot for kanji.

6) My pred was really really helpful! We kept in touch so I was asking her for advice and help for months after I came… She is back in Japan now so we still occasionally talk and meet up.

7) I’m on the Shimabara Hanto in Nagasaki-ken. I’m really rural, it’s an hour drive to the nearest train station. I really love my placement though <3 I get a bit pissed when people talk shit about the inaka… though I need to remember it’s not for everyone. I didn’t have a preference because I was in my last year at uni when I applied so didn’t have time to research areas. Honestly I was just happy to go to Japan and anywhere was OK!

8) Nagasaki JETs are split into area groups and the Shimabara Hanto group is pretty tight knit. We talk on Line all the time. I think there is about 23 of us. The closest ALT to me is a 5 minute drive. The furthest ALT in my area is close to a 2 hour drive.

9) I teach at 2 Junior High schools and 1 elementary school. So I teach all 9 grades. Though I don’t see the elementary students a lot. Each school is pretty small. One JHS has about 120 students, the other 100. The elementary only about 70..

10) I have a car. It’s really hard to get around here without one. For example my base JHS is a ten minute drive or an hour walk from my house thanks to a mountain in the way… The buses are infrequent and stop early and loads of places just isn’t accessible without a car.

11) I have a whole house! Like it’s way too big just for me, I have a whole room upstairs with nothing but clothes in it. It’s privately rented but I didn’t get a choice, its just been the ALT house for a while. It was a little dirty but I’m lucky that I didn’t inherit a lot of stuff/junk like most other ALTS.

12) I’m really lucky that all my schools really utilize me. I do a lot of team teaching and for most classes at least part of the class is me leading an activity. So I do a lot of planning and I do quite a lot of marking. Though more at one JHS than the other. Sometimes it sucks when I have so many lessons at each school that I don’t have time to plan everything in school time, so it eats into my personal time. Though that doesn’t happen as much as it did in my first year!

13) None of my schools have an English club.

14) I do shuji outside of school. A Sempai did it and helped introduce me.

15) Not a lot. If there’s an English lesson I go to it. If there’s two lessons at the same time, I go to one for the first half and the other the second half.

16) I miss friends and family mostly. I also miss bread!!! The bread here is weird and too sweet D:

17) Not really, I’m more worried about having reverse cultural shock when I visit home this summer.

18) I love interacting with my students, I love it when I can make an English activity fun for them. I hate that everyone has to work in the summer even though there’s no classes!

19) At school, I study Japanese, do AJET Connect stuff and procrastinate on the internet..

20) Yep :) the ESID aspect of JET can really suck and make things complicated but I can try my best to answer any questions!

astormyknight

Where are you from? NEW ZEALAND

Why JET? Heard about it in High School, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and then kind of went to Uni and they came recruiting and I applied and here we are!

How long do you plan on doing JET? If you’ve already left, how many years did you do? Until I can’t anymore. In my second, about to be third year.

Did you speak Japanese before coming on JET? Basic greetings. That’s it. I screwed up in Uni by not studying.

How have you learned/improved your Japanese on JET? Small children talk to me. Middle sized children talk to me. I basically learn via osmosis. Confused adults talk to me. I have recently sat down and started hitting the books. I use Genki as well as a couple of TRY! books. I go to lessons once a week.

How helpful was your predecessor? VERY. She was super on to it. I actually had two preds. One for my house, one for my schools. Both were really helpful.

Where are you placed? Is it urban/suburban/rural? Is it what you requested/wanted? How do you like it? I am in Matsuyama, in Ehime, on Shikoku. It’s pretty suburban/urban, but it’s easy to get to the rural parts. It’s nowhere near where I wanted to be. I had no idea where Ehime, let alone Matsuyama was….despite being 10 times bigger than Dunedin, it has a really similar feeling. I feel at home here…except for during summer. Where I die. It gets FAR too hot.

Are there any other JETs in your area or are you the “only JET on the island?” There are many. There are currently 32 or so JHS/ES ALTs in my city.

What grades do you teach? How many schools do you teach at? 5th Grade to 3rd year Junior High School. I have currently got two schools.

Do you have a car? How do you get around (from school or for leisure)? MAMACHARI!!!! I don’t have the money or parking space for a car.

What kind of housing do you have? What was the state of your housing when you arrived? Small inner-city apartment. It was clean and well furnished when I got here I paid for things from my house pred.

What is your role in the school (from leading classes to tape recorder from planning lessons/grading to desk warming)? Mix of everything. Basically depends on the teacher. I’m fairly involved with planning ect with one teacher at JHS, but the other three can be hit and miss. I’m usually a tape-recorder at JHS, but have been doing more recently. I make an effort to interact with students outside of the class too. At ES I am about 50/50 T1, again depends on the teacher.

Are you involved in English club? Yes, at ES I am in charge of leading children astray…I mean to interest in English.

