This question is dead serious, not passive agressive, I really want to know how you all feel……..Do you actually care if your student’s English speaking level improves?

42 comments

1. I would like their speaking abilities to improve if they are trying, but there are a fair number of classes I have where no or few students are actually trying. Those you can kind of just turn your brn off for. What does make me a bit mad is when you get the unfortunate class with one or two really engaged students, and the rest with absolutely no interest in English, and the good students get dragged down by everyone elses resignation.

2. It sounds like you are a great teacher and do care a lot? Like you try to give them chances to speak with the ALTs and make sure they get higher scores in tests. If that’s not caring, then I don’t know what would actually be qualified as caring?

   Also btw, from my experience of teaching adults English, there is a dramatic difference in people who have studied English for written exams in their highschool, and others who have not. Even if their speaking level isn’t that high, people who have studied for the written test just has more understanding and knowledge of English, and it’s generally easier for them to improve their speaking. So, teaching them to get higher test score is overall helpful.

3. My motivation for improving my students’ English abilities is directly proportional to the amount of effort I see them put in during class time.

   Directly proportional.

4. I have a similar opinion after my first year of being an ALT in a somewhat dead end city. These kids don’t live in Tokyo and unless they specifically want to go abroad, English ability isn’t all that important for them. Granted I still wish the tests and material was more natural, but I do recognize (at least in JHS) that the English material is mirroring their social studies material. It does make some sense to use familiar learning for the language so they can more easily link words and concepts better, at the cost of more natural consistent English however.

   Honestly, I’m more interested in your journey to becoming a full teacher in Japan how long did it take you roughly?

5. I care deeply about my students learning English, because it’s setting them up for a much higher quality of life.

   Learning any second language is itself a huge benefit. There are proven mental benefits to being multilingual. It improves your ability to understand your own native language (When I began studying in preparation for being an English teacher, I was quickly surprised how little I knew about grammar). It also allows you to be more culturally aware.

   Learning English specifically has massive benefits. You can speak with people in almost every country to some degree or other, at least in the business/academic/tourist spheres. This enables your students to access new job/career opportunities, and to study or volunteer abroad. Even if all they do is use it for travel, they can do so comfortably without needing to be part of some ungodly tour group that insulates them from the society they’re supposedly visiting.

   Do I love teaching English? Not a relevant question really, any more than asking if the person at the restaurant loves cooking. It’s a job I agreed to do, and I make it a point to do my best in whatever I do, because otherwise it’s a dangerous slide towards mediocrity. What I love is knowing I’ve helped my students with something that absolutely will benefit them in a real way in their lifetime.

   ​

   >90% or more of my students will never need to speak English in their adult lives

   I find this assumption to be extremely questionable… unless you are teaching in a small town where everyone will spend their lives in the area, working at a factory, and largely staying off the internet.

   Having international friends (online or in person) generally requires a foreign language unless you limit yourself to a very small pool of fluent Japanese speakers. Social media, or the internet in general, is largely in English. Yes there are apps that can translate, and they’re getting better over time, but they are still far from perfect and you miss a LOT when you rely on a machine to infer the meaning.

   It’s good that you want to help your kids, and by all means don’t stop, but if you’ve been hired to, and are being paid to teach English, you really should care if you’re doing that successfully. Because it’s not a company that is losing out on profits if you lose your motivation to teach, it’s kids being denied an education. And whatever your opinions, you do not have the right to decide that for them.

6. I was thinking about this the other day. You need to study for about 400 hours to pass level 5 of the JLPT. My students study with me for 40 hours a year. It’s easy to see why only students who are putting in extra effort will actually improve their English. I do my best to encourage the students to learn, but it’s up to them to put in the extra effort to see results.

7. This kind of makes me sad to read.

   Learning a second language has amazing benefits on the brain.

   Y’all should check the studies out.

   Also, it’s a bit weird to teach something but not care about the results……

   As an elementary school teacher I care that my students progress in every subject I teach…

8. This is a complicated issue, however my general rule is simple. If you want to be a good teacher, you must love your students. Whatever the situation may be, if you love your students, everything will be alright.

9. If they care, I care. If they cant be arsed its not going to keep me up at night.

10. What do you mean by “need” English? Literally, like they’ll die or be unable to find work without it? No of course they don’t need it. But most subjects aren’t needed beyond a certain point. I’ve never used any of the algebra I learned. Science hasn’t come in handy for me at all. I enjoy history, but it hasn’t helped me in my career.

