A year and a half of teaching at a rural junior high school has made me hyper aware of one thing—basically every unit and every class in Japanese education is preparing them for the next test, which will lead them to the next test, and so on until many of them go thru the grueling selection process of job searching, and they’re conditioned to accept the corporate ladder and overworked life. This “work ethic” culture draws young ppl out of small towns and disincentivizes raising families. This curriculum style includes English. I feel it’s ironic that for a culture that’s so concerned with academic performance, it only trains students how to take a test and not the actual skill of speaking English.
You may be given more responsibilities at ES or HS, but at my JHS I am mostly a tape recorder. Speaking activities are only 10 mins of class, 15 max. There’s too much translation work. Students get confused when they try to translate English grammar 1 to 1 from Japanese. They should be shown that English has different ways of speaking, to say the same ideas. Vocab lists are full of niche unnecessary words from textbook stories. They should be immersed in English in class and shown media (not cartoons) of ppl speaking English. Shows, comedies, games, that actually gets them interested in the fun of language that inspires study. JTEs are overworked with admin tasks and pressured to teach to the test.
So to all new ALTs I say emphasize the Exchange of the program! Use every opportunity to get to know your students outside of class. During lunch break, in the hallways, at events and clubs. Learn their names if you can, make inside jokes, and learn their hobbies. A textbook isnt going to make them want to keep learning English, but remembering a kind and fun ALT will. That said, I love my students and this has been a super fulfilling job and made wanna be a teacher. But I hope Japanese culture has a come to Jesus moment soon with this horrid standardized system. Their kids deserve better.
((Not to say Japanese schools don’t do things right. Students are generally super community and civic duty minded and help each other out. Which American students especially are very lacking I think))
19 comments
I love this post and I’m glad you want to be a teacher! I hope to be able to help inspire students to want to learn English and definitely plan to follow your advice😊I hope I get the freedom to show some media in class but if not, I definitely hope to make connections and cultural exchanges!
This. Rurual hs and I am just a copier/recorder. There is absolutely no time to have a full on class with me.
Well no. It’s not one big test. There are many different tests, and even for university, many students enter through early admission. But certainly tests are important steps.
And textbook authors are trying to emphasize critical thinking and other global skills while also covering the requisite grammar and vocabulary.
Anyway, if the only thing motivating a kid is to prepare for the test, many or even most kids will lose steam over time. So the rest of what you said made a lot of sense.
[deleted]
I’ve never been more glad to get Elementary School. While every teacher is different, I do get a ton of leeway in my teaching style. It feels great and the kids adore me for some reason lol.
>I hope Japanese culture has a come to Jesus moment soon with this horrid standardized system. Their kids deserve better.
Idk, it’s obviously not flawless, but their society seems considerably healthier than ones that use more loosy goosey models.
Ah so you have finally reached the stage of realization.
True. Iono if Korea teaches differently but in my trip there this past April, workers in convenience stores spoke pretty good English, almost native level. A lot of English that I heard sounded good. South Korea seemed very westernized compared to japan where I wouldn’t expect anyone to speak English in any random store, in Seoul it didn’t matter where I went, someone spoke English and very western English
Look. As much as you complain, at the end of the day, tests and passing tests matter.
So what can you do about it? Well, for one, you should know that every high school entrance exam is only going to include vocabulary and grammar that exists until the end of their 3rd year second semester. If your prefecture uses more than one different junior high textbook, then high school examinations are further limited to only include vocabulary and grammar that appears in all of the combined textbooks. For example, if just one textbook doesn’t include the word “guitar,” then that word will not appear on the exam.
So again what can you do about it? Well, some simple activities are to create crossword puzzles reinforcing/testing what grammar they were taught. Spelling is very important for high school exams as many answers are handwritten. Crossword puzzles can be great for this. Discovery.com has a very easy make your own crossword puzzle which I often use.
Putting words in order is another activity that commonly appears on H.S exams. You can gather some common sentences from your JTE, space out the words, laminate, and cut them up for students to put together.
Basically, if you are really wanting to help your JH students, then the best thing you can do is remain positive, encourage them to have fun, and then get ahold of some HS entrance exams to see for yourself just what they will need to do to attend the HS they want. Once you see what they need, then try to design or create activities that prepare them for that.
