What is your impression of the English-teaching industry in Japan? Have things improved since Nova's collapse or are there still bad apples in the barrel?

Wednesday 30th September, 04:04 AM JST

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bobbafett at 11:26 PM JST - 2nd October

My child goes to an international kindergarten. His English is awesome. His teachers are real teachers. He has had the same teachers in his life for 2 years. They are awesome.

As for the English conversation grind schools, they offer as much in learning value as fast food hamburger shops offer in health value, and with the same assortment of people working there. People in transition or people with nowhere to go.
LFRAgain at 12:35 AM JST - 3rd October

Cicada,

Apparently, in your rush to what? Boo-yah me? you failed to notice that my mentioning my experience in Japan was in direct response to a specific question from another poster, and not related to the topic of the thread. That question, if you had bothered to read it at all, can be found at 07:57 PM JST, in connection to a comment about how bad "schools" were in Japan, which was related to an earlier comment made by the same poster about how and why high schools in Japan teach English at 07:09 PM JST.

But then, you already knew that, didn't you, when you worked up your righteous lather?

Probably the most important thing that you failed to notice was that the conversation between michaelqtodd and I has absolutely nothing to do with you and your dime-store crime novel Yakuza conspiracy theories. So how 'bout you butt out?
:D
Simon_Foston at 08:34 AM JST - 3rd October

Yes, why take this risk? Clearly they felt an urgent need to intimidate him. It was a blunder because of the actions of Saruhashi's lawyer, but they must have known that risk, and still they felt the necessity to kidnap him.

Actually, one can better ask the same question in your scenario:

Saruhashi borrowed heavily from the Yakuza to try and get out of the hole he'd dug for himself, and that they're leaning on him now because he's thrown away their money.

Why would they kidnap him and thus implicate themselves in his NOVA affairs if it was merely a matter of him owing them some money?

So it had to be something extraordinarily serious such as (for example) him knowing details of where to find some NOVA collapse scheme "fingerprints".

Not having any knowledge of what these people were actually up to I'll consider any possibility at the moment. It could well be that the Yakuza decided Saruhashi needed some extra encouragement not to talk about possible organized crime involvement in NOVA's collapse to give himself a better chance in the appeal. If that's the case there are probably several layers of insulation between the people who give the orders and the ones who carried them out, and the abductors were just unlucky or stupid enough to get caught in the act. Alternatively, Saruhashi borrowed a really huge amount of money from a less sophisticated Yakuza outfit, and they decided the strong-arm tactics were necessary to set an example. I'll be interested to see if police interrogations or questions asked at Saruhashi's appeal yield any more answers.
Blue_Tiger at 02:48 PM JST - 3rd October

"So high schools since then have been instructed to make English as boring and meaningless as possible."

A pretty-much true statement. I teach Oral Communication in a private Junior-Senior High School for Girls in Tokyo, and for the most part, my Senior High classes are the worst, especially 1st and 2nd year classes. The girls in these classes by-and-large would rather be doing something else than sitting in an English Class, and usually end up chit-chatting with each other in Japanese, even in the classes where the students are really motivated to learn. On top of that, I have no real authoirty to punish or discipline them even if they really, really act up in class. The only thing I can do is write them up in a report and send that to a Japanese superior. The worst that the J-Administration has done? Sent the homeroom teacher into my class to "observe" the troublemakers during class. It did help, but seeing how the students rarely study for tests, even more rarely turn in or show me completed homework, or merely abide by the simple rule to SPEAK ENGLISH IN ENGLISH CLASS, there is really very little I am able to do to control the class or really help them to learn how to do anything in English.

This is by far the biggest load of crap I've seen in this thread so far . . . And that's saying a lot, after WMD's rants.

--LFRAgain

Nope, hits pretty close to the truth. If you really want to know what it is like, try teaching a classroom of 25-30 unmotivated High School students who've had Japanese Teachers fort he most part teach Englihs as if it is like going to the dentist for a rot canal.
Blue_Tiger at 02:52 PM JST - 3rd October

LFRAgain - apologies, as I didn't see that you had taught in the Japan public school system for 9 years. Apparently you do know what it is about. I stil lsay, though, that the statement above about English Classes taught by Japanese Teachers being boring has a lot of truth (whether English is purposely tuaght that way, I know not....).
tigerguy at 05:20 PM JST - 3rd October

Obviously things have not improved since Nova went down and of course there are still plenty of bad apples in the barrel. Eikaiwa teachers should be re-titled as Genki Clowns because they're not real teachers. I've worked with so many uneducated and unprofessional eikaiwa monkeys that I've lost count. It's embarrassing...
LFRAgain at 06:13 PM JST - 3rd October

Blue_Tiger,

No worries. I don't deny that the classes are painfully boring. God knows, I've had to stand through countless classes where I wanted to slipt my own wrists out of boredom. It's well known that foreign language teaching techniques in Japan are abysmal.

But what I took issue with was another poster claiming that the boring nature of English classes in Japanese public schools was an officially sanctioned directive in order to teach students the value of perseverance in the face of undesirable tasks, supposedly to prepare them for a life of the same in the corporate world.

Obviously on the surface, the statement is outrageous. But looking further, one only has to notice just how equally uninspired other subjects seem to be taught to see that laying it all at the feet of English education has no basis in truth.

Yes, Japanese education can be boring. But there are a few diamonds in the rough, so to speak, and in my 9 years out here, I’ve worked with a large number of teachers who really do give a damn, and try their hardest to make their classes engaging and relevant.

The opinion that the boring nature of English classes in public school is official policy was and still is ill-informed and myopic.
Cicada at 11:03 PM JST - 3rd October

LFRGain,

you failed to notice that my mentioning my experience in Japan was in direct response to a specific question from another poster, and not related to the topic of the thread.

