January 15, 2017 Bridging the Gap: Japanese High School Education & Teaching English as an ALT --Farrah Hasnain

In her presenta tion, Farrah Hasnain (a 3rd year ALT from Washington, D.C.) e xplained to us from an ALT's perspective how English is currently being taught in public and private high schools throughout Japan. She started off with some basic history of English education in Japan and then provided a comprehensive summary of the JET Program since its inception in 1987. In the second part of her presentation she focused on the challenges and opportunities for ALTs teaching in various schools throughout Japan as well as providing an accurate description of the state of English teaching in high schools. For example, in some schools ALTs are able to take control of lessons; the so-called grammar-translation method is no longer alive and well; and in spite of MEXT's written  guidelines (policy) for teachers to be mainly using English in the classroom, this is (she stated) not the case, especially when it comes to entrance exam preparation.