    But I don’t see how you look around the world, or even at careers within Japan, and don’t say speaking English will open a ton of doors and opportunities for them both personally and professionally. And yes, many students will never use that door, but that is their choice. Our job as teachers is to make sure they have that choice in the first place.

    So yes, I care about my students’ speaking skills. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be teaching. It’s not like it’s a lucrative field.

11. You can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink .

12. I just want my students to make any sort of effort and enjoy sharing books/activities in English. As long as I hold up my end and model great English for them and encourage their speaking abilities appropriately, I feel that I’ve done my part. I work with younger students so I have some leeway in results, but modeling and encouraging simple English has gone a long way with them.

13. I’ll be honest here and say that I do not care if the average individual student improves much. Unless they are taking a test prep course, it’s an entirely subjective feeling. I need my students to keep coming back and paying, like how a doctor needs you to keep getting ill, so if they become “fluent” I lose a client.

14. I teach only business English to adults mostly over 24.

    My goal every start of the course is to see the honne under the tatemae.

    I want them to express their opinions not repeat what they are supposed to repeat or repeat stock phrases or tell me facts I already know. I know they are capable of that.

    As an adult you must have opinions.

15. For the students who really enjoy English and actually want to go to an English speaking country when they get older, yes, I want their English to improve. I recommend some American cartoons, movies, etc they can watch and if they are having region lock issues, I download it for them (I have a VPN) and share it with them.

    As for the rest of the class, in honesty I care more if my students are having fun and are engaged. Especially the JHS because all the clubs, crams school, test, etc. If English class is lit, they view it as a break in their day where they can kinda relax a little, laugh, etc. I understand they are not gonna get to use English much often, and because of the way in which English is taught in Japan, it won’t help them improve. So, since I can’t change that I focus on what I can change.

    I noticed they also like being able to express themselves through talking about the thinks they like. Letting them talk about anime, game, manga, vtubers, idol, etc for assignments rather than forcing them to report on their family (they like their privacy lol) gets the kids really engaged. Then they actually want to know other vocabulary we haven’t learned to talk about the character. Sometimes, simply altering a book lesson can help.

    What I’m saying is I do care, but with curriculum at the ES and JHS level (I can’t speak for HS, any HS ALTs please feel free to chyme in) it’s going to be damn near impossible for the students to improve. Especially JHS. And if you get a “by the book” JTE, then you can just forget it lol. ES isn’t as bad, but JHS it’s a huge jump and they are so focus on testing that they’re blowing through the material so the kids don’t retain much. I hate it.

16. I do inasmuch as everything they learn will help with their speaking, but I don’t focus on improving speaking to the detriment of anything else, not least because I don’t have students long enough to meaningfully measure improvement in general ability to speak English.

17. I want to hear about how you got the teaching license.

18. I stopped caring about English, but I always try to push for more open earnest communication.

    The growth I’ve seen in some of my students and the drastic difference overall difference in the classes’ atmosphere compared to the older grades that I didn’t teach as much is really something to behold.

19. Honestly, they don’t care so I don’t care.
    I work my butt off for the ones who make a concerted effort but that’s my side hustle.
    My main gig, they don’t want to be there so no I don’t care. I can’t care more than they do.

20. You’ve taught quite literally thousands of students, so I assume you’ve seen this trend: you have the students who actively want to improve their English for whatever reason… and then the students who just suffer through because they have to be in the class.

    If I’m dealing with the former, I absolutely want them to improve. It’s the whole idea of “The amount of effort you put in is the same you get out”. I will do whatever I can to help them get better- even if it’s just bit by bit.

    The latter group presents an interesting situation. Their whole attitude is “English sucks and I want nothing to do with it”, so I also really don’t care what happens with it. That said… I’m still going to try to help them at least a little. Even if they don’t care about it, some students will try to speak a little English if they like you (NOTE: this depends on YOU as a person), and I’m certainly going to give them a little bit of help somehow.

21. I care, first because I like to see them improve, and second because I teach at an online school where they rate our ability to teach with student progression. And for I would say 2/3 of the students, they work really hard and I can watch them improve over a few months, and it’s a great feeling when I realize they are sharing thoughts they couldn’t have before.

    But for the other third, they’re clearly either overworked with all the other shit that got shoveled on their plate, or only there because their parents are forcing them, or both, and while it’s sad, I understand and I can’t force them to learn how to speak better when they phone it in once a week for thirty minutes on zoom. So I fill out the report about why they’re still on the same level for 6 months and call it a day, because early on I learned you can’t teach anything to someone who doesn’t care or have the energy to learn.

