Category Archives: Teaching English in Asia

Stop speaking Japanese (etc)

… or How to React to Random English in Your Everyday Life Abroad. This was supposed to be in Tokyo’s freebie listings magazine Metropolis, but it was so badly mangled by the editor that I decided to publish the original version for free … Continue reading

Posted in Teaching English Abroad, Teaching English in Japan | 3 Comments

A hilariously bad TEFL course model lesson plan

Discovered this while researching something else and my jaw just dropped with its awfulness (and I say that as someone who still has to teach with materials made up by random teachers in other branches of my schools). I’ve highlighted … Continue reading

Posted in Online TEFL certificate, Teacher training, Teaching English in Thailand | 11 Comments

TOEFL to improve high school English?

The British government has finally learnt its lesson about dealing with ETS after many cock ups including the recent big fraud which means that TOEFL can no longer be used for immigration purposes, but that’s not stopping schools in Japan: … Continue reading

Posted in ETS, Teaching English in Japan, TOEFL, TOEIC | Comments Off on TOEFL to improve high school English?

ECC may have bought data stolen from owner of Berlitz

According to the newspaper Japan Times, the data on 75,000 high school students that large Japanese language school chain ECC bought might have been among that stolen by someone working at Benesse, owner of the Berlitz and ELS chains, plus the … Continue reading

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Why do the Japanese add extra vowel sounds to English?

Three answers, including one that had never occurred to me before, on my JapanExplained blog (recently more active than this one, maybe for the first time ever): Why do the Japanese pronounce English like katakana? Much more on Janglish and … Continue reading

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Vietnam bans teaching of English in regular pre-school classes

Actually, it’s all foreign languages, but I’d already made the title of this post too long trying to avoid the inaccurate title of the original piece: Ban on teaching English to pre-school children raises controversy Actually the policy seems quite sensible … Continue reading

Posted in pre-school/ kindergarten/ very young learners, Teaching English in Vietnam | Tagged | 1 Comment

A very mixed story of unionisation in TEFL

An interesting bit of TEFL history from the Japan Times: Lado’s histoy and demise weren’t without their lessons Anyone know any stories with clearer conclusions on this most controversial of possible changes in TEFL?

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Filipinos not the solution to countries’ English teaching problems?

This is one of several recent news stories from Vietnam recently including claims that Filipino teachers are unaffordable, hard to find and/ or not suitably qualified, funnily enough exactly the complaints most often made about Western teachers.

Posted in Teaching English in Vietnam | 1 Comment

Janglish which we should all start using

What I prefer to call Janglish is better known as Japlish, Japanese English or wasei eigo. The direct translation of the last term is “English made in Japan”, but a more correct explanation would be Japanese words and expressions made … Continue reading

Posted in English as an International Language/ Lingua Franca, Janglish | Comments Off on Janglish which we should all start using

New teaching Japanese learners page

Given how I’ve spent eight of the last ten years and four of the six years of this blog teaching in Japan, you can be fairly sure that all my worksheets and teaching advice are suitable for that situation. I’ve also … Continue reading

Posted in Janglish, Teaching English in Japan | Comments Off on New teaching Japanese learners page