7. Teaching in Japanese Schools
8. Approaches and Methods
9. Listening
10. Reading
11. Speaking
12. Writing
13. Vocabulary
14. Phonics
15. Writing Tests
8. Approaches and Methods
9. Listening
10. Reading
11. Speaking
12. Writing
13. Vocabulary
14. Phonics
15. Writing Tests
Welcome to the Teaching modules.
The previous series of Contextual modules provided information and discussion on the teaching context; the society, teachers and students. The aim of those modules was to give you a detailed understanding of where you teach. The Teaching modules here build on from Contextual modules by guiding you how to teach, by taking information from previous modules into account. The aim of these modules is to train you to be highly effective and resourceful teachers.
These modules have two primary foci: shaping practical teaching skills (through the content), and providing a platform for all ALTs’ to post, read and share our own teaching experiences. The first of these, training content, is a well-established mode of teacher training. The second, online discussion, is a standard modern feature of teacher training which opens up the ‘classroom’ to 1000’s, resulting in a much richer conversation. Research specific to ALTs has shown the benefits of online peer support (Kushima, C., Obari, H., & Nishihori, Y. (2011).
Our ALT context has certain characteristics that necessitate the need for these modules to be particularly driven by you and your comments/questions:
Each of these (different hiring bodies, labor laws, solo teaching, unclear job roles) makes clear that:
Module content incorporates all of this and more, with an aim to raise your level of job satisfaction, and raise the quality of education you provide.
Module content incorporates all of this and more, with an aim to raise your level of job satisfaction and raise quality of education.
References
Kushima, C., Obari, H., & Nishihori, Y. (2011). Fostering global teacher training: The design and practice of a web-based discussion forum as a knowledge building community. International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change, 2(1), 5-8. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2440090
Reed, N. (2016). Pedagogical teacher training for ALTs in Japanese public schools. In P. Clements, A. Krause, & H. Brown(Eds.), Focus on the Learner. Tokyo: JALT. retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/node/4/articles/5368-pedagogical-teacher-training-alts-japanese-public-schools
The previous series of Contextual modules provided information and discussion on the teaching context; the society, teachers and students. The aim of those modules was to give you a detailed understanding of where you teach. The Teaching modules here build on from Contextual modules by guiding you how to teach, by taking information from previous modules into account. The aim of these modules is to train you to be highly effective and resourceful teachers.
These modules have two primary foci: shaping practical teaching skills (through the content), and providing a platform for all ALTs’ to post, read and share our own teaching experiences. The first of these, training content, is a well-established mode of teacher training. The second, online discussion, is a standard modern feature of teacher training which opens up the ‘classroom’ to 1000’s, resulting in a much richer conversation. Research specific to ALTs has shown the benefits of online peer support (Kushima, C., Obari, H., & Nishihori, Y. (2011).
Our ALT context has certain characteristics that necessitate the need for these modules to be particularly driven by you and your comments/questions:
- There are 3 main ALT hiring bodies, that are independent of each other: direct hire, JET and private companies, (private companies can be further can be further divided up). Training, for the groups that provide it, is between 3-5 days (Reed, 2016). As training is neither standardized or systematic, and hiring bodies don’t communicate with each other, ALTs enter the classroom with very different levels of preparedness (further complicated by unregulated hiring procedures).
- Current labor law makes clear that only ALTs’ directly hired by boards of education or JET can work alongside (team teach) JTEs’. ALTs from private companies cannot receive instruction from teachers at their schools, any communication must go through the company. A situation that makes team teaching and professional growth complicated.
- Perhaps the most widely reported and studied issue about the ALT position is in fact not team-teaching, but ‘solo’ teaching (where we teach by ourselves); just google, for example, ‘ALTs solo teaching’, ‘ALT in Japan role confusion’ or ‘what’s an ALTs job?’. Solo teaching combined with the fact that ‘team-teaching’ has never been defined further reinforces the idea of ALTs working together to make our teaching relationships (with our JTEs’) more productive.
Each of these (different hiring bodies, labor laws, solo teaching, unclear job roles) makes clear that:
- Teachers’ are sent to schools without sufficient training.
- The 15,000+ ALTs’ (20,000 by the year 2020), have little communication with each other, which hinders professional growth, idea sharing, discussing lessons etc.
- Teachers’ who expect to be teaching as part of a team are often found to be teaching by themselves.
- The potential of ALTs’ is not being met as training practices underprepare teachers.
Module content incorporates all of this and more, with an aim to raise your level of job satisfaction, and raise the quality of education you provide.
- expectations as professionally as their potential could.
Module content incorporates all of this and more, with an aim to raise your level of job satisfaction and raise quality of education.
References
Kushima, C., Obari, H., & Nishihori, Y. (2011). Fostering global teacher training: The design and practice of a web-based discussion forum as a knowledge building community. International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change, 2(1), 5-8. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2440090
Reed, N. (2016). Pedagogical teacher training for ALTs in Japanese public schools. In P. Clements, A. Krause, & H. Brown(Eds.), Focus on the Learner. Tokyo: JALT. retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/node/4/articles/5368-pedagogical-teacher-training-alts-japanese-public-schools
Copyright © 2019 ALT Training Online