JET Spotlight: Rebecca Slinn

Rebecca Slinn is doing her Master's Degree in applied linguistics and English language teaching at King's College in London. She has been working on her Master's dissertation whilst also teaching academic English over the summer.

When did you go on the JET programme, and where did you go? 

I was in Okayama Prefecture from 2010 until 2012 as an assistant language teacher. I found out about the JET programme in my second year as an undergraduate at King's. 

I joined a beginner's Japanese class once a week, and they actually told us about the JET programme and handed out the flyers. So when I entered my third year, I started the application process, which as you know, takes most of the academic year, you kind of start applying in September, October, you have the interviews in January. So I decided to go because I'd never been to Japan, but I really wanted to go.

Being able to work and also live there was like a kind of perfect opportunity. I've also always been interested in teaching and education, generally doing some volunteer work when I was in the sixth-form college as well. I did actually put down Hiroshima and Tottori and Okayama as my preferences, only because I didn't really know how to drive, and it said that there's quite good train links around that part of western Japan. I also quite like nature. So I was hoping in the countryside as well.

What is your best Jet Memory?

I started to learn the taiko drums in my town in Japan. And we had our first concert, I think, just before the winter, or Christmas, time. So we'd been on JET for a few months then, and all of my teachers at the school and all of my friends from JET in like the different towns and cities, they all came to my little town and to the community centre to watch the taiko performance.

And it was just a really nice memory, because it was just showing that I am a member of a community here. It's not just the teachers at the school, but also my friends from the JET programme. They really enjoyed interacting with each other because they didn't usually meet many other JETs from different schools in different places. So it was such a nice kind of event. Everyone enjoyed watching taiko for the first time as well. So it was just a really, really good event. And it's something that stuck out to me.

What challenges did you face whilst on JET? 

Yeah, well, probably my realistically biggest challenge was when I got sick for three weeks. And it was a 15 minute cycle to the convenience store from where I lived. So I had to rely on the teachers at the school to go and do grocery shopping or drive me to a doctor and things and it was just I was so grateful to have their support.

That was quite a challenge because I couldn't get out of bed or do anything. So, I was totally reliant on my neighbours who I'd made friends with whose daughters went to my school, and also the teachers and the school nurse and the kind of registration secretary who also would come and just drop things off at my house.  In terms of the education side, I remember in my second year, I just decided to recontract, and then they announced to me at one of our work parties that this academic year from April, I wouldn't be able to have my own class anymore.

So we were doing textbook classes with just Japanese teachers and then a communicative class with me where I'd be developing new materials based on what they'd done in the textbooks. So we were kind of doing a communication class and having a lot of fun. But that class had to be cut from the timetable because they needed more textbook lessons because I think in around 2010 or 2011, there was like more emphasis on primary school doing English. So then that had a knock-on effect to us at junior high school. So it was quite a shock for me because what I imagined I'd be doing for the next year had totally changed. But I think overcoming that was just having a good relationship with the teachers.

So, it turned out that actually three of us ended up in the classroom for this extra textbook lesson. We just made it as fun as we possibly could. And it was just having that good relationship and good rapport with the teachers and the students.

When you came back from Japan, how did your career progress?

When I first came back to England, I was around the London area and after about six months of looking for jobs, I couldn't really find anything that I really wanted to do. I decided to go back to Japan six months later and I took a job teaching at a private language school in Tokyo for two reasons. One was because I actually wanted to get better at Japanese and I'd learned a little bit being in the countryside, but there wasn't really good access to lessons and other things because it was quite rural and it was quite difficult to get around. I thought "Oh, in Tokyo, there'll be lots more opportunities to learn the language and do different things" I also wanted to get into teaching seriously as a career as well.

So I did that for three or four years in Tokyo, and then I was promoted to the head office to develop curriculum and textbooks. So I did that for about two years, kind of being a project manager, leading a team to make textbooks for young learners. And then I went to work at a university in Tokyo and I was in their marketing department, like working on the websites and things like that. That's where I had a lot of interaction with their academic English department. And I actually thought I really would like to go back to teaching. I don't really enjoy sitting in an office for 10 hours a day, having lots of overtime to fix problems with websites and things.

I decided to come back to London to do the Masters in Applied Linguistics here. And then I've had the opportunity. I applied for the job as a research assistant with my professors and kind of starting on that career path of going into academia and university level teaching.

Is doing a PhD the next step in your career plan?

