I started an ALT position at the start of this school year. I initially thought that everything was going ok until my JTE confronted me today and told me that he feels like I am not considerate of him and his lessons and he feels like I don't care. He said that I do not change then he does not want me in his classroom which is a shock because I did not know that he felt this way. I am glad that he told me so I can address the problem but I was very surprised by this. I apologized to him and explained that I did not realize that he felt this way and that I want to be in his class. I then asked what I can do and apologized again.
The first complaint he had was about how I missed a class today. Which I admit was my fault but, it was not intentional. My schedule was different than usual because I had multiple classes that I don't normally have so it threw me off. I admit that I should have made sure beforehand but it was not on purpose.
The second complaint was in regards to me checking the lesson plans and memorizing the scripts. To be fair my first week there I did make this mistake of not checking thoroughly in the beginning but I owned that mistake and I now check the plans thoroughly and I memorized the lines so I thought that this problem had been taken care of and that in regards to this specific problem everything was ok now. He told me that the problem is he finds my pronunciation strange and even though I memorized the scripts I sometimes still make mistakes.
The last major complaint that he had was that he wants me to be more involved in the class. I was surprised by this one because usually what happens is he leads the class, I check the lesson plans beforehand, and then I step in when he tells me what to do which I thought was ok. The problem is now he is saying that he wants me to get involved more and take more initiative which surprised and confused me because I was under the impression that he would take the lead and I step in when he tells me to since that's how it's been. In addition he speaks Japanese to the students for most of the lesson so it is hard to know how exactly I am supposed to step in more short of helping him with him pronunciations.
He told me that tomorrow that people from the BOE and possibly someone from my dispatch company are coming to observe me. I was surprised because I was observed this Monday by someone from my company at my other school but, I didn't think much of it because I assumed it was just the quarterly observations that ALTs in my dispatch company get but, now just a few days later I am getting observed by the BOE and possibly my dispatch company.
I apologized to my JTE today and explained that I did not realize how he felt, that I do care, and that I want to be in his class and I want to do whatever I can to help out. He gave me some tips and told me to think of ways to help out. He also said that compared to his experience last year with the previous ALT and what he expected of me that he finds the experience with me to not be as good and that he feels like he expected too much of me. I do care about this job and I want to do well. How can I improve to make sure that I do not get fired from my job?
by TheAspiringALT