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…
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…
I was positively giddy on the first day of my TESOL certificate's Teaching English Grammar class. Although we were all there to learn how to be good language teachers, I was probably the only one who was that thrilled to get into the nitty gritty of English grammar. Most people probably…
I taught at a low-level school. The students were really eager to use English, but they weren't exactly good at it. One day, I came up with the idea of building a term's worth of lessons around the goal of writing and presenting a basic 5-7 sentence paragraph I like to…
You may not have a lot of control over the physical structures in your classroom - the desks, the whiteboard, the tech (or lack thereof!). You may not be able to have your students sit in groups and do group projects due to Covid-19 precautions. You may not be able to…
I remember getting the impression that one of my elementary school teachers hated children. I think I was about 11 or 12 years old when it happened. I was paired with a younger student for a reading buddy program, and I saw the difference in how this teacher treated their own…
This week we are going to take a look at a very interesting paper written by Zoltán Dörnyei and Kata Csizér. It’s called “Ten Commandments for motivating Language Learners” and while we will be focusing on the contents published on page 215, do take a look at the abstract: The question…