An English Teacher's Frustration

Most native speaking English teachers know that there is a serious problem with the way English is taught here. It doesn’t take that much time to realize it, especially when you’re in class and you say, “Hi guys!” to 2nd year high school students (that I have taught for a year by now) and they stare at you blankly to know that there is a problem. However, the problem isn’t with the students; it’s with the teachers. How are the some teachers, who don’t even seem to have interest in English themselves, are supposed to teach students a language that even they themselves don’t understand? I suppose it makes sense, since I hear all the time from my school’s Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs from now on) that either they “should have done something more interesting” or “yeah…it was either teaching English for a career or doing History as a career, haha!” and it’s this kind of attitude that doesn’t make it surprising that the kids are just as apathetic about as English as some teachers.

To them, unfortunately, English is just seen as another subject in school since English is mandatory in the country. So the people that are truly interested aren’t really allowed to shine amongst other students who don’t have an interest because for them (using something that most of us can relate to), it’d seem like the nerd who was a genius at Math and couldn’t wait to show off their skills. In Japan, that’s quite insulting and that person would be ostracized and mocked for seeming to do better than everyone else, so everyone kind of pretends to know less than they actually do, for fear of being isolated. This doesn’t really happen in my school though. Maybe for other subjects, but in English my students are always pleasantly surprised when one of their classmates can answer one of my questions and they always get some kind of praise or an applause.


Some other kids, however, simply do not have an interest in English and see no need for English because they will never leave Japan. Then there’s the other group that like English and the native speaker of English in the class, but don't understand 80% of what’s going on because of holes in their education. Those holes are glaringly apparent when they don’t know simple words that they should have learned in middle school. This is more my school.



Today for example, I played a game called Sentence Auction with a younger teacher. Sentence auction is when teams buy correct and incorrect sentences and of course go to the highest bidder if they believe the sentence to be true. Once the game got underway, they were quite bright and a lot of them were quite thrifty in dealing with their finances and most of them knew the correct sentences. Before that however, we had to do an explanation of course. The explanation took 20 minutes in a 50 minute class. The kids took about 5 minutes to break up into groups; so ONE part took 15 minutes. What part might that be you ask? It was the simple fact that NO STUDENT knew what the word “sentence” meant in Japanese. WHAT?! Second year students in high school who took 4 years of English before this, didn’t know what the word “sentence” meant? Coupled with this, the JTEs thought that using Japanese during our team teaching class was a waste and how the students won’t be able to listen to my English, so we should try and use ALL English in the class. That's a very noble, lofty, but ultimately naïve dream. However, reality dictates that my just speaking English to them won’t make something click in their brains, and all of a sudden they can absorb everything I’m saying. Proper PRIOR teaching is necessary for them to be able to grasp meanings.


Not to mention, I went to a JTE’s English class just to see how they teach… it’s ridiculous. She barely touched on grammar and during the class she would just say English words in a rapid pace while the students quickly repeated it. Then she had me just say the words fast and I felt like the biggest dunce ever, mainly because the kids just stopped repeating the words so it ended up me just saying random English words because it’s fun. This is the extent of the English “teaching” that goes on here? That wasn’t all. Afterwards, the Japanese teacher said a Japanese word and then I would say the English definition in a rapid pace again, then the students would repeat the English. That would have been alright…if there wasn’t 50 words including long phrases, like “the meeting begins at 10:35am,” or other words that are completely unrelated to each other. So then I stand there and I just think to myself that of course they’re not learning anything. Not to mention the whole lesson was taught in Japanese. That’s understandable, but then you can’t go around and do ALL English for a class that they’re constantly unprepared for. It just makes them dislike English, or slowly start to dislike English all the more.


I think the JTEs believe that I only want Japanese in the class so I can do less work, but they’re so stupid because they continue to forget that it’s NOT ABOUT ME. It’s about the students that look at me like little lost kittens and puppies whom so desperately need Japanese, while I’m left to stand there awkwardly because it is NOT my job to give Japanese translation and the JTE look at me and seem to like watching me sink because they don’t provide Japanese translation. So all of this crap gets put on the shoulders of the powerless foreigner regardless of whose fault it truly is. The problem is maybe the teachers think that the lesson went well if we use all English but they’re so frustratingly oblivious to students quickly losing interest without Japanese because they DON’T UNDERSTAND and just end up chatting to the people next to them or start doing something else. So I get pissed off for the students because of these stupid teachers who are so focused on which language is being spoken, that they completely forget the students and that the main focus should be whether or not the students know what’s going on. It’s naïve to think that students won’t need Japanese all the time, especially if agricultural schools are known for having low-level English. Why is it so hard for JTEs, who also went through the same classes to figure that out?

Eventually though, when my simple English doesn’t do the trick, the JTEs would “take the reigns” decide to repeat what I said in English, as if it’s going to suddenly click for them (I’ve been saying the same thing for 10 minutes, if they didn’t get it 5 minutes ago, maybe you should try a different method). Then, they get to go through the same slight frustration of having students not understand you in the slightest. They’re completely unwilling to speak Japanese in the class, but you don't need the foreigner to tell you that it’s necessary since that’s been the same way they’ve been learning English since they started. During the lesson he asked them over and over again, “What is sentence in Japanese? Sentence. Sentence. Sentence. Seeeenn-teeeence,” as he points to the 10 sentences on the worksheet he goes, “THESE are sentences. What are they? Sentence. Sentence,” while he’s repeating that, I feel a sense of retribution in that I hope he understands that bringing in the native speaker once a week won’t suddenly make the students geniuses at English and it’s best to just do what you have been doing, and what you will continue to do when we’re not team teaching, which is…USE JAPANESE.


After a while, I saw him breakdown and saw clear frustration on his face, then he decided, after 15 minutes of precious time, to write the meaning of the word “sentence” in kanji. I mean, even I’d say that kanji wasn’t necessary; he could have just said it, but I think he was that frustrated that he didn’t even want to say anything. Oh well. He should have said it 15 minutes ago so we could have just moved on with the lesson, but if he wanted to learn the hard way, I was more than happy with letting him experience that and realize how impossible using English cold turkey is. JTEs simply have the most important job when it comes to team teaching since they are supposed to be the bridge of understanding between students and the foreign teacher. If only more of them felt that responsibility and weight and didn’t use English as a means to escape a “greater evil.”

What’s even more frustrating about this is that he was the exact same guy who told me, ”Yeah...a lot of these kids are too stupid to realize simple things. A lot of them are slow. I have to speak slowly, even in Japanese, and sometimes even then they don't understand, haha! It’s sad,” despite this guy who said that he lived in the Washington D.C area for a year during study abroad, and yet still can’t understand simple English at regular speeds. Stfu. It’s a lot easier to blame the students and the foreign English teacher for your own pathetic shortcomings…maybe teaching the students the word “sentence” could be a nice start?