Job Discussion Forums

[SeasonedVet]

Well maybe one reason for your "bad start" might be because you started with a very general blanket statement-question without providing any substantial information to back up your question/claim.

You said

[TokyoLiz]

alexcase, you are comparing apples and oranges when you talk about 'English teachers'.

Few Eikaiwa employees are called on to teach English vocabulary or grammar. From what I understand, big eikaiwas may have some functions they start with - let's talk about ordering in a restaurant - which they use in controlled and free practice. Some customers may need the skill for business, some for travel and yet others merely have a casual interest and treat the once-a-week English lesson as a hobby. That's not really a teacher-student relationship. How well an eikaiwa employee does his/her job depends on his/her communication skills, good humour, poise and confidence. It's like hostessing, only no drinks are involved.

My apologies to eikaiwa people. Many of you have your first taste of independent, working life in Japan this way. You've got an awesome opportunity to see what Japan is about through communication with Japanese people of all ages and walks of life. And you likely have some time to sample parts of the culture - art, pop culture, traditional things, hobbies.

If you're an ALT, that's another thing again. ALTs are like a box of chocolates - I was 10 years an ESL teacher in Canada before I did a one-year stint, my former director of studies did it for a year, and two of the ALTs in my town were fresh out of BAs and had zero teaching experience. None of us spoke Japanese before we came here. Again, good humour, adaptability, a genuine interest in Japan and the language, education, and kids makes you a successful, 'good' teacher. The JTE does the teaching.

I don't think being an ALT on the JET Program is a job. It's really just a very nice scholarship to get you a year or three in Japan and get an insight into the culture.

My sympathies for private ALTs. You get the same deal as a JET with lower pay, fewer holidays, and for the most part, less support.

And then there are teachers. My company hires qualified people to teach solo to junior and senior high school students. Some of my colleagues are classroom teachers, like some of the correspondents on this forum. They're responsible for home room, counselling, PTA stuff, the whole game.

As Glenksi and others mention, international school and business English teachers are yet other categories. International schools have to meet standards set by national and international bodies, and their teachers are measured by those standards. Business English teachers are good if their students give good reviews and demonstrate improvement in the workplace or on tests.

I offered to you a defintion good teachers, regardless of subject or situation.

I'm with SeasonedVet. You make sweeping generalization without defining what kind of teachers you are referring to or what constitutes 'bad'.

You don't tell us how much experience you have in Japan. It's hard to get a good perspective when you're on the ground. How do you know there are 'bad' teachers here? Your statements are broad and scathing. How would you know?

[alexcase]

...you will likely be taken to task

Of course, because that is what a forum is for, slapping people down. Which is also why I refuse to play a game of "my CV is longer than yours".

The way I see it, anyone who is disagreeing with my original assumption is saying that they are perfectly happy with the standard of teaching by native speakers in Japan and see no need to improve it. And I also insist that the different kinds of teaching are linked. For one thing, people who start as ALTs and/ or in Eikaiwa often go onto teach Business English, tertiary education etc, often with no additional practical teacher training. If the only the best teachers go onto do that, if even better teachers come out to Japan to take those positions or if teachers who are here improve so much they do better than teachers in other countries, we all have a lot to gain. If all these things are not 100% true, then there is room for improvement. And that improvement starts with examining why it is not 100% true. Hence my original question.

I do agree, however, that International Schools are out of the equation, not least because most teachers there mainly teach other subjects through English rather than ESL.

No one has answered my questions about standards in universities yet.

[alexcase]

On second thoughts teachers in International schools, though unconnected, might throw some light on how attractive Japan is in general to the teaching elite- where would you put Japan on the attracting creme de la creme international school teachers (genuine question)? Can it compete with Europe, SE Asia, middle east. Why/ why not? If not, what can be done about it?

