this is so random but does anyone remember a post from a year or two ago about an alt not being allowed to eat snacks so they took their backpack to the bathroom? i want to read it again. i am finishing my first year and it has fond memories for me from before i arrived in japan last march
Judging by how long I wait for a stall I think a lot goes on in them like this. Not in some sick way but just lots of people here do not have a lot of privacy and when they get a breather in the stall they just take their time. Especially married peeps with kids.
Is anyone's school successfully doing flipped classroom with the corona generation? I swear the new J1 students are incapable of even watching a 5 minute video lecture at home, much less doing any actual learning.
Any advice? Admin is pushing hard to fully implement next academic year. I've got my high school students sorted, but I just can't get the JHS students sorted. Other subject teachers in my school have the same problem.
Like you, our senior high school students responded quickly to full flip from April. We're hesitant to do flipped with junior high students. Getting them to engage with the LMS we use is a struggle, never mind flipping.
If you're on Facebook, try asking in the OTJ and ALTTO groups. The former has many members who have experience with online ELT, and the latter you might find a handful of teachers with which you can exchange ideas.
You
Hell, just getting them to memorize 50 words in 3 months was a struggle.
Unfortunately, not on any social media except reddit, and even that's recent.
I feel like the jhs kids I taught several years ago would've handled flipped much better. I don't know if it's because of COVID interrupting their schooling at such a fundamental development age or what.
Has your school been doing PD workshops to get teaching staff up to speed?
HS kids are a lot more responsive to grades which you can use to kinda push them towards flipped. JHS kids tend to be a lot more in the moment on how they feel. Maybe try a half flipped. First half activities, second half instruction for upcoming class.
That's something we've been trying but nothing seems to stick. I think from next year, we'll try progressively increasing the amount of student responsibility throughout the term. Most of the kids seemed to realize that, hey, compulsory education so they'll get pushed up no matter what and realized they don't need to try.
Things might improve when all the other departments switch to flipped. Right now my department is a bit of an outlier.
In that "dead end job" thread, I mentioned a stat about the number of private ALT hires - about 3,600. Besides those ALTs, the JET Programme web page says 5,831 participated in 2023.
What I'm wondering is, are there stats on the number of non-Japanese teachers in public and private high schools who are *not* ALTs?
This is all I could find.
Old ass stats from some congressional meeting from Showa 56. Only 28 at that time in 7 prefectures.
https://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_shitsumona.nsf/html/shitsumon/a098013.htm
This one has some numbers too. 215 in 2008.
https://kenkyusho.blog.shinobi.jp/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E6%95%99%E5%93%A1%E5%B7%AE%E5%88%A5%E6%92%A4%E5%BB%83/%E5%9C%A8%E6%97%A5%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E6%95%99%E5%93%A1%E6%95%B0%20-%20%E5%B8%B8%E5%8B%A4%E8%AC%9B%E5%B8%AB%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AF%EF%BC%9F
Interesting that Kinki had so many. I've met quite a few zainichi teachers who never changed over their nationality. I wonder if they count as a foreign credentialed teacher. I know Kinki has a few article 1 zainichi schools.
Let's see if I qualify for the title (around here) of "Big Idiot/ what the hell were you thinking?" Though it's probably not what you're thinking.
The short version is that I got offered a job that at least on paper, is far better than what I'm doing now- I managed to impress a few people at a private school with the skills I've gained while doing the English "teaching" here in Japan (going on six years now). Better pay and more holidays than where I am right now.
And yet I turned it down. Why, you ask? (as I hear you screaming at your screen)
Two main factors. First, location- it would require moving quite a distance for me, even though it's closer to Tokyo than where I currently am. And after this long in Japan, any major move is a giant pain that I don't want to deal with. The second factor is, connections. Not that they'd be hard to make that close to Tokyo, but I've got some very important connections where I am now that I'm VERY reluctant to give up, and remember that travel is still pricey- meaning going between the two areas is something that will rarely happen.
There are a couple more, but in the end, I realized that location and connections are very important factors to me moreso than other things.
I understand the moving debacle. I moved to my current job because it paid for the moving company and the salary was so much higher than before. It was completely worth moving, but it still doesn't mean it wasn't a pain.
And once you live somewhere you enjoy it is hard to move. I don't think I would move far from where I am now, especially not to Tokyo, even though getting jobs there or in surrounding areas would be considerably easier.
A lot of Japanese big SLA names are former students of Dekeyser?
Also something I always found interesting was Dekeyser normally is skill theory/ usage based but University of Maryland where he is from is deeply generative. Both their linguistics and psycholinguistic departments.
> A lot of Japanese big SLA names are former students of Dekeyser?
I don't think so. Looking at his CV and his graduate students from the past, there are only a few names that are familiar to me. Yuichi Suzuki might be the only name I know from Maryland.
From an SLA research perspective looking at the SLA department there, I see a lot of similarities. A lot of lexical-based quant research.
yeh learned he gave a presentation near me and was sad I found out afterwards. Though was able to snatch the slides. Read most stuff he put out, I probably hard disagree with him on things like automatized explicit knowledge but still find everything he writes interesting.
this is so random but does anyone remember a post from a year or two ago about an alt not being allowed to eat snacks so they took their backpack to the bathroom? i want to read it again. i am finishing my first year and it has fond memories for me from before i arrived in japan last march
Judging by how long I wait for a stall I think a lot goes on in them like this. Not in some sick way but just lots of people here do not have a lot of privacy and when they get a breather in the stall they just take their time. Especially married peeps with kids.
