Almost half the English teachers in Japanese high schools are not advanced speakers of English.
The education ministry has released a survey which shows that almost 50% of English teachers in high schools do not have advanced levels of English.
And the situation is even worse when it comes to junior-high schools with less than 30% qualified as advanced level speakers of English.
By 2017…
In Japan, the Osaka board of education has cut material from its online course deeming it too political.
The board found the material objectionable and said it promoted the image of the mayor of Osaka to first year Junior High students.
The material was to be used for practicing the third person singular and included statements like these:
My name is Toru Hashimoto. I work hard…
The 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan may seem a long way off, but in Japan the Tokyo authorities are already beginning to plan for the influx of foreign tourists and athletes.
And the first step is increasing the number of English teachers in the country.
Right now in Tokyo state schools there are just 5 native English speaking assistants. This is set to increase to 100 next year…
The Japanese finance minister, Taro Aso, made an interesting leap of logic last Friday. He essentially said that the reason why Japan is not suffering as much as other nations in the current global economic crisis is because Japanese bankers aren’t very good at English.
His reasoning goes like this:
The American banks sold dodgy financial products (such as the sub-prime mortgages) to banks around the world…
The JET program or Japan Exchange and Teaching program is a teaching and exchange program which has been running since 1987.
It allows foreign teachers to come and work in Japan as TEFL teachers. It grew quickly and in 2002 at its peak over 6,000 teachers came to Japan through JET. In 2010 it brought almost 4,500 teachers to Japan. Over 50,000 teachers have passed through the JET system…
Japan has one of the lowest scores on international English tests and has taken steps in recent years to improve English language teaching at schools with increased instruction and greater use of native English speaking teachers alongside Japanese teachers in the classroom.
Having said this, jobs are more scarce now than they used to be and in recent years it is becoming harder to find work in…
