tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2654618269927298072.post5372891159691608851..comments2023-07-22T13:23:56.679+02:00Comments on Speak Your Mind: learning English, teaching English: aimless teachingSpeakYourMind Englishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097906803468711366noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2654618269927298072.post-59636807587712531512009-03-19T07:28:00.000+01:002009-03-19T07:28:00.000+01:00As a teacher in Japan, I'd like to add some suppor...As a teacher in Japan, I'd like to add some support and perspective to Iain's point.<BR/><BR/>The 'ESL Café' style lessons are indeed unscrupulous, however the practice of using teachers with absolutely zero experience or training is widespread throughout the majority of independent English schools in Japan, whether they have a premises or not. These schools, run on the whole by Japanese entrepreneurs, seem to consider their staff to be more of a material commodity than professional teachers, meaning that they are reduced to vessels of 'native' english, which need only be tapped and presented to customers in order to facilitate learning. <BR/><BR/>Honestly, I cannot complain too loudly, as if it were not for this attitude, I would not likely have gotten my first job. Unfortunately as someone who is fairly passionate about English and teaching it well, I was soon to be underwhelmed by the expectations that I was held to in the classroom. I suppose that even then I was lucky in a sense, for if I had been at a more 'serious' school then there would probably have been a Japanese English teacher on staff who would have taught the students' grammar while relegating the native-speaking staff to the role of a human workbook. <BR/><BR/>So it seems that what most administrators of ESL schools in japan believe (and/or have marketed successfully) is that just being in the presence of a friendly foreigner will improve a student's English dramatically, and as such there is no need to worry about the teacher's qualifications beyond the lack of a criminal record or a strong accent. <BR/><BR/>Aimless. The ESL industry here is large and crowded, yet if you talk to any Japanese person about their experience in a private ESL school (and almost all of them have tried at least once) they will express dissatisfaction with their lack of progress. What is surprising to me is that schools do not seem to care that their students leave unhappy, and that new students keep coming through the door. I suppose it is for the lack of many other options. <BR/><BR/>-Jesse (now much happier and using SyM in Tokyo)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01975516006513457336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2654618269927298072.post-37421175147242069462009-03-19T07:25:00.000+01:002009-03-19T07:25:00.000+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01975516006513457336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2654618269927298072.post-72229541103924612972009-03-18T09:15:00.000+01:002009-03-18T09:15:00.000+01:00I don't think that by and large ESL teachers prefe...I don't think that by and large ESL teachers prefer to digress: I do think there is a widespread fuzzy-thinking and relativism in ESL that makes it easy for teachers and students to become disorientated. <BR/>Why is it so easy for unscrupulous schools to sell 'courses'of tiny value? Largely because students are kept in the dark: they don't know the questions to ask when choosing a school and they don't know how to assess learning' or 'teaching' in the way they feel able to assess other services. Why, for example, do teacher-trainers on TEFL qualification programmes so often tell trainees to discard tried and tested published courses and do everything themselves, even though they have no experience? I think because they see 'teaching' more as an experience for the teacher than a service to the student. <BR/>Of course there are incompetent and lazy individuals in teaching, just as there are in any other field, but the problem lies in a too frequent lack of professionalism, fairness, and accountability at higher levels. <BR/><BR/>IainAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2654618269927298072.post-13680285809433275432009-03-16T11:15:00.000+01:002009-03-16T11:15:00.000+01:00OK, I can accept your premise that by-and-large, E...OK, I can accept your premise that by-and-large, ESL teachers tend to digress, regress and generally not focus on the ultimate task at hand "Teach me English!" <BR/><BR/>I have felt a genuine animosity by the Callan Method literature with the established academia. Callan seems to be genuinely against the laissez fair attitude that the student has a right to expect a results oriented teacher.<BR/><BR/>It does seem that the teaching guilde has some ingrained problems. So what is your solution?George Machlanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08559945882832855326noreply@blogger.com