Job Discussion Forums

[JZer]

[luckyloser700]

This is a good thread. Some have made good points. It's easy to see where Gaijinalways is coming from if you've spent time in Japanese public schools as an ALT. ALT's are often used to demonstrate natural English pronunciation as well as to help students develop English conversational skills. The focus is not supposed to be solely on grammar. But, ALT's are often underutilized and Japanese teachers usually spend most class periods hammering home the grammar points while speaking Japanese leaving the ALT standing in one corner of the classroom smiling like an idiot and saying "good job!" when a student correctly answers a question put forth by the instructor. I assume it's more painful for ALT's who have little or no knowledge of the Japanese language. It's even worse when the instructor himself/herself gives examples of pronunciation while the ALT does nothing. This happens.
Glenski stated that students learn English grammar so that they can pass entrance exams to high schools and universities and this is correct so there isn't really a need for the Japanese instructor to be a great English speaker. One can only wonder why Gaijinalways and others are asked to work in Japanese classrooms.

[gaijinalways]

I sometimes ask myself as the communicative teaching I do spometimes seems limited. By the way, I teach university classes solo (no assistant), and the teo common complaints I get is 1)to speak slower and 2) speak more Japanese (even though the university has a minimal 2nd language policy, in otherwords, as much target language as possible).

It's so often that in Japan that students have to be reminded to do exercises in English (they have a tendancy often to try and use Jpanese to ask questions/answer questions thay already know how to say in English). In my own French classes my teachers never needed to remind us to use French, when obviously that was the whole purpose of the class !

That aside, some/quite a few make an effort to learn, but quite often the motivation is low (though to be honest, for some students, it is low in all their classes, not just their English ones) !