And here is my last word on all the other questions on my question:

You can't say I haven't tried adapting the question to not offend people, the next thread I am going to start in a minute will be my 7th or so attempt at rephrasing it. However, I still stand by my decision to use the (somewhat deliberately provocative) question as I originally wrote it because:
1) It fitted in the subject box
2) It is more answerable and can produce more useful information and opinions than certain other suggestions like "How many bad teachers are there?"
3) Unlike my other attempts to please people with more specific and less controvertial questions, it has successfully produced a reaction

However, when I say it has successfully produced a reaction I did not realise that many (but by no means all) of the comments would be so aggressive and uninformative for me and other people reading. The fact that people continue to read and comment on a thread that they know is going to offend them even when they read the subject line more than any of the other threads on this page could have one or more of these reasons:
1) Because I have stepped unknowingly into a forum I am not welcome and people are getting territorial
2) People like the feeling of being offended (see the British Daily Mail for how to turn love of this feeling this into money)
3) People come to this forum looking for a fight

If it is the last one, I must admit that letting off steam and verbal jousting are perfectly acceptable uses of a forum for ex-pats. However, I think people's disapproval of my question has been made very clear and I will not be replying to anyone else who does not at least make some attempt at answering the question rather than arguing with the fact that I have asked it. To help you, here is really my last attempt at rephrasing it:

Why are there hundreds or thousands of bad native speaker English teachers in Japan, and what can we do about it?

If you don't like this one either, I understand that and please feel free to start another more interesting, less offensive, less general etc. thread (an invitation no one has taken me up on yet). But please do not interfere any more with any people who would like to answer this question.

[bearcat]

[matador]

I am in the Business English sector and teaching for 2 dispatch companies. I guess an average week would involve going out to around 7 different clients.

The standards at these 2 companies are very high in terms of trainer experience, qualifications, teaching methods, use of IT in the classroom, material development, end of course reports, etc.

Is there room for improvement? Yes; thats why we take end of course student feedback so seriously.

Whats your background in this area, OP? Are you familiar with the business English segment?

[alexcase]

bearcat- like any good answer to a bad essay question, feel free to start your answer with "assuming you mean..."

Re: Business English. Your experience is better than mine, which is generally positive but a little mixed. In terms of the standards of teaching, the questions that spring to mind are:

Do any of these elite teachers ever say "I'm thinking of going to (the middle east) where I can get a better deal/ live better/ whatever"?

or conversely, do you have teachers who have worked elsewhere who tell you

"I decided to come to Japan from (Thailand) because teaching/ life/ whatever is so much better here" or "I only came to Japan for a visit but I decided not to go back to (Ireland) because the chances for promotion/ life style/ students/ whatever are much better here"

If you can't say "No" to the first and "Yes" to at least one to the second, that is one of the things I mean by room for improvement

[alexcase]

Now I can concentrate on the question at hand, I have read through the contributions one more time and tried to summarize the ideas given here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/213

There were more than I realised, including some that I missed the first time of reading, so thanks to everyone.

One point that I also didn't pick up on the first time is that womblingfree's very interesting statistics on student and teacher satisfaction in Eikaiwa (the fact that we are all using that word being one symptom of the fact that we think at least one part of the industry is different from elsewhere, btw) means that many of those good teachers who are keeping their students happy are not happy themselves and so will leave and be a loss to their schools and maybe Japan. When I have all the reasons why things like this might be happening I want to go on and examine what schools, teachers, the government etc. can do about it, but it might take some time to get there. More help needed please!

[SeasonedVet]

I don't know am I missing something here?
If a person doesn't understand or agree with this

[Glenski]

[Henry_Cowell]

Why is there so much truly bad writing on http://www.tefl.net/alexcase ?? Does anyone have any specific suggestions for improving the writing there?

[bearcat]

[Glenski]

[Glenski]

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

There are too many ad hominem postings on this thread. Please get back on topic and talk about the message and not the messenger. Otherwise, this thread will no longer be available.