JTEs Suck (Sometimes)....

I teach in JHS and I don't hate it!

I experienced something in class today that made me reassess the last few years of team teaching. Myself and one of the JTEs I work with used the word "game center", and I was asked if "amusement park" was the word for game center in English. I said "no", and explained that we usually use the word "arcade" to describe such a thing. She right out doubted my answer, just like the many other times that she questioned my answers to the meanings of a words.

I always keep a cool head because I know I can sometimes make mistakes, but also, it's what she has always believed to be the truth. There are many types of Englishes and I am not the authority on English. I just know what I know, and it's usually enough.

That said, generally speaking, English teachers in Japan are completely stuck in their own ways. Instead of asking questions and learning from natives, they tend to just accept what they have learnt from books, university, workshops, etc. Unfortunately, because of how English is taught in Japan, the knowledge of people (educators and students alike) is usually very linear. They tend to mislearn words and spellings, and misunderstand certain use cases.

I don't want to sound like I'm dunking on teachers. That isn't the case at all. However, when my pronunciation of simple words and the meaning of them are questioned and doubted in front of an entire class of kids, it can feel a little degrading.

I have worked alongside teachers in the past that have made me doubletake the usage of my mother tongue. I've literally gone online to check whether what I have been pronouncing is in fact the correct way because the people I work with have told me that I am wrong.

I don't know whether this is a pride issue, stubbornness, unwillingness to grow and learn, or something else, but it would be nice to get credit for knowing my own language once in a while. The above doesn't apply to all JTEs that I have ever worked with, but out of the... 14 or so that I have, at least 3/4 of them need to chill out and place faith in the token gaijin. lol