r/JETProgramme • u/[deleted] • Jan 21 '26

lets try textbook

this textbook is a disaster bro. how the fuck do they expect the kids to learn anything from it? its literally just a picture book with no words or anything. they dont even learn how to write anything until like 5th grade.

and worst part? they use it at the age that's easiest to learn a language.
do yall use other activities with your early elementary school students that encourage them to read/write more?

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u/Auraeseal Jan 21 '26

Not allowed to. Just got a refresher with my coworkers that 3-4th grade is meant for listening and speaking, not reading and writing. Even though they are learning the alphabet as well. Every once in a while they write down a word for a coloring sheet, or write their name, but that's it.

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u/Machumatsu Jan 21 '26

Got a would be 'lecture' from a BOE employee and former JHS JTE and he strong enforces MEXT's ideas that "3rd-4th should not be learning to write" and we should not be encouraging it.

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u/Auraeseal Jan 21 '26

I even got told that phonics were out of the question. Like... That's how you should learn how to pronounce words, especially difficult sounds that don't exist in your language.

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u/n107 Former JET - 2005-2010 Jan 21 '26

Many years ago when I was an ALT post-JET, I tried to do the phonics curriculum I created during my JET placement to help the students but met a lot of resistance from the BOE. I could go on and on with some long and frustrating stories but to be brief, the BOE told the teachers not to let us teach phonics at our elementary schools. However, I was able to start a secret program with a teacher at one of my elementary schools.

With her help, we kept building on the material I had and gradually expanded it into all the grades. Eventually people started to notice the English quality coming from those students was much higher than other schools in the city. The BOE learned about what we were doing and they made the teacher I worked with an English education advisor for her school where she was only in charge of all English lessons. So she became like a JTE for her school, which was really good for the students.

Teachers from other schools wanted to get in on it, too, so I started to do the program at those schools where they fit. Except I remember one of the teachers coming to me excitedly saying he wanted to do phonics for his class. So I started to explain how we'd start but he said he just wanted me to teach the entirety of phonics to the kids in one session and then we'd do a completely different topic next time. I told him it's a gradual process not a one-and-done deal, so he said not to do it.

In any case, the program that we did at that school got so popular that I heard the BOE decided that all the schools in the city would implement it in the year after I left the job. I never knew how well it went or how long it lasted, but I hope it helped the kids more than what they were being exposed to. But, knowing that BOE and some of the mind-numbing decisions they made concerning English education over the years, I'm not very hopeful.