As an ALT, I have worked with a few JTEs who cannot communicate in English but have been teaching English at JHSs for a number of years (both young and old teachers). The ones I have worked with usually just use Japanese in the classroom or very basic English instruction. They also seem to be disinterested in the subject and won’t ask the ALT for any advice or even use us to practice and improve their English skills. I am just curious as to why they chose to become an English teacher in the first place.
any ideas?
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Because it’s relatively easy to become an English teacher and “English” is a subject to be taught and studied to pass exams, not a language to be used to communicate.
The last part is a deeper topic which I have seen dishearten even good English teachers with great communication skills.
Not everyone chooses their job because it’s what they have a passion for in life.
If schools operate along similar lines to companies with regards to the allocation and reallocation of personnel, then that teacher was simply selected because the role needed to be filled.
For example, my ex-Webmaster Colleague at my old company didn’t know anything about web development, but was simply parachuted into that role because it needed to be done. He probably pulled the short straw.
Disclaimer: Not an education professional.
Some JTE’s I have hung out with and gone drinking with will sometimes talk smack and they told me that one of the ways to become a teacher is to get just get their teaching license and degree but they don’t have to necessarily get a degree in the specific subject they’re teaching.
Aren’t many of them forced to be English teachers in ES and JHS? It changes every few years doesn’t it? Like rotating through teachers that haven’t done it yet and suddenly have to be the English teacher at some point? Maybe I have it wrong but that’s what I always thought unless they are in charge of English specifically from the BoE.
Because in Japanese education they learn 英語 and not English.
I’m sure their communicative ability is ass. But they are probably good at teaching grammar and tips/strategies to score well in exams.
There’s several factors:
1. From the ALT perspective it’s easy to think of them as an **English** teacher but it’s probably better to understand them as a **JHS or HS teacher** who happens to teach English as part of their job.
2. In Japan, it’s difficult to change majors at most universities so if you entered an English teacher trainer program, you’ll graduate as one.
3. As others have pointed out, it’s also easy to confuse the Japanese school subject English with other aspects of English. This occurs both in terms of what you think the time in class is spent on and in the qualification necessary to become licensed as an English teacher.
4. For quite some time, a decent portion of Japanese people have valued stability over income — public school teachers are public servants with basically guaranteed incomes and jobs. So some people do it for this reason too.
5. Also imagine this: you’re terrible at your job and you know it, but you have no skills and don’t want to be unemployed or working as a peer with your former students at Lawson. Do you (A) quit your job because you’re not good at it or (B) soldier on because you’ve got a mortgage?
Because Japan is OK with katakana english. They have so low standards that they don’t care if the teacher is a native one or not.
When I was giving private lessons, I met a mother and her brilliant young daughter (12), and the mother was especially proud to show me the english text book her kid was using in a prestigious (and expensive) private school.
It was full of complicated, novel-level texts. You can imagine my surprise.
Our first one-to-one lesson started and I asked the kid to read the first text, just to assess her level.
She couldn’t even read the first ‘the’.
I showed her simpler sentences, then words, then syllables.
Nothing. She was red with shame.
Then I understood that her ‘advanced’ lessons consisted in reading complicated texts with a dictionary in the hand, word by word, and then **trying to guess what it meant.**
The young girl was herself so shocked that I decided to start over with the alphabet, and combination of letters, till she started to be able to read simple words like ‘cat’, ‘hat’, ‘dog’, ‘hot’. I was starting to put these words in simple sentences and have her read it when I felt that I had to explain to her mother what was happening.
Her reaction?
**”There is no way my child can learn something that complicated’ （こんな難しいの、習える訳がありません。）**
I immediately stopped the lessons and never taught a kid again.
But what I mean, is that in these conditions, nobody cares about your level in english, when at the end everybody is OK with katakana english and GUESSING.
By the way, I am French. Is my english that horrid?
Receptive testing, so any exam they took tested memorised grammar/vocab or simple comprehension. But, outside the classroom they may struggle to produce English.
