I taught English for 11 years in Japan. It was so discouraging until I realized the college students and salarymen just wanted to hang out and drink with me. So we went out a lot and sure enough, my students started making progress! I think more exposure to conversational English is so critical.

“If they showed us more examples where English would be useful in the future...” *bus with giant advertisement of European singer drives by in the background*

"He would pronounce *opportunity* like this." LMAO I died laughing.

For me the saddest part is that the "grammar section" of the English lesson is not actually English grammar. This is why, as the girls in the video said, the grammar is totally disconnected from the ability to understand and use English. What Japanese Teachers of English teach in "grammar" class is an invented method of classifying English according to Japanese grammar. For example, no native speaker has any idea what "I, My, Me Mine, You, Your, You, Yours" is about... to the native speaker, I, as the subject and would never ever be confused with "my" a possessive form. But sooooo many unfortunate Japanese kids get taught this abomination pattern "I, My, Me Mine", and so end up confusing the terms. And this pattern comes from the "ha-ga-no-wo-ni-nomono" Japanese particle as applying to watashi, anata, etc. No wonder people can't learn the language if the teachers deliberately create memorisation tools and teaching methods that rely upon thinking in Japanese, and according to Japanese grammar patterns.

"I don't like English." "Why not?" "Because it doesn't make sense to me." As a native English speaker for about 23 years, I can tell you that she is not wrong. So much of this language doesn't make sense.

Yuta-san, with my experience as an ALT, I have to say that much of these people's complaints about their English education is the direct result of the administrative decisions of the Japanese education system. At the 03:35 mark, this guy says that ALTs who can speak Japanese as well as English are the best. I did this, and my students thanked me for helping them understand English better. However, _I did this in direct violation of the wishes of my city's board of education._ I was merely lucky that nobody complained. I was a maverick and did not hesitate to use Japanese if necessary. In a previous city, I had a school principal tell me that speaking English-only to elementary students who have had no actual English education from a Japanese teacher is like an "English shower." Naive people like her consider having an ALT come and teach these kids _one 45 minute class a week the same as language immersion._ This is ridiculous. Like a barking dog, they expected me to just repeat English over and over again with examples and role plays. Some kids cannot respond well to the "barking dog" because they are nervous and get frustrated. This is not a "shower" for such kids, but more like blasting them in the face with a hose. In junior high schools, I had JTEs who could speak English with me with fairly good accents, but to their children they always said crap like "faasto" and "lasto" instead of just saying "first" and "last." They apparently felt that teaching Japanese kids improper English pronunciation helps them to understand English better. *However, these teachers are teaching a form of English that is understood **_only_** by Japanese people.* I recently saw on TV that most Japanese people think that "cone" as in "ice cream cone" is the same word as "corn." Native English speakers never mistake these two words. I tried my best to teach my students proper phonics---especially the elementary students. But it would only be undone by their JTE once they go to junior high. The Japanese education system is _finally_ acknowledging the importance of phonics, but it's too little, too late. That's why there are ALTs from Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore in Japan. Pretty soon there will be Chinese ALTs.

Oh... Ms. Hitomi Tanaka?! I know her too, she is the best!

The blue hoodie guy is hilarious

I have a friend who worked as an english teacher for an university in Japan. He left dissapointed that with the system because it was all about the money, if the student pay, then it'll pass. He never teached the way he wanted or try to press the students to learn because anytime he attempted to, the boss appears telling him to stop and just focus on giving the class the way they told him.

Them two dudes in front of the truck are chill as hell.

7:38 "...." That man sure does respect Japanese Cultural Spirit.

1:18 she sounds like one of those japanese voice robots lol

That chick with the super happy eyes, I like her face. I don't even have to give a time, you know who I'm talking about.

"If they were good teachers, they would be able to speak Japanese as much as English" -I feel you man. I studied Japanese for 5 and a half years and all of my teachers are Japanese who didn't know how to speak English. It was really a pain in the ass. I remember during the first day of class, me and my other classmates in different nationalities were already complaining. They just act out every verb and sentence patterns were not even explained well! Thank goodness internet was there. Though overall I still prefer Native Japanese speakers for conversation lessons and English Japanese teachers for words and kanji.

0:07 Yuta: he does his own stunts.

I have to share my experience when I was in 2nd yr of High School. When it's time to attend English classes, we have a rule "english only, if you speak in Filipino you pay 1 peso" We try to speak in English as much as we can in a 2hr class without speaking in Filipino. If the teacher goes out of the classroom, the whole class will speak in Filipino so, that we can understand the lesson thoroughly.

"Do you know Ms. Tanaka?" LMAO That guy was clueless and funny in general

People should understand what is learning a language first. To learn a language you must get into the culture of the language you are trying to speak. Most of the people in my country are asking me how did I learned English so good. I just anwer to them I played lot of games in English, watched English-American-Aussie shows-movies, watched English speaking videos on youtube, read english books-comics and last but not least tried to speak with English speaking people on internet and in real life. It just takes you to get in the culture to learn a language. I actually wanted to learn Japanese so I started watching Japanese youtube channels, Japanese movies and some anime. I might get deep into Japanese next year cause this year might be pretty busy for me. Anyways good luck to all the people who are trying to learn a new language.