22. For me it depends on where I am teaching and the students level of care.

    If I’m working with kids, then I absolutely care and will do everything I can to make sure those kids not only have fun, but learn something and I’ll give them plenty of opportunities to practice and come to me for any help they need.

    For adults, then it comes down to them and how hard they try. Some of my favourite students of all time have been adults who really cared, wanted to learn and were willing to work hard. Together we were able to make a schedule to help them improve a lot. Other adults though really didn’t care at all. I had one adult student who was only taking lessons because their boss told them too, another didn’t want to do any extra practice at home or outside of the 1 hour he would schedule a week. If my adult student can’t care enough to do even the slightest bit of practice then I don’t really care if they improve or not. I will do the lessons that they enjoy, I will go over any points they want clarification on (even if that means repeating things every week because they didn’t review it) and generally just keep them happy as a customer but I usually stop caring if they actually improve or not.

23. I used to care a lot when I first moved here back in 2013. Then I realized that the higher ups don’t care about the students’ improvement, they just want money. And that I wasn’t a teacher, I was entertainment, even with a TESOL diploma. I’ve changed industries since then.

24. This echoes my own sentiment to a great degree.

    At Eikaiwa, I realized it was circumstantial if kids improved, a lot of them didn’t want to be there. I also found it quite painful when bright kids, ones who managed to progress got pulled out for whatever reason it left a massive vacuum in the class.

    Also, given the content of lessons (which had to adhere to company materials and pacing levels). Giving kids self motivation, or the reward of learning was more than an uphill battle.

    My circumstances now are different, I work in a private school with an international curriculum leaning into literature. There are some massive problems because the parents don’t see the need to be involved or help with the students development.

    I do care, and I recently gave a wars for creative writing which felt good.

    But, I’m insulated from hoping too much because I’d be setting myself up to fail.

25. No, not at all. Unless they are dedicated adults.

26. Honestly, I really don’t care if they speak it or not. I do care (tiny bit) if they pass their test. What i care about is that I get my shmoney on the 26th. *itch beta have my yennies

27. I sort of care / don’t care. The BoE marching orders were always “communicative” English. OK … so no repeating / fill in the blanks / etc. … I’ve slowly but surely moved to my students writing stories, making choices, creating random “lego” sentences, etc. depending on their level.

    The tests are starting to require some speaking and definitely listening skills so from my perspective the speaking is to help with the listening which is becoming more important. I do my portions of lessons in English – anything from a quick 15 minutes to the entire class – as it’s great for their listening comprehension. Obviously Eiken tests require speaking so if I’m doing test preparation for that it’s like 80% speaking 20% listening!

    For my 1st year JHS students who “officially” can’t write yet I do lots of spoken work as otherwise they’d spend all of the first 2-3 weeks just doing alphabet > word > sentence practice and get bored to death. So … I read / read repeat / read A read B / read translate. I ask the JTE to run through some of it backwards so instead of E > J they do J > E. By second term they’ll be doing more writing work, listening comprehension, etc.

    My guess is only about 10-20% of class time is speaking practice while the rest is making their own sentences (opinions so they can actually communicate what THEY want to say rather than rote repeat).

28. Just wanted to thank you for your insight as a licensed JTE on English improvement. The discussions facilitated in this thread could help future and current teachers especially JTEs and ALTs. You speak frankly and in my opinion seem like a decent teacher. Some people have these lofty ideas about teaching a second language. The reality is that these kids have a shit ton on their plate in upper levels and the way Japan is set up means communication kind of takes a back burner but I think that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t care about their improvement outside of tests. I think you care about them as your students and what they have to do to succeed. That’s admirable and you’ve worked hard to get to the position where you can help them.

29. I’m going to teach the lesson regardless of whether they’re interested or not. What they get out of it is entirely up to them as individuals. If they want or need something from me , I’ll do my best to help them succeed. If they’re indifferent and disinterested, it kinda ruins the atmosphere of a lesson which I don’t enjoy but that’s cool, they get a C pass and we can all move on with life. Although I have to say that the level of apathy and laziness among Japanese university students does shock me sometimes. The standards and expectations here are so much lower than my home country.

30. If you dont care, please stop teaching and go home.

31. Why do you think you can help a child as a teacher better than those other jobs? Lol?

32. English is the common language intentionally. It’s the language of business.

    Look at how much more interconnected the world has become since we were kids (assuming you’re not in your early 20s).
    That ain’t changing. The reality is unless there’s a global disaster the world will only continue to be more connected.

