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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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 Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:40 am Post subject: |
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| Teaching EFL in Japan is a very different proposition to teaching ESOL in a native-speaking country. I don't think your criticism of the comparative aspects of his post hold much water - he reports his experiences and preferences in teaching English; what's there to criticise? |
Because Fox's statements don't seem to match the reality here. Both Glenski and I are in Japan now and have been here for a number of years. Both of us also talk to other teachers who are here, who would concur with what Glenski has outlined.
Certainly Fox's strongest points would be his wife wanting to be closer to her family and for him to be able to use his Japanese skills and observe and interact with the culture here. The teaching aspects don't reflect the reality at the majority of schools here. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| Mr_Monkey wrote: |
| Actually, I agree with Mr. Fox here, inasmuch as my experience contributes to my opinions - ESOL learners in the UK are harder to motivate than the EFL learners I taught in Japanese eikaiwa. |
Depending on who you taught in eikaiwa, I'd say your experience is not the norm. Many/Most people report much higher motivation from learners when they study abroad.
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| They have un(der)developed study skills. |
I agree with that, but that applies to all Japanese learners except for those who have actually endured and survived studying abroad.
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| They have an L1 language community for support |
What support? Eikaiwa learners have L1 (Japanese) friends, teachers, books, TV programs, etc. but they largely do not support their foreign language studies much or at all, whereas immersion in a study abroad program forces them (in most cases) to be...immersed in English all the time.
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| Teaching EFL in Japan is a very different proposition to teaching ESOL in a native-speaking country. I don't think your criticism of the comparative aspects of his post hold much water |
Actually, you are wrong. I've taught for almost 15 years in Japan (eikaiwa, private lessons, PT and FT in a private HS, and university). Is teaching EFL in Japan different than ESL in a foreign country? Yes. I've already stated that. Are ESL students less motivated? Nope. Not usually. |
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Mr_Monkey
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu
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| Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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From what I can gather of your posts on this forum, Glenski, you've never taught outside of Japan. I honestly fail to see how you can pretend to tell me that I am wrong about my experiences teaching in the UK and Japan.
In the UK, ESOL refers to teaching immigrants in state-funded institutions. Students who spend a lot of money to go and study abroad - you're right in that regard; they're generally highly motivated (that context is known as EFL here). However, that's not who I or timothypfox were talking about. The apparent blanket term "ESL" employed to talk about English language education in the US regardless of funding structure or learner background is possibly misleading here.
The majority of immigrants to the UK I've taught already have strong L1 communities - Polish-, Urdu-, Arabic- and Chinese-speaking, and so on. For the Polish, Urdu and Chinese speakers, there is such a significant community that they really can get by without speaking English (that's who I was referring to when I said "they have an L1 community for support"). In my experience, learners with this profile are often poorly motivated (irregular attendance being the strongest indicator) certainly more than the Japanese students I've taught.
You know a great deal about Japan, but you don't understand the context that timothypfox have talked about. That's why I said your criticisms don't hold water - he's not making broad generalisations exclusively about Japan, he's comparing his experiences in Japan with teaching ESL in the states. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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Mr Monkey,
You got it right. I have never taught English outside of Japan, and I didn't understand what you were talking about. Thanks for clearing that up. I hope you and others now realize what I was referring to in my responses to your comparison. I still stand by them when it comes to the situation in Japan and hope you agree with them. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:56 am Post subject: |
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| Mr_Monkey wrote: |
In the UK, ESOL refers to teaching immigrants in state-funded institutions. Students who spend a lot of money to go and study abroad - you're right in that regard; they're generally highly motivated (that context is known as EFL here). |
Where's 'here'? Japan? or foreign students in the UK who have motivation? Or anybody who is spending a lot of money and therefore (  ) has high motivation. The rolley eyes is because IME some international students studying ESL at universities do not have high motivation. They grew up in a system where regardless of what they did, they could not fail- for example Japan. And then they go to Canada (or wherever) and their parents have paid for everything, but they've still never actually had to work at anything, and so they just don't.
| Quote: |
However, that's not who I or timothypfox were talking about. The apparent blanket term "ESL" employed to talk about English language education in the US regardless of funding structure or learner background is possibly misleading here.
