Only 68% of elementary engrish teachers in Japan admit to being total sacks-of-shit

[Marked Trail]

68% of elementary school teachers lack confidence in teaching English
AP, Feb 15, 2011
A majority of elementary school teachers who are about to start teaching English as a required subject to fifth and sixth graders this April lack confidence in teaching the subject and feel burdened by it, a recent survey by a private research body showed Tuesday. The survey of teachers conducted by Benesse Educational Research & Development Center showed that 68 percent were not confident about teaching English and 62 percent felt it to be a burden...more...

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[Iraira]

Less than 30% of the schools contacts by the Benesse Educational Research & Development Center, actually had a teacher(s) respond to the survey.
File in the trash can.

[Taro Toporific]

Less than 30% of the schools contacts by the Benesse Educational Research & Development Center, actually had a teacher(s) respond to the survey.
File in the trash can.

The bigger problem is that Benesse has a conflict of interest since it owns several major engrish enterprises such as the Berlitz Language Schools and Simul International.
http://www.benesse.co.jp/english/kyouiku/

[MrUltimateGaijin]

Japanese elem teachers are the dumbest people you will ever meet. They can't even keep up with an elem English lesson.

[FG Lurker]

Japanese elem teachers are the dumbest people you will ever meet. They can't even keep up with an elem English lesson.

Dumb or not, they put up with 30+ little monsters in a classroom all day. You could never pay me enough money to do that.

My daughter is in grade 5 at the moment and has started basic Engrish lessons at school. Her English is far from perfect but it is good enough that she managed 4 weeks on her own at my sister's place in Canada last year and then flew back on her own as an "unaccompanied minor". She really dislikes the classes as they are now as everything is very heavily katakanaized and of course the work is super-simple. AFAIK the teacher hasn't yet tried to "correct" my daughter's pronunciation, I'm not sure what I'll do when that day eventually arrives.

Kids should probably be exposed to native English pronunciation at much earlier than elementary school age, and then have proper English instruction throughout their school years. Maybe one day Japan will get this all figured out but it doesn't look like it's going to happen soon.

[AML]

Lurker, how can you stand that your daughter is being "taught" engrish by these teacher?

Its pretty bad that they just throw this at the elem teachers. Without any training whatsoever.

So its like: "oh by the way, you'll be teaching English from next year" ???

Public schools in Japan disgust me. I tried playing pictionary (junior edition) with 3rd year JR high students and they simply didnt know any of the words in English.

Even the most simple shit like "kitten" or "puppy". WTF are they teaching these kids?

[wuchan]

Lurker, how can you stand that your daughter is being "taught" engrish by these teacher?

Its pretty bad that they just throw this at the elem teachers. Without any training whatsoever.

So its like: "oh by the way, you'll be teaching English from next year" ???

Public schools in Japan disgust me. I tried playing pictionary (junior edition) with 3rd year JR high students and they simply didnt know any of the words in English.

Even the most simple shit like "kitten" or "puppy". WTF are they teaching these kids?

They teach them to beat the eiken test. I say beat because it is a standardized multiple choice test. Much like the SAT back in the states there are tricks to choosing the answer without actually knowing the answer. The students are required to pass eiken 3 kyu so the goal of the teachers is to get the students to pass not learn how to use the language. Japanese schools only teach things that appear on the test, they do not teach a foreign language. The government decided that passing a test = learning a language. The test has an interview but as long as their grammar is correct, they pass even if they call a dog a horse or say the sky is orange.

[pallidknight]

Reminds me of an old quote: "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."