No, I did not fail to notice that. However, I became intrigued by the distinction between English-teaching "industry" versus "education" sectors. My point was not that you were off-topic, but rather that veering into that area can reveal interesting things by contrast.

Probably the most important thing that you failed to notice was that the conversation between michaelqtodd and I has absolutely nothing to do with you and your dime-store crime novel Yakuza conspiracy theories.

To the contrary, I think it is you who failed to notice the important connection that I was hinting at.

The English-teaching "industry" (represented by NOVA and other such organizations) is, generally speaking, backed by right-wing forces. The Yakuza essentially run many of these, and their connections with government (immigration) is obvious.

On the other hand, the "education" sector is well known for the left-wing influences.

This is what I was intending. Nothing to do with "boo-yah" as you call it.
LFRAgain at 01:35 AM JST - 4th October

Cicada,

Perhaps an apology is in order. Your post came across to me as unneccesarily sarcastic in a thread that seems to produce unnaturally strong reactions.

You're correct, I failed to see how your response to my post was in any way connected to possible Yakuza influence on the eikaiwa industry, as the two seem so remotely different on a number of levels. Which, I suppose is where your curiosity arose. No harm, no foul, but I can't speak in detail to that connection except to say that any influence it may have has very little bearing on the ground-level troops that do the actual teaching in Eikaiwas.

Again, apologies for coming at you with claws extended. You caught me at the end of particularly long day.
michaelqtodd at 03:38 AM JST - 4th October

LFRAgain Sorry for dissing your profession.Was unnecessary.After 9 years at it you know more than all of us put together. Actually got that from a fairly good source though.The Enigma of Japanese Power by Karel von Wolfenden (sp?)Maybe he is wrong.You are right should not have put it out as a fact. Why do they make it so boring though?
LFRAgain at 09:24 AM JST - 4th October

michaelqtodd,

No offense taken. I don’t profess to be an expert at anything, but I’m fairly confident in the professional relationships I’ve developed in my time here, and I do believe in the many teachers I’ve come to know and respect.

I haven't read Wolfenden's work specifically, but in other materials that I've read, I have come across some suggestions that the whole of Japanese education seemed to be structured towards accomplishing the dual goals of both educating as well as preparing students to "ganbaru."

I've also seen socio-anthropologists go to great lengths to link the tedium and arguable excessiveness of after school club activities to this idea of priming kids for a corporate life of seeming endless sacrifice for the ultimate good of the group. This idea was forwarded at about the same time as Wolfenden’s work was published, when the world was struggling with the tremendous success of the Japanese economy in the early 80s, and “Japan Inc.” was a nickname that bore none-too-friendly connotations. So the idea is not foreign to me.

In any case, I think that both aspects of English education have vast amounts of room for improvement. But I also believe the causes for failings in either private Eikaiwa or formal education are impossible to compare, both being entirely different realms.
Simon_Foston at 10:42 AM JST - 4th October

Well, getting back to the question of there still being "bad apples in the barrel," I can't see why there wouldn't be. I'm not aware of school operators changing their hiring practices significantly since NOVA went under, so if there were bad teachers before then there still will be now. Furthermore, most native English speakers who come here to teach only stay two or three years at the very most, and for most of them that just isn't long enough to really get good at the job. Besides, I don't know if really high standards of English can be expected in a country where the most valued indicators of English ability are multi-choice comprehension tests.
mtimjones at 02:44 PM JST - 4th October

While not entirely on topic, I'm impressed with the English language capabilities of the Japanese. I traveled to Odawara two years ago, and was blown away by the number of people that I ran into who spoke very fluent English. In Odawara train station, for example, I walked up ready to point and spew my token Japanese phrases to buy a ticket, and the lady behind the counter spoke perfect English and was very helpful and pleasant to this gaijin.
Cicada at 09:33 PM JST - 4th October

Simon Foston:

I'm not aware of school operators changing their hiring practices significantly since NOVA went under... Furthermore, most native English speakers who come here to teach only stay two or three years at the very most, and for most of them that just isn't long enough to really get good at the job.

Yes, and moreover, if they do stay longer, they will then become ineligible for many jobs, because the hiring practice involves eschewing Japan residents and directly hiring from overseas.

You can see this right here in the JT classified section, where some jobs are restricted to those who are not living in Japan (I believe those were GABA ads, but it is typical for AEON and other NOVA-like enterprises).

And this policy often is implemented in the "education" sector as well, although the expected time period is often longer than the usual 1-3 years of the "industry" sector.

The hiring practices of NOVA-like enterprises are in reality an extension of Japanese immigration policy. This is the same idea as the JET program, which was originally an immigration initiative, not an education one. The big Eikaiwa chains are almost like designated immigration authorities helping regulate the inflow and outflow of foreign residents. So (if one believes the Yakuza influence) the people in charge of hiring foreigners for temporary Eikaiwa work in Japan are the most anti-foreigner faction possible.
Cicada at 09:55 PM JST - 5th October

LFRGain,

Again, apologies for coming at you with claws extended.

I appreciate that, but I deserved a smack or two for injecting sarcasm into my earlier post, which sometimes invites misunderstanding.

I agree with you that the issue of ownership or control "has very little bearing on the ground-level troops that do the actual teaching in Eikaiwas."

Speculation about Yakuza control of Gaijin jobs interests me not only for the contrast with education sector politics, but also for the similarity to overall control of Gaijin population inflow and outflow.

By this latter, I'm referring to the recruitment of laborers, housekeepers, massage parlor girls, etc. which is of course controlled by Yakuza. No one disputes that, but it is not too much stretch of imagination to realize that likely most Westerners teaching English in Japan have in effect been recruited by Yakuza.

And certainly it is not something that would give any optimism for improving conditions for foreigners.