The majority of immigrants to the UK I've taught already have strong L1 communities - Polish-, Urdu-, Arabic- and Chinese-speaking, and so on. For the Polish, Urdu and Chinese speakers, there is such a significant community that they really can get by without speaking English (that's who I was referring to when I said "they have an L1 community for support"). In my experience, learners with this profile are often poorly motivated (irregular attendance being the strongest indicator) certainly more than the Japanese students I've taught. |
So what do you call those learners? ESL? This is the 'funding structure' thing you were talking about. It's true that immigrants can get by without high levels of English in many countries (I used to teach in Canada). But what I was seeing was that when immigrants had irregular attendance, then the reason was that they ***had*** to work. Or do you think people should be so motivated to learn English that they lose their apartments and end up panhandling during coffee breaks? Earlier, you wrote,
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| They have an L1 language community for support and they can earn more here cleaning (which is often done in the early mornings before the contracting company's workers arrive) than they could teaching in their home countries. They can do all this without being able to speak English, as the agent companies often employ competent (usually native) speakers of the workers' languages as middle managers. |
which, to me, seems to be suggesting that because they can earn more cleaning in the UK than they can teaching in their home countries (ignoring, for a second, things like cost of living etc) that that's what they do- clean stuff. But if, using your example, a teacher left their country and went to the Inner Circle English speaking country with a goal of spending the rest of their life there, do you really think they would WANT to spend it doing an exhausting, manual labour kind of job, cleaning in the early mornings for what is more than they could earn teaching in their countries, but what is still a very small amount in the UK? Or do you think that they would want to learn English and then be able to get access to higher paying, middle class 9-5 office work kinds of jobs so that they could afford to have their own house out in the suburbs with a yard, and a nice car which they use to get to and from work and do their shopping at malls etc? Because ALL of the immigrants I've taught (including the ones who basically dropped out so that they could work- and often it's the man who drops out and his wife keeps going to school) have said that that's the kind of thing that they want and that they thought they could get when they were leaving to go to Canada. But they don't have enough money to carry them through to fluency in English, so they have to get a job. Then, even when they do attain a high degree of fluency, they find that employers do not accept their qualifications because they didn't go to a local university.
What you seem to be saying is that there are two classes of ESL students- those who have parents who pay for everything and go to universities. And those who are immigrants. And that Japanese eikaiwa students, because they are paying more than immigrants are more highly motivated. I think the reality is that (especially in the past) many Japanese eikaiwa students were highly motivated, but that's because learning English is a hobby for them. They already have a career, a safetly net if something goes badly, etc. Other students, usually younger students, at eikaiwas are there because their parents have MADE them go. They are not highly motivated, any more than they are in their high schools (which is to say, not at all for the majority of them). |
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Bread
Joined: 24 May 2009
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 4:24 am Post subject: |
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I think the type of immigrants he's talking about are the type who go to a country to work for a set amount of time to have a bunch of extra money to send home to their families, not the type who have any intention of settling there for life.
For example, in Luxembourg, there is a huge Portuguese community. They work in all the restaurants and construction jobs. They work for a few months, then they can go back to Portugal and live off the savings for a year or more, since the cost of living is on an entirely different scale.
Do you think those guys have much motivation to learn Luxembourgish, or even French or German? There's a huge Portuguese community, so they can do pretty much anything they want in Portuguese, and many of them have English as a fallback. I think this is the kind of community he was talking about. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 5:14 am Post subject: |
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| Bread wrote: |
I think the type of immigrants he's talking about are the type who go to a country to work for a set amount of time to have a bunch of extra money to send home to their families, not the type who have any intention of settling there for life.
For example, in Luxembourg, there is a huge Portuguese community. They work in all the restaurants and construction jobs. They work for a few months, then they can go back to Portugal and live off the savings for a year or more, since the cost of living is on an entirely different scale.
Do you think those guys have much motivation to learn Luxembourgish, or even French or German? There's a huge Portuguese community, so they can do pretty much anything they want in Portuguese, and many of them have English as a fallback. I think this is the kind of community he was talking about. |
Those aren't immigrants. They're no different than the majority of people who show up to Japan to teach EFL for one or two years while paying off student debt and then go someplace else. How many of them learn a significant amount of Japanese? Very, very few.
They have no reason to learn the language at all and so there's no point in even really commenting on it. What surprises me is that they would go to ESL classes in the first place- unless it's the law there. |
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Mr_Monkey
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 661
Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:38 am Post subject: |
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ESOL is free in the UK, which is where I'm talking about.
