gerard 6 Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 The English = FUN thing here is a screwed up and overblown. People developing the curriculum point to trends in Education and research about second language acquisition showing that learners learn through meaningful and communicative tasks. If the language being presented to or used by the students is meaningful, then students are more likely to acquire it. What's important is that students are interested in the content. Mindlessly repeating meaningless phrases without any context is seen as being not very productive. Of course, this idea is not unique to Japan. If anything, it's been imported from the West and it's certainly not the principle that JHS English edcuation has been based on. On the other hand, a little bit of drill work might do some good too. I dunno. Anyway... I'm out of here. I agree. The idea that foreign English teachers have to be clowns is really annoying. To make matters worse, I've seen a fair number of foreigners who seem to embrace it. Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted July 9, 2009 Share Posted July 9, 2009 Is the number of JET Programme AETs still increasing of late or has the private thing taken over the show? Link to post Share on other sites
gerard 6 Posted July 9, 2009 Share Posted July 9, 2009 Apparently there are more non-JET ALTs now than JET ALTs. The number of JET ALTs has also decreased from its peak a couple of years ago but it's still over 5000. I'm wary of the trend towards non-JET ALTs because a lot of it's controlled by agencies which tend to compete for the lowest price and ultimately really give the teachers a crappy deal. Link to post Share on other sites
klingon 10 Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 I never really understood what the difference is? Someone I knew finished 3 years on JET and was then taken on as a "private" - his job and salary etc remained the same just his status. I presume the town was taking on the cost, when they don't with the JETs (?) Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 Yeah but now there are companies, like the one I work for, who provide ALT's. They have nothing to do with the JET program, are more like the Eikaiwa's only for Public School placements. And as Ger pointed out our salary is slightly lower than those of the JET's Link to post Share on other sites
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