Are you involved in any other clubs or activities (at school or outside?) I join in with the Soft Tennis club at my JHS when I can. Mainly as a a ball boy/water carrier/general nuisance. But other than that it’s not easy to get involved in the clubs unless you’re willing to devote you entire free time to it. Outside of school I train twice a week at a local Karate Dojo.

How much desk warming do you do? Just enough. I usually have at least one to two hours of desk time a day at my JHS, less at my ES, but most teachers here only teach for 5 out of six periods at JHS, so while I’m not doing as much work as they are, I’m in class around the same amount of time.

What do you miss the most about home? Is there anything you’ve had a difficult time obtaining here in Japan (clothes that fit, medicine, ingredients, etc)? Clothes that fit. Hokey Pokey Ice-cream. My cat. My fellow queers (the community is very male orientated here, as it is most places…)

Did you experience culture shock in Japan? A little bit towards the middle of my second year here. Had a rough patch with my health and wanted to light everything on fire because the paperwork and humming and hawing. I get frustrated with my inability to communicate simple things sometimes, and my heart breaks when you see kids withdraw from you because you cant answer their questions.

What’s one thing you love about your job and one thing you hate? LOVE THE KIDS. They are a constant source of joy (and at times pure frustration because DAMN, It’s October..not Octopus..)and in general their attitude to trying something new is so lovely. As cliched as it is, they are the BEST thing about this job. HATE - my ES supervisor. She’s a dragon/basically abuses her kids verbally and physically. I’ve so many issues with her which I’ve talked to with other teachers and staff about. Also the majority of the 2nensei at my JHS, they’re little punks, and not in the good way. It’s like getting water out of a stone to get most of them to focus. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fantastic kids in that age group, but there are more assholes in that year group than any previously or in the groups below. The collective attitude in that group is really bad.

What do you do on your free time? At work - reply to kids letters, read the news and update my English board/prep for my special needs classes and English club. Sometimes study. I’m RA for my region so I chip away at the to do list for that as well when I have time. At home - game, write, karate, read.

Are you down to answer any other questions? If ya’ll have any, throw them my way. ESID is for sure a thing as previous respondents have mentioned, but I’ll do my best!

#jet #jet program #jet programme #ALT #CIR #japan #japanese #teaching english #teacher #english #teaching in japan #teaching english in japan #AJET

Hello, and thanks for your interest in joining the CONNECT magazine team! CONNECT is a year-long commitment, 11 issues in total plus a website component, requiring a solid amount of time for the core positions, and an interest in working to bring great stories and resources to the community. At the end of your time at CONNECT, you will have a solid portfolio of work, experience in the publishing field, and about a dozen new friends around Japan. If you have any questions about this application, email [email protected]. The deadline for applications is Sunday June 4th, 11:59pm JST.

Connect Magazine is looking for applicants to join the team for next year! This is a great opportunity to get added experience and bolster your CV to really stand out from the crowd!

If you have interest, please fill out the form above before Sunday June 4th. If you have any questions please feel free to ask the Editor at [email protected]

Things got real this Friday — real funny — as non-Japanese living in Japan admitted their biggest blunders, mistakes and unpopular opinions using the #gaijinconfessionfriday hashtag.

#foreign residents #japan #gaijin #gaijin in japan #living in japan #working in japan #teaching in japan

Hear from the first two Filipinos who got accepted into the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme.

Did you know that since 2014, the JET Programme opened applications in the Philippines? Check out this interview with the two very first Filipino participants of the JET Program! 🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭

#philippines #japan #pinays #alt #jet #jet program #jet programme #teaching in japan #english #english in japan #teaching english #teaching english in japan

Girls, where is your notebook at? 😏 Credit: 雪印メグミルク公式チャンネル Full link here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVIUDx1n34

Take some notes. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The ultimate lesson planning application for English teachers in Japan. be the awesome!

Need some help with lesson planning? Want to share your epic ideas?

There's Eigomonster! ✨✨ You can lookup/share lesson plans and gather new ideas. New lesson plans will be posted everyday as well.

Made by ALTs, for ALTs.

#eigomonster #eigo #english #english teachers #english teacher #english teaching #alt #teaching in japan #japanese teachers #jte #jet #jet program #jet programme #japan #japanese #esl

tofugu

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential contains a wealth of information packed into one convenient place. It's obvious that every section was meticulously researched.

At first glance, the cover of Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teen Girls Made a Nation Cool by Brian Ashcraft and Shoko Ueda reminds me of one of those horrible “How to Draw Manga and Anime” books you see at the back end of the manga section at book stores. A few sentences into the first page I knew I had judged it unfairly.

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential contains a wealth of information packed into one convenient place. It is obvious that every section was meticulously researched, though there were a few small errors where detail is concerned. It was also written in an extremely familiar, engaging, and informative style, making it a breeze to read through what would otherwise seem like dense histories and analysis of what exactly makes the Japanese Schoolgirl so unique and vitally important within Japanese culture.

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