Elizabeth Scally – ALT Training Online

TPPT in the Real Classroom: Part 3 Planning Under Pressure

Alan Granada is an ALT in Kanagawa, teaching English across elementary, junior, and senior high schools. He helps students build communicative confidence by starting from what they can already do and using Adrian Leis’ Task 1-Present-Practice-Task 2 framework, or TPPT. See Part 1 and Part 2. Recently, a JTE asked me, shortly before class, if…

0 Comments

13 August 2026

ALT / Elementary School / High School / junior high scool / professional development / teacher training / Uncategorised

TPPT in the Real Classroom: Part 2 Choosing the Right Expression

Alan Granada is an ALT in Kanagawa, teaching English across elementary, junior, and senior high schools. He helps students build communicative confidence by starting from what they can already do and using Adrian Leis’ Task 1-Present-Practice-Task 2 framework, or TPPT. For Part 1, click here. After teaching the first lesson, one question stayed with me.…

0 Comments

10 August 2026

ALT / Elementary School / High School / junior high scool / professional development / teacher training

TPPT in the Real Classroom: Part 1 Building the Framework

Alan Granada is an ALT in Kanagawa, teaching English across elementary, junior, and senior high schools. He helps students build communicative confidence by starting from what they can already do and using Adrian Leis' Task 1-Present-Practice-Task 2 framework, or TPPT, to guide them through input noticing, flexible output supports, and interaction tasks that gradually increase…

1 Comment

27 July 2026

ALT / ALTTO / Community / Nathaniel Reed / research / teacher training

More Than an Assistant — A Book Born from a Community

A reflection on how the ALTTO community inspired More Than an Assistant—a book about ALTs, inclusion, and the evolving story of English education in Japan.

0 Comments

12 November 2025

ALT / ALTTO / Community / Japanese Private School / Japanese Public Schools / JET / life in Japan / personal experience / professional development

A conversation with Real Gaijin

about the genesis and realities of Assistant Language Teaching with an experienced Japan hand You know the proverb, "Two heads are better than one"? Japan has its rendering, 1/3 better than the English expression: 三人寄れば文殊の知恵 San nin yoreba Monju no chie In other words, when three people come together, they achieve…

0 Comments

15 August 2025

Activities / ALT / teens

The Power of Questions: How ALTs Can Build Rapport, Teach Grammar, and Thrive in Japan

Happy spring! ALTTO hopes you are feeling refreshed and ready for a new school year in Japan. Nathaniel Reed, the founder of ALT Training Online, gives us valuable advice about asking our English learners the right questions. This is sneak peek of his new book, Fluency Through Conversation available on Amazon…

0 Comments

26 March 2025

ALT / Bilingual / Community / JET / JHS / JTE / personal experience

Warm Words about Crossing Linguistic Lines

Let me first say to the people responsible for ALTTO / Agora: what you have put together is impressive and bodes well for EFL instruction in schools. Many thanks. For ALTs who have been in Japan for a relatively short time, what follows may not exactly be what you want to…

0 Comments

11 December 2023

ALT / ALTTO / Community / professional development / skills development / Uncategorised

Start a New School Year with ALTTO Courses

With the start of the 2023 school year right around the corner, it's a good time for veterans to refresh their knowledge and skills and for newly recruited ALTs to learn about their new roles. To support you in your school experience, ALTTO offers course modules that provide insight into the…

0 Comments

28 March 2023

ALT / Cultural Education / Uncategorised

Commandment 10 – Connecting Language and Cultures

ALTs are a diverse lot, not all coming from majority English-speaking countries and many cultures. When it comes to teaching about culture, you can draw on knowledge of your own, cultures you’ve encountered through travel, or stretch your own understanding of the English-speaking world. Engaging and Informing A simple and time-efficient…

0 Comments

27 January 2023

ALT / skills development / tips for teaching / Uncategorised

Commandment 9 – Increase Learners’ Goal-Orientedness

Happy New Year 2023! Have you made new year's resolutions? This is the perfect time to look at Commandment 9 - strategies to increase your learner's goal-orientation. Teachers Setting Goals Every year, teachers pore over guidelines, revise syllabi, and schedule units and tests as part of course goal setting. A syllabus…

0 Comments

10 January 2023