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guest of Japan
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Posts: 1601
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:04 am Post subject: |
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| Abu, I have to disagree with your last post a bit. US school systems are extremely political environments. Without due process many teachers would find themselves unemployed simply because someone in with money and connections to local government didn't like them. Due process enables teachers to teach to their abilities or to the least of their abilities. It's the job of administration to help teachers aspire to the former. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:38 am Post subject: |
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| I would prefer to see teachers hired directly by the boards. I would like to see a government legislated minimum wage for teachers of about 350,000 a month. I would force the boards to hire only people with teaching certificates. |
Hiring by the boards would imply that teachers would then get health insurance benefits, unemployment benefits, pension benefits, etc. Isn't one reason that they go through dispatch agencies because they can easily avoid this sort of thing?
As for setting 350,000yen/month for teachers, I think you are asking far too much. Granted the baseline salaries for teachers in eikaiwas have not changed in over a decade (250,000), and that JET ALTs get more (300,000), but Japanese teachers get less when they first start out. Perhaps a sliding scale would be more appropriate, and should at least parallel the Japanese teacher's scale...? Then again, we're talking about a few different entities here -- eikaiwa teachers, JET ALTs, and mainstream schoolteachers. To compare their salaries with someone who has actually gone to university for the purpose of becoming a teacher of English is a bit different. Yes, I know that many JTE's don't even have their degrees in EFL, but they at least have a 2-week internship before they teach, and their mentors at the schools help them learn the ropes. How many of those situations apply to foreign teachers who may have totally unrelated degrees to teaching?
As for the last point from the quote(having certificates), how would you determine whether it's sufficient? CELTA or DELTA only? Who approves the non-CELTA certification here? Does a CELTA and a degree in microbiology still make one eligible to teach? How about years teaching in other countries that don't require certification? Where do you draw the line? |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| You draw it higher than it is being drawn at present. How about a BA/BSc and a CELTA or Trinity? Or, if you insist, a BA/Bsc and a CELTA, a Trinity, or at least one years previous prove-able teaching experience? Neither solution is perfect, both would be an improvement on the present situation. |
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abufletcher
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 779
Location: Shikoku Japan (for now)
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Glenski"]
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| Yes, I know that many JTE's don't even have their degrees in EFL, but they at least have a 2-week internship before they teach, and their mentors at the schools help them learn the ropes. How many of those situations apply to foreign teachers who may have totally unrelated degrees to teaching? |
I would say that the pre-service education of most JTEs is woefully inadequate and that the kyoikujishu (teaching practicum) is next to worthless. It's part of my job to observe the students we send out on practice teaching and what I regularly see depresses me to no end. Often the "mentoring" teachers has little or no English themselves and insist on the lesson being taught in the most hide-bound traditional manner with over 90 of teacher talk being in Japanese. Student teachers are rarely free to organize a communicative style lesson. In essence then the student practicum just ends up reinforcing the style of classroom interaction that I spend most of my time in my second language teaching courses trying to deconstruct.
BTW, at my university it is possible for our students to get a certificate in English language teacher while still avoiding ALL of the English-medium EFL methodology courses! When I complained about how nonsensical that was, I was told to take the issue up with the local education board which sets the criteria for such certificates.
I'ver certainly seen untrained ALTs with no formal certification do a much better job in a high school classroom than the JTE. Still, it's hard to fathom how hard Japanese public school teachers have to work and they deserve every yen they get. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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Student teachers are rarely free to organize a communicative style lesson. In essence then the student practicum just ends up reinforcing the style of classroom interaction that I spend most of my time in my second language teaching courses trying to deconstruct.
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C'mon, look at the reality. JTEs teach to get kids to pass college entrance exams. That's all, and their own methods have been established since WWII. Try getting that to change. It is one of the things someone should change, but it'll take another 50 years.
Meanwhile, to expect a JTE to teach communicative style is not what is going to happen. That is why native teachers are hired. We all know how well that works, too.
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| at my university it is possible for our students to get a certificate in English language teacher while still avoiding ALL of the English-medium EFL methodology courses! When I complained about how nonsensical that was, I was told to take the issue up with the local education board which sets the criteria for such certificates. |
And, based on what I just wrote, this is another major area that Japan needs to focus on, but I'm not saying anything new. |
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abufletcher
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 779
Location: Shikoku Japan (for now)
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| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:38 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, I'm painfully aware of the realities. That's why I tell my students that I'm really trying to train them to be "EFL Revolutionaries" who are hopefully at least dissatisfied with the status quo. But for the most part I realize the futulity of almost everything I teach.
And honestely I'm not expecting anything like a truly communicative classroom but a class where the teacher actually tries to engage the students as opposed to just standing in the front with a but of stupid bilingual flash cards doing "waraku hito, raise you hand" routines. I'm not hoping for games or roleplays just a bit of honest human interaction. And in almost 10 years of supervising these student practicums I've only seen a couple of examples. |
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