In Defence of the ALT II

Book Two – Larry Cotter and The Tiresomely Predictable 
Series of False Expectations

So Larry got his life together, to an extent. The trauma of the unfortunate pub wedging incident scarred him to the point where he was no longer able to consume alcohol or eat pork. And while psychological blocks are rarely good, in this instance they helped considerably with his weight.

He was still on the hefty side of normal, but was now able to navigate his way round large pieces of furniture with relative ease. Tapping into this new found confidence he went to uni and got himself a degree in something-or-other.

SFX have improved immeasurably since
Hitchcock first filmed The Birds.

Upon graduation he found himself, at the age of 21 (don’t do the maths), with frankly fuck all in the way of salable life skills and a few grand in debt. So he got himself a job as a Recruitment Consultant. This was much less fun than it initially sounded.

What did sound fun, though, was what his mate Kirsty was doing. She was on the JET Programme in somewhere called Kanazawa and looked to be having a great time. On his increasingly frequent Facebook stalking sessions he noticed she had tons of time off and was sticking up photos from her trips all around Asia. That looked like a pretty sweet deal. He checked the Programme’s website and felt that its aim, ‘to promote grass root internationalization at the local level by inviting young overseas graduates to assist in international exchange and foreign language education,’ was both pithy and right up his street.

Internationalization and exchange, eh? Larry could manage that. And his degree in whatever-it-was was exactly what they seemed to be after! The foreign language education bit might be trickier, but that looked like only one part of it. Indeed, the least important part. Looking at the JET Life page on the website, it made no mention of teaching at all. Lots, though, was made of Japan being a ‘country of contradictions, as famous for manmade feats of engineering and design as it is lauded for the close ties of its people with nature.’

In all honesty, Larry had never heard anyone laud Japan for anything, except perhaps an icily determined commitment to tentacle porn. Maybe the ‘close ties with nature’ was meant in a very literal sense? Still, the prospect of seeing ‘the pristine winters of the Northern shores of Hokkaido or the tropical islands of Okinawa,’ during the school holidays was certainly appealing.

And look! On the ‘organizations’ page there was even an elucidatory conceptual diagram indicating all the many, many, many organizations involved in the JET Programme and the interlinks between them and their various interactions and connections and bubbles and coloured boxes and liaisons and arrows and organizations and connections and arrows and boxes and arrows. What could be simpler? Larry was sure that it all translated into a clear set of priorities on the ground.

Japan - also lauded for its ruthless efficiency and
streamlined business practice

Reading the suggestion that a ‘one year term on the JET Programme could be just what you are looking for to broaden your horizons and take a different step in life,’ finally made up Larry’s mind. Just a year, that’s all they seemed to want. A year to explore Japan and broaden his horizons, and hopefully those of any Japanese people he might happen to come into contact with. He got a form, filled it out and a matter of mere months later was interviewing in a hotel in London.

They seemed to want to know what he knew about Japan. “Nothing!” he boldly replied, “That’s why I want to go.”

“And what would you do if a teacher made a mistake in class?”

“Well, it depends on the teacher, really.”

“Thank you Mr. Cotter. If you’d like to take this risible grammar test, we’ll let you know.”

Larry was glad they’d only asked him one question about teaching. He knew it might come up, but clearly this was much more about the exchange business. Even the ‘teaching’ question hadn’t really been about pedagogy (a word he’d just learned on the journey to the interview) but about conflict resolution in the workplace. While recruitment consultancy was getting pretty dull, he’d at least managed to pick up that much. Frankly, if it was just for a year, it didn’t seem worth the effort to learn much more about teaching. He was sure the training would cover all he needed to know.

And what training! Pre-departure there were a couple of days in London where he was able to meet many other JETs from his home country, get drunk with them, and make clearly unkeepable promises to keep in touch and set up a Japan-wide ALT five-a-side league. He also attended a workshop on flower arranging and saw a karate demonstration. Good times.

Disappointingly, however, there was nothing on bonsai.

Then it was off on a JET plane (not jet plane, JET plane! Ha! Larry like that line a lot, and used it on several occasions. It did seem to work better written down, though) to Tokyo. This was all very swanky. The Keio Plaza Hotel, no less. He got to meet more ALTs going to the same prefecture as him, and get roaringly drunk. But what with the jetlag (JETlag! He used that line more than once as well) and the hangovers he couldn’t remember much of the actual workshops.

It seemed very important that all three of the sponsoring ministries got their money’s worth though. Home, Foreign Affairs, and Education. He remembered that much. His job was to get a good impression of Japan, take that impression back home when he left, and in between times do something in schools. One third each. Lovely.

He also remembered a speech from a Japanese guy with pretty decent English. This guy sounded so enthusiastic about getting Japanese students to speak English! And he really seemed to think that Larry and the other ALTs in the room were the key to doing that. It was reassuring to know that everyone was so on-board with it all. Speaking English! Yay! There was also a video featuring a camp Englishman fingering a lab coat ('Mmmmm. Science') and a hatchet faced harridan haranguing a class of students over their failure to pluck their own chickens. Larry found that funny. He was sure he would have some better ideas.

But then Larry was off! Off to his new home. He was a little nervous, to be sure. Even more so when he realized that the people picking him up from the airport had decided a sign with his name on wasn’t sufficient, and that they’d also make a metre square picture of his face by blowing up the photo he’d attached to his application form. The one in which he looked like a recently escaped criminal. Still, they obviously meant well. These little miscommunications would soon get ironed out…

Credit where it’s due.