JTEs are usually criminally underpaid and overworked. 9/10 they do not make as much or more than the ALT.
Help them. Have their back. See what you can do to strengthen that relationship. JTEs are usually the go between of a specialized English teacher, or a homeroom teacher present for English class. I wouldn’t consider any licensed teacher specialized or otherwise, a JTE, but rather an unlicensed support teacher that speaks English as a second language and is Japanese.
Many that get into working as a JTE will ultimately become licensed full salary English teachers for typically middle school at some point. Others need a job just as much as we do. Point being: ALTs have it good compared to JTEs.
– it seems as though some places use the JTE title for unlicensed support teachers and other places use the title for licensed teachers. I’m speaking from experience where they are unlicensed teachers and encourage people who work where it’s different, to offer a different perspective.
Adding to this based on discussion threads here: I just had a conversation with some amazing middle aged women in kindergarten education at a meeting the other day. Autonomy and Agency are huge cornerstones of western education. We are asking our kids to think critically as soon as they’re old enough to talk to us. The system in Japan, by their words, favors infantalization and they considered it a determent in the conversation we had. Usually the kids that do better aside from repeating information, are those whose autonomy and Agency are encouraged at home. Following this system isn’t necessarily a personal sleight or someone being disinterested. Likely, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do because that’s how it’s done here.
I met a JTE who was part time at our junior high, part time at a university. Could not speak a word.
Same reason everyone else does. Cop-out
I once asked one of mine this question, they answered “My English teacher in high school was a nice person, so I wanted to be a nice person too.”
Legit answers I got from several JTEs over the years.
1. It’s cool to speak English.(or appear to be able to)
2. It makes them stand out from other Japanese people.
3. They were good at English in school so naturally became a JTE but hated it and it’s too late to turn back now.
Answers I got from other teachers:
1. English is cool.
I have come to understand that a lot of the JTEs I encountered who aren’t adept at English are really full of themselves and their aim is to **appear** better than their counterparts. These particular types of JTEs would be the ones that avoided me or told me I wasn’t needed in their class. Worse yet, refuse to take any suggestions from me or even consult with me unless they had a demo class they needed to ace.
It’s a secure tenured job with yearly pay rises, a good pension plan, and bonuses. If they can teach the grammar points, even if they do it in Japanese, and follow the textbook then they can get by as an English teacher in Junior high. The curriculum will slowly change, as it has for high school, so in theory that would put more pressure on them. In reality, with an increasing shortage of teachers…
ALT’s generally don’t have actual training on teaching English and don’t generally have a working knowledge of the exams the students need to take to move on to high school or college. Why would they ask said ALT for advice?
ALT’s are far less knowledgeable about Japanese education. Sorry if that disappoints you.
*edit* a simple honest answer to why a JTE may not care for help from an ALT, why so much hate? A single JTE may see a new ALT every year, and its a crap shoot the quality. The JTE not taking an ALT seriously is not farfetched. Not sure why people would go out of their way to downvote.
When I was a university exchange student in Japan one of the first professors I was introduced to was the English prof. Seriously, I could not understand his halting English. It was totally embarrassing for me to communicate with him. But the guy had a doctorate in ed. with a specialty in English. Go figure.
The level of English taught in JHS is so low that no real communicative ability is needed to teach it.
Because, as one of my JTEs said when asked a similar question by my students:
“Circumstances forced me to be an English teacher.”
The first thing to realize is that in JHS, you actually DO need a license to teach English- elementary is a different story. But I would assume that getting a license simply requires… passing a test (like everything else in Japan). So long as they pass the test, even if by one point, they get the license.
Then a JHS is looking for a licensed English teacher finds them, and I would imagine the process goes like this:
Kouchou-sensei: “Do you have a license for teaching English?”
JTE-to-be: “Yes, but…”
Kouchou-sensei: “You’re hired!”