Anyway, this is off-topic.
Suffice it to say that I think Japan is worth it, although I have other motivators such as a Japanese wife, etc... |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:44 am Post subject: |
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| Mr_Monkey wrote: |
ESOL is free in the UK, which is where I'm talking about.
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So you are talking about the same thing as me in my long post. |
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Vince
Joined: 05 May 2003
Posts: 559
Location: U.S.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| TEFL is the easiest route to get one's foot in the door here. Any other sort of work situation requires a lot more in the way of language ability and work experience. With that in mind, what would you suggest if not TEFL, Vince? |
I suggest gaining that language ability and work experience and then looking for work in Japan in your field. Yes, it's a lot of work. As with most things, better preparation up front yields greater rewards later. If you're serious about living well in Japan (if married, that includes your family's standard of living), it's worth the effort and patience. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for that reply, Vince. I agree 110%. The only problem comes when people don't want to wait. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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mrmonkey posted
| Quote: |
| In the UK, ESOL refers to teaching immigrants in state-funded institutions. Students who spend a lot of money to go and study abroad - you're right in that regard; they're generally highly motivated (that context is known as EFL here). However, that's not who I or timothypfox were talking about. The apparent blanket term "ESL" employed to talk about English language education in the US regardless of funding structure or learner background is possibly misleading here. |
This is part of where the miscommunication came from, because you're comparing apples and oranges. Japan basically doesn't have this program as they don't really have a well thought out immigration policy. There is help for school kids learn Japanese in certain circumstances, but that is about it (the nursing programs do provide some money to hospitals that have tried to take on Asian nurses, but that is for passing the Japanese exam as well).
In addition, I see plenty of uni students who unfortunately don't take advantage of studying abroad by hanging around with other Japanese students and sleeping through classes. Might depend on who you've taught.
GambateBingBangBOOM
| Quote: |
| What you seem to be saying is that there are two classes of ESL students- those who have parents who pay for everything and go to universities. And those who are immigrants. And that Japanese eikaiwa students, because they are paying more than immigrants are more highly motivated. I think the reality is that (especially in the past) many Japanese eikaiwa students were highly motivated, but that's because learning English is a hobby for them. They already have a career, a safetly net if something goes badly, etc. Other students, usually younger students, at eikaiwas are there because their parents have MADE them go. They are not highly motivated, any more than they are in their high schools (which is to say, not at all for the majority of them). |
It depends on the student, as some of the hobby students went/go more to lessons for socializing, learning English is just an extra component. |
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timothypfox
Joined: 20 Feb 2008
Posts: 492
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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Vince wrote:
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| I suggest gaining that language ability and work experience and then looking for work in Japan in your field. Yes, it's a lot of work. As with most things, better preparation up front yields greater rewards later. If you're serious about living well in Japan (if married, that includes your family's standard of living), it's worth the effort and patience. |
I am a little surprised how much response my original post generated, but I think this has been a very productive conversation.
I would like to second Glenski in that Vince's quote above is nicely and succinctly put. The job market in Japan can still provide teachers something more reasonable than eikaiwas if they are willing to put a little more effort into learning the language and working on their credentials and experience than they did in the past.
I cannot run into a debate of comparisons between working conditions even though I may have tried to do so. Most of my working experience has been in either Canada or the United States - even though I have worked with many Japanese students.
I will say this though. There are a significant number of problems in the ESL / EFL industry in this side of the world too. My comments below mostly relate to public school education because that is where most of the better paid ESL related jobs are:
Language school or eikaiwa type of work in Canada or the US is usually underpaid with no benefits permanent part-time work at best.
Universities are getting to be as hard a nut to crack as the Japanese ones. Many positions are sessional lecturing positions for a single course. I will say this though - the advantage of trying here is that you could also work in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand as graduate level universities credentials are at least reasonably standardized between English speaking countries. In Japan, you only have the one countries' institutions to try to work at.
Public schools have a host of problems here. Urban centers are often magnets for immigrants from a lower economic strata. The parents of children are often unskilled or educated, and instill these values in their children. Many families have a pattern of multiple migration back and forth between Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico with students sometimes coming back a month late from holidays or leaving a month early for holidays.