    I have taught all over Asia and by far the worst english evel is japanese and I’m fed up of hearing this crap about how the culture is so special they can’t learn it easily. It’s a crap excuse for outdated and rigid curriculums that ignore everything we know about teaching ESL in the modern world.

    If we as teachers don’t push for a higher English level who will? And how do you expect Japanese to do well in an emerging global society if they don’t have a functional level?

    Edit. I’m not saying be some sort of English hero either. I agree with the majority here that it’s really up to the students. But I do like to put the attitude of enthusiasm and English importance to all of my students. Whether they are enthused or not.

    Although maybe AI and auto translate will just make our job irrelevant. Who knows. It feels sad to give up tho doesn’t it?

33. Curious what your opinion is about the listening testing requirements? How has your teaching changed?

34. I don’t see how I couldn’t care. I do my best to provide a course where they can improve in speaking and writing. If individual kids don’t, they don’t. Especially at the high school level, there will be kids who just realize it doesn’t have anything to do with them in the future and will put in the bare minimum. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do my damndest to improve the course to make sure they have the opportunity.

    I’m not sure why you would want to teach something and not want to do your best at it.

35. I’m not a teacher, but I found here…
    When I was a student, studying English was just something I had to do, and I thought It would be impossible that I speak English. After I turned 30, I started attending English conversation classes because I became a fan of foreign movies and actors. Learning the basics of English at school has been helpful, and I am grateful for the English education I had as a child. If I hadn’t studied then, studying English would have been even more difficult. I just wanted to let you know that some people found it helpful.
    Well, however, in my opinion, English education in Japan cannot be improved any further. Because we can live without a second language.

36. At my first gig in Japan (Eikaiwa) we wanted students to feel like they were improving but to also keep taking classes forever. So sort of a mixed bad.

    Teaching at universities after that it was also a mixed bad. The kids who were taking English as a requirement – no. They wanted to pass the class and I wanted them to learn a bit, but at the end of the day all that mattered was passing the class. Instrumental motivation is real, and should be honored. BUT for the kids who were going to study abroad I was very invested in them learning enough to thrive abroad (or at least survive!). Those kids I dedicated myself to making sure they would have a safe, useful, and fun time wherever they went.

37. I want them to do well for tests for better futures not necessarily expecting native fluency

38. I feel this. I’m not so concerned with their fluency or their technical ability. Getting them interested, speaking some English, and having a good time while practicing is what I’m interested in. The kids who aren’t interested – i dont want to force them. I’ll be an open resource if they ever find themselves interested. Because i feel the same – the students don’t NEED to learn English to survive – obviously I care if they learn it but not like I care if they can do math or read Kanji. In the grand scheme English is likely at the bottom of their priority lists and though I’m there to help them and teach them i dont stress when their English isn’t great. It doesn’t have to be

39. I try to give students enough background and practice in English that it makes their lives easier in university and, if applicable, abroad. If their speaking isn’t that great but they can text and email or at least write a decent paragraph, I’m satisfied as long as they are.

40. I read it all, unfortunately.
    Do you really think speaking ability is unrelated to listening and reading abilities? It seems you have little true understandibg of how language aquisition works. They all feed into each other. Thus, you better care about their speaking ability if you want to improve their English overall .

41. For public education (jhs and hs) speaking skills are useless and not even wanted. If students want communication skills go to an eikaiwa.

42. When I started here, I used to care a lot, and despite trying not to, I can’t help but try hard to help the students learn.

    The reason I don’t want to try hard anymore is because the majority of students don’t make an effort to learn what you teach them.

    About 5 years ago, I had this student who took over 200 lessons with me. Like most Japanese people, she could not use articles for the life of her despite me correcting her every lesson.

    One day, I told her that, rather than study from her text book, I was going to spend the entire lesson just on “a” and “the”. I made detailed notes, I made flow charts by hand, I colour-coded everything, I really went the whole 9 yards for this student because her basic foundations in English just weren’t good enough.

    The next day, she takes a lesson and doesn’t make an attempt to use what I’d taught her. I know it’s my job to teach, and that’s not my complaint. My complaint is that, I was in that booth for 40 minutes. My obligation was to have her read a text book and be the other role in the role plays. There have been a myriad of other instances where trying hard as yielded more detriment than if I’d just half-arsed the lessons. Now, I just keep them happy. Keep them happy and let them say whatever the fuck they want. I’ll write corrections down, I’ll write new words down, and I’ll do it all with a cheeky smile, and a wink.
    But unless they show they really want to learn, I will never put any more effort into my lessons than I have to, and if they can never really speak English, I couldn’t care less.