Yeah, so just on Wednesday I had my dissertation supervisor meeting and she was saying, you know, that there's a job going at her hometown in Germany and it's for like working on this project, but also doing your PhD at the same time. So she's kind of putting me forward to apply for those kind of things. So yeah, definitely it's something that I would love to do.

What advice would I have for JETs that want to go into academia?

Definitely doing a Masters programme face-to-face. I would really recommend it because you meet so many colleagues that are from different places.

The job that I've got over the summer teaching the pre-sessional English, it wasn't advertised publicly. My friend who's working at the university recommended me because he's seen me do that project meeting with the professor and one of his colleagues was actually watching that presentation. So it's only through the connections that I've made and talking to people that I've gotten the opportunities that I've had.

The face-to-face networking and connections are really, really important. So like going to events as well, even if you're not studying at the moment, there's so many talks and things like that you can go to and meet people. Yeah.

What skills did you learn on JET  that helped with your professional development?

I think the number one thing is the soft skill of communicating with people and having a positive attitude to meeting lots of different people.

Networking is really important. I feel like as JETs we're usually thrown into these situations where not many people speak English and the teachers are really busy and, but we can always, you know, just make eye contact saying, hi, how are you? We make all these connections with the teachers, with the students and the community. And I think that's the most important thing is even when sometimes it can be a bit isolating as a JET, you're constantly trying to connect with the people that you're in the community with, talking to them.

I think that that's a really, really important skill that I developed while being a JET, building up some resilience in a way. Because it can sometimes be quite a hard situation to be in and feel like you're the only non-Japanese teacher at the school, or sometimes they forget to tell you something. Having patience and a positive outlook and building that while I was a JET was really helpful. And I think when you go into teaching in a way you're acting and you're presenting and you have this knowledge or information and you're trying to get it to people in an interesting way that engages them. And that's something that does come up a lot in academia.

You're going to have to do seminars or present things to people and the impression that you make having that teaching experience and confidence from that as a background is really, really helpful.

Do you have any advice for any JETS wanting to go into further study? 

in order to pick the right course, I think you need to look into all of the different programs.

So for me, I knew that I wanted to be in London because London attracts so many international students. I knew that I would meet colleagues that had totally different experiences than mine in Japan. On my course, I'm the only one who taught in Japan.

Most people were around Europe or China or in the US or South America. So I've been able to learn so much from them. So that's something I had in mind. I also had a look at the modules. They had an applied linguistics course, which is for people who've been teaching for three years or more full-time. And the TESOL course was more aimed at pre-service teachers. So if you're looking to go into the academic side, you definitely need to go into Applied Linguistics because it's much more theoretical. And you've already got the practical experience from your time as a JET and any other teaching you've done. So going into the more theoretical applied linguistics and English teaching, it will really help you to have the theoretical foundation that you would need. And yeah, the modules.

So, for example, some universities in London didn't offer ones about digital technologies in particular or other things. Because I worked in the web design and marketing, I was quite interested in digital technologies as well, so that's one of the reasons I chose the particular university. But you do have to check because they don't always do all the modules every year. So just being in contact with the universities, ask them lots of questions, because although you're studying in a way, we're also customers in this university model. So we need to get all the information and make sure that we know that we're quite confident that we're choosing the right course for us.

I know it maybe sounds a bit cynical, but I think Japan does care about names or places where you go to university. So having a degree from America or from London or from the UK, it might be quite impressive when you go back to Japan if you want to, because you're going to be competing with lots and lots of different people from different places. So having a degree from an institution in the UK would be very impressive on your CV.

How do you manage to stay in touch with Japanese culture now that you're back in the UK?

When I was an undergraduate, I never joined any clubs or societies, but actually after working in Japan and seeing my students at school practicing sports every day, I found it really inspiring. I was like, oh, actually being a member of a sports club, it doesn't matter if you're good at it. In Japan, everyone's a member of a club, whichever one they want to join.

It actually inspired me to start and join the Kendo Society or Kendo Club at King's College. So I started in October and I'm almost double the age of a lot of the undergraduates who joined at the same time as me, but it's been such an amazing experience. I actually competed in a competition last month and I lost every single match, but I won the Fighting Spirit Award because I'd scored a point and I did a really good job.

Rebecca has started her own professional blog about studying a Master's, doing research, digital technologies in language education and academic English teaching.

https://rlmslinn.co.uk/
 

Rebecca is an editor of the King's Digital English Language Teaching Special Interest Group (King's Digital ELT SIG). It is a hub of resources to share information and tips about digital tools in English teaching. They are looking for article and video submissions from contributors. The free resources are available to all:

https://sites.google.com/view/digitalelt/