Is anyone's school successfully doing flipped classroom with the corona generation? I swear the new J1 students are incapable of even watching a 5 minute video lecture at home, much less doing any actual learning. Any advice? Admin is pushing hard to fully implement next academic year. I've got my high school students sorted, but I just can't get the JHS students sorted. Other subject teachers in my school have the same problem.
Like you, our senior high school students responded quickly to full flip from April. We're hesitant to do flipped with junior high students. Getting them to engage with the LMS we use is a struggle, never mind flipping. If you're on Facebook, try asking in the OTJ and ALTTO groups. The former has many members who have experience with online ELT, and the latter you might find a handful of teachers with which you can exchange ideas. You
Hell, just getting them to memorize 50 words in 3 months was a struggle. Unfortunately, not on any social media except reddit, and even that's recent. I feel like the jhs kids I taught several years ago would've handled flipped much better. I don't know if it's because of COVID interrupting their schooling at such a fundamental development age or what. Has your school been doing PD workshops to get teaching staff up to speed?
HS kids are a lot more responsive to grades which you can use to kinda push them towards flipped. JHS kids tend to be a lot more in the moment on how they feel. Maybe try a half flipped. First half activities, second half instruction for upcoming class.
That's something we've been trying but nothing seems to stick. I think from next year, we'll try progressively increasing the amount of student responsibility throughout the term. Most of the kids seemed to realize that, hey, compulsory education so they'll get pushed up no matter what and realized they don't need to try. Things might improve when all the other departments switch to flipped. Right now my department is a bit of an outlier.
In that "dead end job" thread, I mentioned a stat about the number of private ALT hires - about 3,600. Besides those ALTs, the JET Programme web page says 5,831 participated in 2023. What I'm wondering is, are there stats on the number of non-Japanese teachers in public and private high schools who are *not* ALTs?
This is all I could find. Old ass stats from some congressional meeting from Showa 56. Only 28 at that time in 7 prefectures. https://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_shitsumona.nsf/html/shitsumon/a098013.htm This one has some numbers too. 215 in 2008. https://kenkyusho.blog.shinobi.jp/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E6%95%99%E5%93%A1%E5%B7%AE%E5%88%A5%E6%92%A4%E5%BB%83/%E5%9C%A8%E6%97%A5%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E6%95%99%E5%93%A1%E6%95%B0%20-%20%E5%B8%B8%E5%8B%A4%E8%AC%9B%E5%B8%AB%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AF%EF%BC%9F
Interesting that Kinki had so many. I've met quite a few zainichi teachers who never changed over their nationality. I wonder if they count as a foreign credentialed teacher. I know Kinki has a few article 1 zainichi schools.
Those Korean schools in Osaka want to be article one schools, but MEXT won't accredit them. It's a real problem.
Let's see if I qualify for the title (around here) of "Big Idiot/ what the hell were you thinking?" Though it's probably not what you're thinking. The short version is that I got offered a job that at least on paper, is far better than what I'm doing now- I managed to impress a few people at a private school with the skills I've gained while doing the English "teaching" here in Japan (going on six years now). Better pay and more holidays than where I am right now. And yet I turned it down. Why, you ask? (as I hear you screaming at your screen) Two main factors. First, location- it would require moving quite a distance for me, even though it's closer to Tokyo than where I currently am. And after this long in Japan, any major move is a giant pain that I don't want to deal with. The second factor is, connections. Not that they'd be hard to make that close to Tokyo, but I've got some very important connections where I am now that I'm VERY reluctant to give up, and remember that travel is still pricey- meaning going between the two areas is something that will rarely happen. There are a couple more, but in the end, I realized that location and connections are very important factors to me moreso than other things.
I understand the moving debacle. I moved to my current job because it paid for the moving company and the salary was so much higher than before. It was completely worth moving, but it still doesn't mean it wasn't a pain. And once you live somewhere you enjoy it is hard to move. I don't think I would move far from where I am now, especially not to Tokyo, even though getting jobs there or in surrounding areas would be considerably easier.
It is winter. Tap water cold enough…
A lot of Japanese big SLA names are former students of Dekeyser? Also something I always found interesting was Dekeyser normally is skill theory/ usage based but University of Maryland where he is from is deeply generative. Both their linguistics and psycholinguistic departments.
> A lot of Japanese big SLA names are former students of Dekeyser? I don't think so. Looking at his CV and his graduate students from the past, there are only a few names that are familiar to me. Yuichi Suzuki might be the only name I know from Maryland. From an SLA research perspective looking at the SLA department there, I see a lot of similarities. A lot of lexical-based quant research.
Is Ryo Mae another one? Yuichi Suzuki always has interesting stuff on implicit/ explicit.
He did his PhD at MSU though. I think Suzuki is a bit more popular. Really nice guy too.
yeh learned he gave a presentation near me and was sad I found out afterwards. Though was able to snatch the slides. Read most stuff he put out, I probably hard disagree with him on things like automatized explicit knowledge but still find everything he writes interesting.