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[Henry_Cowell]

Well, there you go, 'guest of Japan'. You've been doing something right -- even if it was only supplying lots of input to the toddler as a side effect of teaching her older sibling.

[Lister100]

There has been a lot of Japan bashing these days and this opinion is just in regards to those ekeiwas that hire teachers to teach all ages, not Japan as a country.

Not to belittle the importance of early childhood language acquisition, but as the original poster said couldn't this be taught by the parents or a Japanese teacher? I'm sure there must be enough Japanese people that can pronounce the proper sounds of the Alphabet, numbers and days of the week.

When you come overseas to teach English you don't really expect to be babysitting. There is no reason to have a university degree for this teaching (not to say the degrees that specialize in this are a waste of time, but those teachers have real methods). Its like those new immigrants back home that have doctorates and drive taxi's. Before you bring up the money, there is a good chance a taxi driver in Canada makes the same money as a doctor in Pakistan.

It's about respect and hiring uni. grads. to babysit for a mother's social hour is kind of insulting. The kids are cute I agree, but I can relate to that feeling of selling your soul. If my classes are any indication of the expectations for these kids, I'd say one in five will learn most of their alphabet while the others are just there to role in balls and pull on the gaijin's neck tie.

To bring up the useless would of, could of, should of's...there really should be an enforcable separation of ages for teachers with degrees. From what I've seen(in my limited time) the schools that specialize in early childhood education and hire teachers with degrees in this area, pay much better salaries. These are for parents that really want there kids to get voice recognition. For ekeiwas providing babysitting, it should be teenage teachers at summer camps or uneducated people with decent experience(coaching, life guards etc.).

Some people may not mind this work because there are no real general objectives that can be set. You can't reason with a two year old or get angry. The parents expectations are probably not that high either. So it comes down to playing with babies, which I personally get little satisfaction out of from a working point of view. For the record I do enjoy the classes with older kids and adults

[guest of Japan]

Thanks Henry. My specialty is not early childhood education, so I'll happily take whatever comes my ways from the mouths of the little ones.

[tokyorabbit]

[Henry_Cowell]

[ndorfn]