Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Hitting the nail on the head

While doing some research into teaching Phonics online today, I found a page written by a former ALT who had some thoughts on the dichotomy between theory and practice in the Japanese English education system I've been trying to put my finger on in the past few months. He kind of hit the nail on the head, I think. This is what he had to say:

"The bureaucratic system that often regards ALTs as nothing more than window dressing in the fantasy world, which the Ministry of Education refers to as 'Japan's English education system.'

"[Japan has] a future generation whose government has the proper resources, yet constantly robs them of future opportunities and chances because they lack the knowledge to properly teach a foreign language or are too proud to rely on 'outsiders' to play a pivotal role in the education of their youth."

All of this does nothing except help me form a better understanding of why my job is so damn frustrating 95% of the time. At least I know it's not just me. 

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