The insane scheduling continues! At the end of the day I had to stay an extra 30 minutes to finish writing my files.
After each lesson, teachers are required to evaluate the student’s performance during the lesson. There are a few categories to rank (vocabulary, pronunciation, etc), and then a space for comments. Proper comments should include specific references to both strong and weak points during the lesson, and to provide suggestions on how to improve. Good comments help the next teacher, and also provide information to the students if they request to see their files.
Writing a proper evaluation and comments can take some time. Naturally, doing evaluations and comments for four students takes four times as long.
In the evening classes, there are 10 minutes between lessons. During busy months like September, it is likely for a teacher to have four students in every lesson. If you get out of your lesson a few minutes late, it doesn’t leave much time to squeeze into the overcrowded teachers room, write comments, give files to the next teacher or put them away, and locate your next lesson’s files and room number. That time gets smaller if you need to take a bathroom break. The easiest solution is to write up the student’s files after the last lesson of the day.
Recently with all of the full classes I have been regularly spending time after the last lesson finishing up my paperwork. It’s no fun, but it needs to get done.
Drinking in Japan 