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Juggling two schools?
A high percentage of ALTs in Toyama-ken are required to go to 2 or more schools during their work week. So how can you manage the juggling act?
The most important thing is to have a clear line of communication with both workplaces. Make sure there is someone, preferably with good English at each place that can keep you informed of what's going on. Have them tell you early on what is expected of you at that school, what you need to prepare, etc. This will help you in planning for the coming week/term/year, as the case may be.
Also, find out how you will be getting between your different workplaces – public transport, bicycle, on foot or by car. Different workplaces mean different situations – in general, local boards of education (junior/elementary schools) give you more freedom to use your own car (sometimes to the point of relying on it!). Officially, Senior High School ALTs are usually not supposed to use their own vehicles during work time.
The key to juggling two or more schools is the same if you just have the one – keep the lines of communication open, and enjoy the challenges. Variety is the spice of life!
Life at more than one school – JHS
You may be based at your Board of Education, and you'll go there to meet with your supervisor and get your school schedules and all other important information. Or you may have one base school, usually the one where you spend the most time and you visit other schools on certain days or weeks… hardly ever setting foot in the BOE.
When you're not at one school every day, lesson planning is tricky – it's difficult for you to keep in touch with each class’s progress, and it's hard for the JTEs to incorporate you into their syllabus. If you're at a school irregularly or infrequently, sometimes they forget when you are coming, and when you turn up, they have no idea what to do with you. The best approach is to try to have a class schedule written well in advance (get the school's master schedule and write yours yourself if you can), and remind your teachers about it all the time! Otherwise, you will get a lot of surprised “Oh, we're team-teaching... today?”s and you may find a lot of those classes get cancelled.
Generally teachers aren't thinking about a lesson plan more than a couple days before a class, but you can harass them. If you’re not going to be at a certain school for a while, remind your JTEs of when your next visit will be and try to pin them down to at least a rough outline of a lesson plan. Finally, before you leave for the day, write them a note reminding them of what you discussed and what you will bring or prepare for the lesson. Finally, don’t be surprised when the whole plan changes and you still end up scrambling for new ideas at the last minute. It’s bound to happen!
A lot of JTEs don't use email much, so the easiest way to correspond when you're somewhere else is by fax. Also, it's handy to have a copy of all the teachers' daily schedules, so if you need to call them from a different school, you can first check when their free periods are. This will save you from a hopeless game of phone tag.
These hassles aside, I love having two different schools. It'll liven up your routine, you'll meet more kids and do more different kind of classes, and those things that really irritate you at one school...at least you don’t have to deal with them every day! :)