[the Obscure]

I team teach in Japan, too. Luckily, all of my teachers are really cool and don't just use me as a tape recorder. The system has its pros and cons, but I've definitely learned a lot about teaching from my JTEs. I think I just got lucky though. Some of the people I know have pretty horrible situations.

A few years before I came to Japan, I taught for a year at a French high school. It was through a French program that is sort of similar to Japan's JET program in terms of contracts and stuff. I had just finished college, and hadn't taken a TOESL course yet, and I had no idea what I was doing. I taught the class completely alone and had nothing to guide me. I had to make my own lessons and deal with discipline issues. I couldn't test the kids though, and my class had no impact on their grades. It was pretty tough being thrown into class with no idea of what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to do it. I made a lot of mistakes, and learned from them, but I think it would have been a better experience for all involved if I had either had some kind of ESL training, or at least had a teacher helping me out and giving me tips. Now that I have a TOESL certificate and some experience team teaching in Japan, I would kill to have that job in France. I wouldn't have to use a text book and I could teach whatever I wanted to.
The thing I dislike the most about team teaching is that I never have an opportunity to actually teach new material. The classes that I team teach in are usually (forced) elective English classes, so the grammar point has already been taught during their regular English class. I basically just come up with activities the practice the grammar and the vocab that they've already learned. It would be nice to have a chance to teach something from scratch.