Job Discussion Forums

[Mark]

I think the most basic answer to the OP's question is that most English teachers in Japan are not actually employed as teachers. Most people work in eikaiwa or as an ALT.

In an eikaiwa, as has been pointed out, the job is much like being a hostess. The teacher should be pleasant and ensure that the student has a nice time. The most important thing is that the student comes back. We could call this being a professional "Foreign Friend".

For ALTs, the job can be anything from being a human tape recorder to basically running a class. However, the school programs are test-based and the ALTs are generally not involved in test-related classes.

I've actually asked similar questions to the OP's in the past, and this is the understanding I came to.

Although many jobs come with the title of "teacher", the job does not actually involve teaching as I think many people would define it. So, arguing about why they aren't good teachers is a bit pointless. They're not expected to be, and their jobs often prevent them from teaching.

The thing that I find sad is that in my experience many students actually want to improve their English. I don't really buy the argument that students are only interested in socializing or whatever. Eikaiwa is rather expensive, and it just seems odd to me that students would pay that money only for the chance to socialize.

The mystery for me is why students are satsified wth the situation.

[matador]

Alex, purely out of interest, with reference to the title of this thread: "Why are there so many bad English teachers in Japan?", what is the data/source that you used to make this claim?

If an organization stood outside of x number of English schools in Japan over a period of x weeks and asked students a question such as "How would you rate the overall performance of your current teacher?"(Excellent thru to Bad), then if data demonstrated that 35% of teachers fell into the bad category, your claim would be very valid.

How can I access the data source that you used? It would be interesting to know how many students were polled and which schools participated. Many thanks in advance, groover.

[sheikh radlinrol]

Good point Matador. The OP's question appears to assume that it has been demonstrated that Japan has more bad teachers than other countries.
Let him produce the evidence to support his assumption.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Three inappropriate postings have been deleted. Thread locked.