Let's see if you bastards can do 90.

The textbooks the kids use in English class suck. They're short, childish, and don't give nearly enough examples for the students to attain any semblance of fluency. That being said, the teachers must teach from it; the students must learn from it. You, as the ALT, must deal with it.

THAT being said, as an ALT, it's important to remember that fluency isn't necessarily the goal. A big part of our job is getting kids comfortable with English. If you come here with fluency as your goal, you're always going to be disappointed. You're going to be stressed out, and your kids are going to be stressed out. If they're stressed out, they're not going to want to learn. And isn't that the opposite of what you want?

I've never considered myself a very patient person, so the best teaching tactic for me (and ultimately for the kids) is to just let loose in the classroom. Now, your JTEs are not supposed to abandon you in the classroom (mine have never), but some JTEs like to think of ALTs as substitutes rather than assistants. In the case where your JTE doesn't flake on you, you may find my methods effective.

I always try to be the energetic, funny, and helpful presence in the class, letting my JTE wield the mighty discipline hammer. For example: at my largest elementary school the other day, one student in my sixth grade class wasn't paying attention. This doesn't happen a lot in my classes, but you never can tell what's going on in a student's life at any given time. When this happens, I just try to include the kid more by having them repeat whatever vocab word we're working on at the moment or even asking them to come up with an entire sentence that uses the grammar we're going over. When I would call on him to repeat vocab words, he would do so immediately but then fall back into a stupor. I really wanted this kid to pay attention, so I stopped class for a second, looked him straight in the eye and said, "Am I boring you?"

Duh, of course he's not going to say yes; however, I knew I got through to him because he looked really shocked and embarrassed after I asked. I knew this tactic would work on him because he has already expressed that he finds me incredibly interesting. I let him think that he was giving the impression that I was boring. Yes, I made him feel bad; yes, I singled him out. But, I did it in a way that drew upon his feelings for me as a teacher instead of just yelling at him to pay attention (which would only conjure more negative feelings such as anger, boredom, nonchalance, etc. instead of evoking a self-awareness of his own attitude and a conscientiousness for my feelings).

I felt bad for calling him out and breaking from my usual happy-go-lucky persona, but I felt really bad when my JTE started laying into this kid. She spoke way too fast for me to understand what she was saying (besides the usual "you better pay attention"), but even I winced from the lecture she gave him. I definitely felt like it was my fault that he got yelled at. After my JTE yelled at him, she walked over to his desk and told him to answer her question: "Where do you want to go?", the lesson of the day. Like I said, this kid had not been paying attention, and I get the feeling that he really doesn't care for English too much. He just gave my JTE a blank stare.

I knew this was my chance to get back on his side. I stood behind my JTE and mouthed the entire answer to him word by word. She's the only one in the room who had no idea what I was doing. The rest of the class giggled at my minor betrayal of the JTE/ALT alliance, but the boy smiled gratefully at me over the JTE's shoulder. He knew I was looking out for him, and that's really all your kids ever need.