What's "ALT" & "Jet Programme"?
ALT is...
ALT stands for Assistant Language Teacher. ALTs are most often individuals from foreign countries who teach their native language at Japanese schools.
The work of ALTs is the main activity promoted by the JET Programme.
Jet Programme is...
JET stands for Japan Exchange and Teaching and is operated by local authorities in Japan in cooperation with the Japanese government's Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications;
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR).
The JET Programme was started with the purpose of increasing mutual understanding between the people of Japan and the people of other nations, and it aims to promote internationalization in Japan's local communities by helping to improve foreign language education and developing international exchange at the community level.
For more information, please check out the JET Programme website at http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/index.html
(This is the JET Progamme's official website. My own website which you're reading now is not run by or affiliated with the JET Programme in any way.)
Why ALT?
It has been said that foreign language education in Japan has traditionally focused on grammar, reading, and writing,
with
students not getting enough experience in speaking and real communication.
Recently, however, there has been an effort within the Japanese government and
among some Japanese educators to make foreign language education in Japan more
communication-based.
Thus, native speakers have been increasingly employed to help expose students to real use of a foreign language and to involve them in real communication.
Native speakers who teach their language in Japanese schools through the JET Programme are called Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs)
because they teach alongside the Japanese teachers of the foreign language in the classroom, assisting them in a process known as "team-teaching."
ALTs who teach English are by far the most common among JET Programme ALTs,
but there are also ALTs who teach French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, or other languages-currently several thousand people from about 40 different countries are working in Japan through the JET Programme.
