Abstract
Strongly believing that the teacher is the single most important educational resource in the classroom, how additional training is provided to in-service English teachers becomes a key element in improving the quality of language instruction in classrooms across Japan. This paper re-examines the past five years of Ministry of Education and Science (MEXT) sponsored English teacher training, from the former National Center for Teacher Development (based at Tsukuba) model through the current prefectural in-service programs, from the personal experiences of a teacher trainer of over 2, 500 secondary school English teachers since 2002.
After evaluating the differing sets of in-service provided skills needed by junior high school Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) in comparison with JTE high school teachers, the complex question of Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in-service training requirements at all levels will be addressed. Finally, based on these five years of experience, I will discuss the future of MEXT in-service training for both secondary—and especially for elementary school—English teachers (both JTEs and ALTs) in Japan.
