Who teaches the teachers: Amount, quality of JET training a perennial issue
Some of the assistant language teachers (ALTs) who come to this country on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme are professional educators in their home countries. But most are not. Training is necessary for them to do their jobs well, and opinions vary as to whether the program's existing training measures are sufficient.
According to Yoshiro Sato, an official of the Education, Science and Technology Ministry's international education section, new recruits arriving in Tokyo in each summer are given a two-day orientation, including a three-hour overview lecture on life in Japan and an array of six 90-minute classes each day on topics such as Japanese English education, team teaching and ALTs' expected duties. All are presented in a very general way.
After the new ALTs have begun working in public schools nationwide, Sato said, the ministry sponsors three-day midyear training sessions in each prefecture from October to February. Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) are also invited to these sessions. Second- and third-year ALTs get additional rounds of seminars, Sato said.
Former ALTs contacted by The Daily Yomiuri have had mixed reactions to this aspect of the program.
"I certainly didn't feel trained--[a few] days training in Tokyo does not prepare you for teaching in the slightest!" declared Emma McDade, an ALT in Niigata Prefecture from 2001 to 2003.
Elizabeth Mortimer, who taught in Kumamoto Prefecture for the same period, had the opposite view: "I felt well trained and well supported by JET--the conferences were great opportunities to develop skills and share experiences with peers."
Taking the middle ground was Patrick Barker, an ALT in Nagano Prefecture from 2004 to 2005, who said, "Most of my training [was]...on-the-job training, which I feel is the best way."
David McDaid, an Ehime Prefecture ALT from 2001 to 2004, had yet another perspective: "To be honest I didn't feel well trained, but at the same time I didn't feel I needed to be, given the kinds of duties I had to carry out."
Among current ALTs, divided opinions persist. Shree Kurlekar, who teaches in Shiga Prefecture, says the Tokyo orientation has to be very general because ALTs' specific situations can vary greatly. "I think that when you have everyone together in Tokyo, really all they're trying to do is make sure that you're not going to freak out," she said.
But it was all a bit too general for Tom Collins, an ALT in Oita Prefecture, who said: "I found that the Tokyo training was well intended but in the end had little bearing on my life in Oita...I found I learned more in the first week of my job than at any conference."
ALT Jolene Helgason said that she did receive a specifically local orientation upon her arrival in Kagoshima Prefecture, covering topics such as "what to do should [Kagoshima's major volcano] Sakurajima erupt...as well as information about what school life might be like."
"At our midyear seminars, we focused a lot on small group discussions with ALTs and JTEs so we could understand more of where we are all coming from, enabling us to learn to work more effectively together," Helgason said. "We also had demonstration lessons so we can see new ways to interact with our JTEs. Overall, I think midyear has been quite good at giving us concrete ways in which to improve our lessons."
Collins saw things differently: "The midyear conferences were a...waste of time. I found them to be a collection of workshops which had been put on by reluctant ALTs who had been nominated by the kencho [prefectural government office]."
"The problem with a lot of these questions is, it depends on what you mean by 'training,'" Kurlekar said. "There's only so much training they can give us for what it is that we do. Because each teacher [is different]. I have teachers that take me in and I'm nothing but a tape recorder. And I have other teachers that allow me to make complete lessons. So I kind of see the midyear conferences and things like that as, honestly, a chance for us to get together and to bitch."
She added, however, such meetings do also provide a good opportunity to exchange teaching ideas and materials.
Kevin Byrne, an ALT in Aomori Prefecture, said: "If I have any qualms with the JET Programme, it is that teachers are unsure how to use ALTs. Midyear conferences allow JTEs the opportunity to find out how other teachers effectively use ALTs to make their classes more productive."
Indeed, one long-standing complaint among ALTs is that veteran JTEs often seem to know little more about team teaching than the freshly arrived ALTs with whom they are paired in the classroom.
According to Sato at the education ministry, there is no nationally mandated method for training JTEs to team teach. Such matters are decided locally, he said, although the ministry has created a team-teaching handbook.
Masato Yabuki, a JTE in Fukushima, said he received "very little" official training about team teaching. However, he has worked with ALTs from Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the United States over the past 20 years, and he has read several books on team teaching.
Yabuki has participated in midyear conferences three times, and called it a challenging but ultimately confidence-building experience.
"Almost 100 percent [of the sessions were] done in English, so for Japanese teachers it was very useful, to speak English with native speakers," Yabuki said. "But it is not so useful for [learning] the way of team teaching."
There have been efforts to codify the tenets of team teaching, both in the ministry's handbook and in a volume called Team Taught Pizza, compiled by AJET, an organization of currently active ALTs.
One of the latest offerings in the field is Teaching English for JET Scheme Participants, a handbook by Darryl Cook, an ALT in Saitama Prefecture. In a letter promoting his book, Cook writes: "Right now the JET scheme, and more generally English education in Japan, isn't realizing its full potential because of a lack of training, structure and direction. This book was written to improve that situation by providing a strong, solid base of training and ideas."
Some of Cook's advice sounds like common sense, such as not talking down to students, not using deliberately broken English and avoiding katakana pronunciation. But common sense is not as common as it should be.
"The bad examples given in my book all come from educational sources within Japan, whether it be things witnessed in the classroom, the television, in textbooks, or elsewhere," Cook said. "So there's always room for language-teaching education in Japan to improve."
The book also includes practical suggestions on classroom management, and lays out Cook's philosophy on the real meaning of "internationalization."
For those who find their official training insufficient, books such as Cook's and AJET's are potentially a great help. But others are skeptical.
Byrne, for instance, called team teaching a "relationship between two educators [that] can't be simplified to a list of dos and don'ts."
Be that as it may, the persistent notes of dissatisfaction among participants suggest that JET Programme training still has room to improve.