Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program (50 page)

Yet these new guidelines by no means implied that Ministry of Education officials were willing to entertain the possibility of using materials
other than the approved textbooks for communication-oriented language
learning. Wada explained to ALTs: "The textbooks are not always useful
for communication and we need to rewrite them, but Japanese teachers like
to teach textbooks. You need to use the texts indirectly. If ALTs continue to
reject textbooks, I'm afraid Japanese teachers don't want to invite you to
their schools, so try to compromise." Part plea and part threat, his comment highlights the delicate line that the ministry has had to walk between
acknowledging the ALTs' complaints about the drawbacks of the textbooks
and appeasing JTLs who insist on the grammar translation method (either
because they prefer it or because they believe it essential to prepare their
students for the entrance exams).

ALTs outside the Classroom

In addition to overtly intervening to improve the team-teaching classroom, Ministry of Education officials have also encouraged host institutions and schools to use ALTs to change the climate of English education in
more subtle ways. ALTs are increasingly used by prefectural boards of education to help conduct job interviews for prospective JTLs, and both ETCs
and JTLs report that the perception that conversational ability counts is
markedly affecting new hires. One veteran JTL recalled: "Last semester we
had two teachers for teacher training. The first one had been in Britain for
a year, and she had beautiful pronunciation and the students evaluated her
really highly. But the second one didn't. I think new English teachers in
Japan are increasingly going to be judged by a higher standard because of
ALTs." ALTs are also being asked more frequently to serve as judges at English speech contests, which are ubiquitous at the secondary school level in
Japan. In many cases the criteria used by ALTs to assess students' delivery
differ from those used by the Japanese judges.35 How and whether the Japanese approach will survive in the face of the communication-oriented criteria of the ALTs is an interesting question for the future.

Another unintended effect of the JET Program may be the gradual eradication of so-called Janglish, English that doesn't make sense to a native
speaker. Now that the "English police" are scattered through every community in Japan, there is scarcely a T-shirt or sign that can escape their
watchful eyes.

Progressive Ideas, Conservative Administration

Taken together, the above efforts suggest that the JET Program may have
produced low-key perestroika at the Ministry of Education: officials there
are now irrevocably committed to promoting conversational skills in foreign language education. Two developments in the late 199os provide a
hint of where reform efforts may be directed in the coming years. The first
was the arrival of two assistant Korean teachers (AKTs) and three assistant Chinese teachers (ACTs) in August -1998. Previously, China and
Korea had been involved solely on the CIR side of the JET Program; but as
economic and political ties with Asian countries have strengthened in recent years, there has been growing pressure to offer Korean and Chinese
as foreign language electives in public schools. In fact, in 1997 the most
popular non-English foreign language studied in high school was Chinese, with 15,390 students studying at 303 schools (201 public and 102
private).36

The second development is that Ministry of Education officials now talk
openly about the possibility of introducing English classes in public elementary schools. In 1996 a high-profile ministry task force recommended
that the teaching of English at elementary schools be seriously considered,
and several pilot projects in this area have been completed. Ministry surveys also revealed that in 1998 roughly one-half of all ALTs had conducted
some form of English or "international understanding" class at an elementary school. Though formalizing this arrangement would involve surmounting formidable legal and logistical barriers as well as resistance from
some elementary school teachers, the new course of study in 2002 at the
elementary level will see a new addition to the curriculum-general studies (sogo gakushft). It will be up to each school to develop its own integrated study course covering areas of international understanding, the environment, information technologies, and social welfare.

Skeptics will undoubtedly argue that even if such efforts are sincere,
they will bear little fruit so long as the current entrance exams and
textbook-screening process remain in place. Certainly most ministry officials see the entrance exams as a powerful motivators of student achievement, and that system is unlikely to be overhauled in the foreseeable future-particularly since it is largely controlled by university officials who
make up exams for their department. But the content of entrance exams
may be changing. For example, in what was widely hailed as a major step
forward, Tokyo University decided to include a listening component on
their entrance exam in English; and as JTLs have become more comfortable
with the practice of team teaching itself, they have more forcefully questioned how to evaluate oral communication classes effectively. As Wada remarked, "ALTs are one part of the process of changing English education.
We must change the textbooks, teacher training, guidelines. But we can't
change the whole education system so quickly. If we compare with ten
years ago, we've made lots of progress."

To many observers, however, that "progress" seems painfully slow.
Given that methods of assessment play a powerful role in shaping teaching
strategies, the inclusion of a listening component on entrance exams could
be viewed as an important marker of change in Japanese foreign language
education. Yet in 1996, while 41.4 percent of national universities reported
that at least one department in the university required such a listening
component, the figure at private universities was only 18 percent, and for
local public universities (operated by prefectural or municipal governments) it was even lower (9.6 percent)." Moreover, the consensus among
virtually all the major players in the JET Program is that the Ministry of Education has been the most resistant to change: in spite of ringing public
endorsements of communication-oriented language teaching, ministry officials and their spokespersons at the prefectural level, the ETCs, seem determined to find a way to wedge the team-taught class into the existing
system without making any major structural changes. We should also remember that foreigners are still prohibited from becoming certified to
teach in public schools; and though recently more high schools have begun
to offer German, French, Korean, and Chinese, English continues to be the
foreign language of choice at all levels. In short, the JET Program, while
important, hardly compares with the other two major transformations in
Japanese education, which took place during the early Meiji period and
during the Allied Occupation.

THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
AND THE ALUMNI RIPPLE EFFECT

Though its effects on English education have been gradual and mixed, the
JET Program has achieved phenomenal success as a cultural exchange program. Many of the JET participants, even those who are preoccupied with
changing the Japanese system, come to feel close to Japan. In a 1992 CLAIR
survey on the living conditions of JET participants, for example, nearly 50
percent of the 2,172 respondents indicated that they would absolutely recommend JET to a friend, while another 45 percent said they probably
would. In addition, the renewal rate among JET participants, after hovering
slightly above 40 percent for the first few years of the program, has now
soared well above 50 percent (see table 7). As noted in chapter 4, fewer than
i percent now leave Japan before their contracts expire. And in spite of
their sharply differing styles of social relations and education, many JET
participants and their Japanese hosts do hit it off and form enduring friend-
ships.38

If we focus on the alumni ripple effect, the JET Program appears to have
succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its originators.39 Although it was
conceived narrowly as a bargaining chip in U.S.-Japan bilateral trade negotiations, JET has grown to include numerous countries. Hundreds of its
alumni have returned home to study Japan-related topics in graduate
school, with a level of preparation that is, in the words of one longtime
Japan expert, "something we could only have dreamed of ten years ago.""
Other JET alumni have stayed in Japan, working in various capacities, or
have found Japan-related work in their own country; there have even been
dozens of cross-cultural marriages.

SOURCE: Adapted from The JET Programme: Ten Years and Beyond (Tokyo: Council of Local
Authorities for International Relations, 1997), 356.

CLAIR and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have approached alumni relations with great enthusiasm, thereby indicating their high priority
among Japanese policymakers. As early as 1988 CLAIR was toying with
the idea of holding a "non-renewers' conference" in order to ensure that
nonrenewing JET participants would leave Japan with a good taste in their
mouths. One program coordinator recalls,

We came up with this idea of having a meeting, like a closing to the
whole year. Well, the Japanese were really enthused about it. They
wanted the crown prince to come and the secretary-general had actually visited the Imperial Palace to try to arrange it. That didn't work
out, and then they wanted the prime minister. They were HOT on the
idea! We had the money to cover the program, and then we started
running into problems of agenda and cost to the prefectures. The prefectures would have to pay for sending them to the conference and
they started to balk, saying we're not going to pay for a JET to come up
there just for a party or for one night or whatever.

The idea was effectively dropped for a number of years, but it resurfaced in
1995, largely through the efforts of program coordinators. In 1996 the first
annual Non-Renewers' Conference was held.

The idea of forming a JET Alumni Association met with a more immediate positive reception; indeed, its formation arguably provides the best
example from the program's history of how JET participants and their
Japanese hosts can work together on new projects that are beneficial both
to the program and to society as a whole. Much of the groundwork for
JETAA was done by an AJET representative, Scott Olinger, who became
a program coordinator at CLAIR. The first significant gesture toward
alumni concerns was an AJET publication titled The Non-Renewer's
Handbook, which gave advice on jobs, graduate schools, and other matters
pertaining to life after JET. When Olinger arrived at CLAIR, he convinced
officials there that a more formal organization was needed to assist JET
participants in making the transition back home and in providing information and contacts regarding what to do next. By January 1999, more
than 9,000 former JET participants were members of forty-two regional
JETAA chapters located in eleven participating countries, and each year
representatives from regional chapters gather for a JETAA International
Conference. The only snag concerned funding for the JETAA regional
groups. Particularly in cities where the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
Home Affairs both had offices, there was competition for sponsorship of
JETAA chapters. And the JET alumni themselves were suspicious of both,
fearing that if they accepted ministry funding for outreach activities they
then would be forced to accept ministry policies. In the end each chapter
set itself up as a nonprofit organization, and this arrangement has worked
quite well.

While the activities of each JETAA chapter vary considerably, they usually include assisting in recruiting and interviewing, participating in Japanrelated community outreach activities, holding social gatherings in conjunction with the consulate, and assisting JET alumni in their job searches.
Scott Olinger told me that at the outset he hoped "these groups would become active in promoting a better, realistic understanding of Japan in their
communities." CLAIR very generously funded and supported the creation
of a quarterly newsletter, JET Streams, for JET alumni, as well as an annual
alumni directory. An annual essay contest was begun in 1993, and enterprising alumni have ensured that the JET Program is well-represented in
cyberspace. In fact, when Olinger did a cursory search in 1998 he found 182
references to the JET Program on the World Wide Web. Prefectures have
also jumped at the opportunity to establish their own alumni groupings within the framework of JETAA. Hyogo-ken was thrilled when a JET
alumnus from the prefecture was appointed vice-consul for his country's
consulate in the Kansai region of Japan, of which Hyogo is a part.

The establishment of JETAA has significantly affected the recruitment
of new participants as well. In general, all aspects of the process that occur
before the applicants arrive in Japan-advertisement, selection, and predeparture orientation-are vastly superior to what they were in the early
years of the program, in part due to the assistance of JET alumni. They are
active in promotional activities and predeparture orientations, and most selection committees utilize the services of one or two.