… usually this is done when a JHS is extremely desperate for an English teacher. However, with a shortage of teachers in general, I expect so long as they have the license, they can get the job.
At this point. Its better off just the ALT inside the room than having a JTE.
I’ve had JTEs who were not that great at speaking English but still very loveable teachers, and gradually opened up more as I communicated with them semi-assertively (like involving them in roleplays and greetings or just outside of class). Maybe their previous ALT for past 1+ years didn’t do that so much? I don’t know. Also reduced their katakana English greatly just by correcting it or emphasizing linking during class sometimes. But I’m lucky because I have full control of many lessons. I’ve also had JTEs who were really shy (easy to bully if students want to). So everyone is different. Mostly my JTEs are very good, many are curious about improving their English, actually the ones who don’t like me so much I still respect their English teaching ability except for maybe 1 who kept marking down native speakers and then got me fired LOL what
To be honest, the amount of Japanese teaches who speak English well has increased dramatically over the years. Those that couldn’t, namely older teachers, are slowly retiring.
That said, there are generally two kinds of teachers that I’ve observed. Teachers who became teachers because they loved the subject and want to teach it. And Teachers who became teachers because they want to coach a sport. Occasionally you find someone who enjoys both, which is great, but generally they are separated into those two groups.
I’ll admit that I am not the most sociable person. But working full-time and participating in many other duties besides teaching have helped me establish a rapport with my teachers and given me many opportunities to engage them in English even if they choose to speak back in Japanese. But I guess I’m lucky that the majority of my English teachers like English to some degree.
But the other part-time teachers that comes is excellent at speaking to everyone, even those that are not English teachers. They will ask very simple questions and those teachers seem to enjoy misunderstanding or trying to speak back. It’s often fun for those around to watch and join in.
So…I would suggest talking to everyone at your workplace, even those who are not English teachers. Smile, laugh, and just enjoy trying to communicate. It will make a difference in time and spill over to others. Something I’ve also realized I could better at myself.
Funny seeing this post because I’m new to my two schools and noticed this as well. Completely confused as to how they know almost no English. I could literally tell them anything and they’d believe me.
My dude, I had a Spanish teacher in High School who knew less than the Soccer coach, and the Soccer Coach only knew enough to coach soccer with it.
Becoming a Japanese English teacher in public schools means you’ll always have work. They’re even expanding to use them in elementary schools.
As to why they’re not interested in improving their English, be it spoken or written? They don’t need to. Once they’re in, they’re in. I think Japanese teachers need to do something stupid like burying cats in the schoolyard if they’re in public schools.
I taught with a guy who didn’t like Americans. A rather poor choice of vocation, I thought.
Worked with 4 different JTE and only one of them could communicate at a decent level. I was really shocked about this.
Off the top of my head I can think of 5 JTEs I’ve worked with who trained in a different subject but were forced to be English teachers because they’d passed higher level eiken tests. Some of them simply have no interest in the subject they’re teaching.
Actually I started at a new university this fall .. and the head Japanese teachers in charge of English, have wrote some of the most incomprehensible emails I’ve ever read .. not just junior high
I worked at a private school that was fairly serious about sports. A lot of the coaches had to be teaching something, and apparently English was the easiest to be accredited for?
Aged old adage “those who can’t do, teach” in this case it’s quite true.
It pays the money salary?
I have worked with JHS JTEs who were qualified to teach two subjects, their main subject plus English. They spent years teaching just their main subject, but got forced to teach English when there was a shortage of English teachers in the town/city.
The other and more common situation is that a teacher was qualified to teach ES and JHS, but have been teaching only ES and suddenly got assigned to be an English teacher at a JHS and they have to actually start using English.
One of my colleagues told me that there is less competition to become an English teacher than other subjects so it is a good career for mediocre people.
Because the culture view of a teacher as an expert clashes with the reality of second language acquisition with ultimate attainment and individual differences. This forces teachers to shy away from using the language in class due to fear of losing face and instead backtrack to a grammar translation approach where they can fake expertise.