【研究ノート】ALTの目から見た日本の英語教師とJETプログラム

type:研究ノート

type:Research and Report

UNK

This short essay seeks to describe teachers of English in Japan from an ALT's (assistant language teacher) perspective, thus exploring how the JET (Japan Exchange Teachers) program has affected English teaching in Japan; whether foreign young teachers' presence has been appreciated by each school or whether Japanese teachers were not ready to accept those teachers from other countries. The JET program which has been integrated into Japanese education system since 1987 has invited thousands of young native English speakers as an ALT to each prefecture throughout Japan. In this essay the historical background of the JET program is briefly described. Due to time limitation, this short essay cannot afford a complete and exhaustive argument of what the JET program has brought about to English teaching in Japan. Instead, it is trying to highlight some Japanese cultural feature through the perspective of a young British female teacher trying to change her Japanese colleague teacher's way of teaching. A young Cambridge University graduate who came to Japan in 1999 struggled for a year in Ibaraki prefecture to change conservative way of teaching, that is, the translation method which has been dominantly employed in almost all Japanese senior high schools. Taking up an unusual incident, demonstration lesson (kenkyuu jugyou), she tried to persuade her Japanese colleague to change their way of teaching. Until the demonstration lesson day, she negotiated with her colleague over the way they were to present their teaching A controversy between them indicates a significant difference concerning a demonstration lesson. She asserted that the demonstration lesson should not be different from daily lessons, while her Japanese colleague maintained that the demonstration lesson should be a kind of 'show', that is, completely different from usual lessons. Therefore her Japanese colleague insisted that the lesson should be rehearsed before the demonstration. In this way it took a long time before they came to a compromise. The 'show' was successful according to her view. She hoped, therefore, that her colleague would change his way of teaching, adopting her view of teaching. However nothing changed to her disappointment.

identifier:16

identifier:KJ00009365219