A young couple — both BYU-Hawaii alumni — stopped off in Laie en route home from Wakayama, Japan, to report on their three-year experience working in the Japan Exchange and Teaching program (JET):
Tori Bishop Nichols, a 2003 TESOL graduate, served as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in several schools; and her husband, Isaac Nichols, a 2004 ICS Communications graduate and a returned Latter-day Saint missionary who served in Nagoya, was a coordinator for international relations (CIR) working in the office of the mayor of Wakayama.
The Nichols explained the Japanese Ministry of Education brings in over 5,500 native English-speaking people under the JET program. Approximately 92% of them assist in public schools and the other 8% work as CIRs. "Most high schools [in Japan] have some form of native-English speaking teaching, whether it's JET-sponsored or private," said Tori, who is originally from Georgia.
BYU-Hawaii English Language Teaching and Learning professor Dr. Mark James added that Hawaii recruitment for the program is through the Japan Consulate in Honolulu, "and the success rate of hiring on our campus is near 90 percent. They like people from our campus."
Tori also pointed out that JET participants come from 44 different countries, but the majority are still from the U.S. "There's not a lot of money, and there's a big debate whether they should focus on elementary schools, or keep them in intermediate and high schools," she said. "I worked at two public high schools."
She explained Japanese public high schools are academically based. "You don't go where you live, but where you test into. One [I taught in] was a middle-level school, and the other was low, so my experience wasn't typical."
"As for teaching English it was less than I expected. I think I hit every cycle of culture shock three or four times: honeymoon, anger," she continued. "The first school I taught at focused on sports. The teachers that I taught with, their English proficiency was low. The students didn't really want to learn English; but it was still a wonderful experience. I just went to two schools that weren't really very academic."
"I thought my primary focus was supposed to be on the world community…and oral communication. By the second year I came to learn that 99% of the oral communication class focused on grammar, and only 1% was conversation," Tori said, noting she only taught conversation "maybe once every two months...for 50 minutes."
"TESOL education more than prepared me to teach English there, but I was disappointed that I wasn't able to use more of the things that I learned." However, she added she found a great deal of satisfaction teaching private lessons on the side. "The intercultural environment of BYU-Hawaii also definitely helped me in Japan."
Despite challenges and other program restrictions, Tori advised interested TESOL students that the JET program is the "only way" for new graduates to teach English in Japan. For her efforts, for example, the program paid about $30,000 a year. Isaac, whose CIR work was totally different, made about the same, but his position also included a partially furnished apartment, so they were able to save money for his pending graduate program at the University of Denver.
"It was a good experience, but definitely not what we expected," agreed Isaac. "All of Japan is pushing for internationalization, whatever that means. In places like Tokyo there are a lot of foreigners; but in little towns, where a foreigner wouldn't go regularly, they wanted you to be there as a cultural ambassador. So, I don't know if the JET program is mainly for teaching English, or just having the people exposed to foreigners."
Though his work primarily involved international relations in the mayor's office, Isaac said he also did a little English training for city hall employees. "But they're nervous to talk to you. They're scared of making mistakes: They don't want to talk unless they can be perfect," he said. "So don't go expecting to be the teacher. It's important to remember it's more of a cultural exchange to expose the people to foreigners. For example, there are no ALTs in Tokyo, and the other big cities have less."
He added even most returned missionaries who served in Japan "don't have enough kanji [Japanese writing] to read or write. Speaking-wise, missionaries are ahead of the game, but anybody who's majored in Japanese in college is ahead in writing. My experience at BYU-Hawaii was also immeasurably helpful," said Isaac, who learned kanji by writing it in his missonary journal.
The couple also said they enjoyed their time outside of the approximately 35 hours a week they worked, and were members of a large ward in Wakayama that's part of the Osaka Stake; and, of course, they're coming home with their six-month-old son, Eli Nichols.