The work is often high paying with strong benefits, but it is one of the highest stress occupations as teachers are held accountable for their students' success and outrageous things such as bulletin boards are valued over what teachers are doing with their students in the class.
ESL teachers at public schools here are a little lucky in that because many do not speak Spanish they are incubated from having to directly deal with parents a lot of the time. (The same may be true in Japan, no?)
Public schools principles have a history in New York of bullying non-tenured teachers into doing extra duties than they are supposed to do.
Many principals also use walk-throughs to do a "gotcha!" approach to observing their staff. If principals walk by at a less than ideal time, they will punish teachers when "things don't look right."
Politicians such as New York Mayor Bloomberg bully teachers with an army of slanted studies to "prove" the Union demands too much and that many "underperforming teachers" need to be laid off.
5 days of work a week and finishing your work day no later than 4 PM are the standard in US and Canadian public school. It is rare to find these great work benefits / circumstances in Japan. So, that is a definite plus to work in North America.
However, because of the kinds of issues I listed above, public schools are revolving doors for teachers and are always trying to hire new teachers. The up side to this is that there are emergency types of certifications in many urban centers in the US which help teachers earn a masters from a local university while they work at almost no cost. You just have to put in about 3 years in public school work to get the subsidy, otherwise you get penalized and have to pay the cities back.
Many teachers racing off to Japan hoping that their BA and CELTA is a gold-standard to get good work in America or Canada when they return are sadly mistaken, and have to go back and reskill by doing a masters in education (and not in applied linguistics) to work at public school here because eikaiwas don't pay that well relative to costs of living at least in larger urban centers.
My conclusion here is that for a good ESL career in both Japan and in Canada and the US it is often necessary to get advanced training such as a masters degree. I have heard of some exceptions from people who have less, but I would personally recommend more training to people.
There are more job opportunities in your home country in the ESL industry these days, and public school work would give you better benefits than what you could generally get in a comparable position (international school or private Japanese high school) in Japan.
Job satisfaction / security and overall ESL / EFL industry problems do exist in a every teacher's home country. These issues are not unique to Japan. What (continues) to attract people to Japan is that it is the most highly developed south east asia country that continues to have one foot firmly planted in the historical past.
From a cultural point of view, Japan continues to be a fascinating place even if the working life can be comparatively frustrating. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| timothypfox wrote: |
| Job satisfaction / security and overall ESL / EFL industry problems do exist in a every teacher's home country. These issues are not unique to Japan. |
Some/Many of the details do differ.
You cannot usually get a FT teaching job in a public school as a solo teacher in Japan. That requires a degree from a Japanese university and its requisite training. Most public school teachers (foreign) are ALTs or AETs.
By sheer virtue of the ALT nature, the goalposts change compared to other countries where you can be a solo teacher. The "bullying" exists in a different form, vastly different I would say. It can come from within the school as well as from one's employer (usually a dispatch agency).
There are other differences, too. The devil is in the details, so I wouldn't just dismiss them with your comment above.
| Quote: |
| What (continues) to attract people to Japan is that it is the most highly developed south east asia country that continues to have one foot firmly planted in the historical past. |
And, the manga/anime. And, the ideas of golden streets and widely available eager women. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:11 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| What (continues) to attract people to Japan is that it is the most highly developed south east asia country that continues to have one foot firmly planted in the historical past. |
And, the manga/anime. And, the ideas of golden streets and widely available eager women. |
Perhaps for some of the stranger and naive lot that come over here. But there are many things that can make life for foreigners seem comparably better than in other E.Asian countries.
Apart from the superior level of hygiene, foreigners don't get arrested here for mentioning anything negative to the citizens about, for example, Taiwan or anything that might be seen as an attempt to corrupt them. Foreigners don't get rounded up and interrogated by the police and immigration as the country tries to shake its negative image to other countries before big events. Foreigners don't get egged in the street because they are from a country that the government and thus the people have decided to hate that day. And even if you are not from a nation currently being hated on, you can still incur the wrath of the people merely be association (being seen with the wrong people or at the wrong stores). Let's not forget that not every shop keeper becomes an opportunistic criminal as soon as they see a foreign face here.
These are just a few things from one country, but these issues and many others are faced by foreigners within many countries. In comparison, Japan sounds (and for me, is) better than some of the other ESL hot spots out there. |
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