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.
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…
ALTTO is a free platform offering training courses for Assistant Language Teachers in Japanese school system. It provides practical, context-specific professional development in areas like classroom management, lesson planning, teaching listening/speaking skills, and supporting special needs students.
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…
Hey ALTTO Community! How's that humidity treating ya?! The first term of the school year may be ending soon, but that doesn't mean we can't take some time to reflect and plan ahead for how we will do things after the summer. This next Commandment is brought to us by Elizabeth…
I hope you're all settling in to the new school year. It is the perfect time to try something new in your classroom! This Commandment comes to us from Alex, an ALT at a high school in Kyoto. He and his co-ALTs and JTEs have been doing some fantastic things to…
Bio: My name is Daniel Pearce, and I am currently working as a teacher-researcher at Kyoto Notre Dame University. I was an ALT in several high schools of the Shonai region of Yamagata Prefecture between 2008 and 2013. During my time in Yamagata, I committed myself to studying Japanese and kanji…
The Tao originated in China in the 6th century BCE and has since become familiar to both eastern and western audiences. According to Tao philosophy, Yin and Yang are the two governing forces that are opposite yet interdependent, in constant flux but ultimately give balance to the universe. If we view…
School-based Teacher Education Model in Professional Graduate School For the past 13 years, the M.Ed program at the Graduate School of Professional Development of Teachers at the University of Fukui has been working on cultivating an organizational learning community of teachers. Our aims are clear: to enhance the professional development of…
Englipedia had been the go-to place for ALTs. A storehouse of seemingly limitless activities for every page of every textbook used in Japanese public schools. ALTs would simply click on the page number of the book they use, download the activity, make some photocopies, and head to class. And all was…