Keep them busy. No shooting right?
After 20+ years of teaching here my conspiracy theory is that this is by design. The entire modern enterprise of Japan is an exercise in neo-sakoku ism. If people organically learn a foreign language from a young age they will take an interest in other cultures and their media and be able to make comparisons on education and work culture and maybe find out things beneath the shiny surface aren’t that great. Then they might rock the geriatric boat that runs this show and demand change.
It’s why PM candidates with extensive overseas experience are overlooked for more safely domesticated ones. The same goes for leadership in solidly Japanese firms (ask Mr. Ghosn).
Japan has a very long history of beating the horse to death while fiercely maintaining appearances, until the whole thing collapses.
The population crisis is the latest evidence that this is on the horizon. People just don’t want to put another generation through the meat grinder. Although who can say how long the shiny show can last.
Edit: grammar & spelling
Just want to say that there is hope and there are people pushing for change! I’m also in a rural JHS and my JTE is part of a national network of English teachers researching communication based instruction methods. Since she joined this group we’ve completely cut passage translations from the cirriculum and made classes more speaking focused. There have been bumps along the way but we’re making progress and students are responding well to the new teaching methods. They’re still just a small group of teachers working to change things in their own classrooms, but hopefully this shows that there’s hope for more widespread change in the future
[deleted]
[deleted]
Honestly my one win has been convincing the 1st year teacher to let me play a song at the start of all our TT classes. (She’s chill, light of my life tbh). It’s really great to just have 3-4 minutes of vibing to music before getting into it. And it’s always great when kids mention later that they listened to it at home, or heard a song from class outside of school.
Teaching students to enjoy English is super valuable imo.
I totally agree with this!! My very rural junior high school is also pretty strict and focused on testing, aside from maybe 1-2 teachers who try to make it more engaging and fun. In the past few years our kids have seemed to absolutely despise english and generally have an incredibly low speaking level, but ever since we got a new ES JTE (who is amazing and fantastic) all of the kids have been much more enthusiastic about it as they enter JHS. I just hope they can keep that enthusiasm as they’re overloaded with testing…
Yeppers. English education in Japan is a really unfunny joke. Like Amy Schumer stand up unfunny. I teach in an affluent suburb, mere 30min bus ride into the city. So many of my JHS students are in cram school. But those kids are so burned out, they don’t do as well as they should. Out of 40 kids per class, only 2 actually get the material.
The thing about the “prep for testing” mentality you mentioned: I feel like the teachers are more concerned with blowing through the material because of this. This one teacher I work with is so bad w/ this, she will ask the kids questions and answers them herself. She will ask them questions in Japanese which she should be asking in English too. I’m talking simple stuff like “Who is this? Where are they” etc.
Tbh my ES is better. They spend more time reviewing the material and playing games to help the kids remember the words, practice speaking, and giving presentations. I wish JHS were like this. I feel the best I can do is give them games they get like twice a month. Some of them so try and I wish we could free speak more. I come to class early to free speak with them and they engage well. Hell I got one student who is really interested in English and likes to crack jokes about generic translations. He’s like “Super Fun Cleaning Time!” “I English Japanese King!” and “Super No Fun Test Time!”
Funny. I was on JET in the 90’s and I’m still here. I gave up trying to be an expert on Japanese education long ago.
My advice is to forget about trying to make any breakthroughs in English education here. Just enjoy your time here and have fun with your students and teachers and friends to the greatest extent you can. You’re the celebrity gaijin for 1-3 years then you’re gone. Enjoy it. Don’t get jaded.
Some think the system is doing it wrong. But the reality here is that English is just another subject to be taught, tested, passed, and if they need to use it in the real world then they figure that out in the real world.
Agreed, do everything in your power to get out from the toxic ‘drill for the test’ routine that the crusty old teachers have here.
It’s not JTEs being ‘responsible’ to make students sit in silence every English class, copying from the board or listening to the JTE speak. They just have *awful* pedagogy and are incompetent at teaching. Motivating students lets everyone actually enjoy, and gives them motivation to study, and helps them learn more in the lesson itself.