Meanwhile, I was just catching up on The Japan Times, when I found this article. It discusses how Japan, fallen way behind other countries in terms of English literacy, is slowly (tortoise and the hare slowly) attempting to make changes. It's pretty interesting to read if you are an ALT or a former ALT; in my experience, we ALTs have a pretty strong opinions about the current English system. You might find it interesting if you'd like to know a bit about my job, or at least, the debates that swirl around my job. For the rest of you who clicked that link, saw two pages of small print and quickly closed the window, let me summarize it in one perfect quote:
"The forthcoming system is not aimed at teaching children English themselves. Teachers will be required to nurture children's willingness to communicate in English. So, they will be able to teach English with the help of ALTs. If the teachers try hard to communicate with ALTs in English and demonstrate this to children, then their willingness to communicate will be nurtured."
So, basically, the idea is to encourage students to want to learn English, but not actually teach them anything remotely useful to learning English, like grammar, structure, reading, or writing. If you want a realistic idea of what this actually looks like in practice in the classroom (at least in elementary school), imagine this: an entire year of curriculum from two pages of one of those tiny pocket travel phrases books. In song. If you just drew a giant question mark in your head, then we're all on the same page.
I do like how in the article, they mention at least a few times how "we shouldn't blame the ALTs".
How magnanimous.
Cheers,
spectacle Baer
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