This was very entertaining to watch. I came here for the interview but watching their personalities and laughing with their friends made it even more fun.

4:38 i like the way she laughs. she's cute

As a Japanese language major I plan to teach English in Japan for about a year or two and hopefully do a good job in teaching students there English. It's a big problem that many foreign teachers that teach English there don't speak any Japanese, but I hope I'll be able to help them as a Japanese major who speaks both English and Japanese. I really do love teaching others about a subject that they want to learn; however, I know that many Japanese students are also unmotivated to learn English, so I'll just have to do my best.

Man: Do you know Ms. Tanaka? Me: ... I do know a Tanaka but she ain't an english teacher.

Oh my god this is so helpful.... The first girl you interviewed. Her eyes.... They sparkle.

My Polish wife has a habit of just abandoning me in shops then laughing mercilessly as I attempt to buy and pay for stuff, you sure as hell pick up the language fast while bumbling about like a total dingbat.

Who wants to meet up with me in Tokyo? I'm organising a meet up event on 23 Aug (Tue) at 7:30pm! Get a ticket from Eventbrite! www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-up-with-yuta-tickets-26984797255

I'm a Canadian ESL/EAL instructor and so really appreciated hearing what these young people liked and wanted in an English teacher. In particular, it is interesting to hear them make a distinction between real-world communication in English and studying the grammar of the language. They are related things but they are not the same thing and these young people know it! Real-world communication is a much better way to truly learn English than the rote grammar/translation approach.

Wow, that video was awesome! Everyone was in such a good mood, it was pure joy to watch! :D I'm smiling big now! :)

As an aspiring ESL teacher currently enrolled in a TESL course in university, this video has been very enlightening on the merits of dual language in the English classroom. Thanks Yuta! Keep up the good work! :)

The guy in the blue jacket is awesome :D Reminds me of Prison School

The guy from Osaka was so funny :D

This video was amazing! Very helpful for future and current ALTs

Well, now I know what to prep if I get accepted as an English teacher in a year or two. Thank you very much for this video. Though I think I might go through a company rather than JET, where I have some more leeway in class design... Currently working my way through the Genki studying Japanese in College. So lucky to have a native Japanese speaker that actually makes sure we understand before moving on, and meanders off on off-topic examples and ramblings that give us some cultural context. Just found your channel about 3 videos ago, I expect to spend a lot of time here.

As an English teacher in Japan, this was definitely my favorite video that you've done so far! My students tell me their opinions pretty honestly, but it was great to hear the opinions of older people reflecting on their past experiences. Thanks Yuta!

my best english teacher was the internet xD

Great video Yuta-san. As a new English Teacher living in Japan, I found it quite informative.Thank you

great vid man!!! i really enjoyed it. japan, here i come!!!

watching your japanese lessons and watching your videos now, you improved your english A LOT

This is actually pretty helpful for learning how best to tailor my future English teaching to students :) ありがとう!

I have so many positive things I want to say about this video and now your channel in general.. but I can't you are too awesome. this video alone solidified my not only wanting to learning Japanese, but to see how they (even though few) react to native English speakers. thank you for your videos! :)

7:35 i love this guy. Unlike most Japanese in interviews this guy has no filter. Very refreshing to see

The two high school girls and the guy in the blue coat were HILARIOUS. ちょううけるｗ

I had a really terrible teacher in high school. I knew English much better than her, but she still thought, she knew it the best. Some sentences she used to write on the blackboard that went like "He doesn't likes..." were pretty hilarious, but i also felt sad for the rest of my class, because they didn't learn anything.

5:50 i agree with this, it will really be hard to learn a new language if the teacher doesnt even know yours. I'm learning japanese and I have english as my second language. My sensei was a native of my country and stayed in japan on her adulthood. She was really amazing to be with since she can easily communicate with us in our language and english. I've learned a lot of japanese words and granmar rules easily because of her

This is really interesting Yuta! Keep up the great videos.

As an ALT it makes me happy to see a lot of these responses. As for making students stand up and speaking in front of class, I use this as an opportunity to allow peer pressure to sink in. Also, I teach both Eikaiwa and ALT, so the translations ignoring the differences does change the meaning I think.

The ALT they talked about at 4:50 was definately Dutch haha.

This was super informative! Thank you very much!

I enjoy inspiring my students while teaching! Hope I am going to succeed as an ET in Japan despite not speaking Japanese that much.

Damn Yuta, where'd you find all these pretty girls

I actually improved my english a lot by being on the internet. Since i was interested in Kpop since I was 13 ( 8 years ago) and most sources back then were only in english.. I went to Allkpop everyday for several years and I improved greatly...Rather than just counting on teachers Japanese students should have( or be given) the motivation/chance to read in english, watch english spoken movies..and so on. I find it so sad that the only occasion kids get to practice is by approaching foreigners when they're on school trips..They ALL use the same sentence and read the sheet! ( May I speak to you in english ? ) I think it's a pity. Even though those teenagers are really cute when they come to you all shy 笑

Thanks for another great video, Yuta! I'm finishing a teaching degree and would love to travel to Japan to teach. So this insight is helpful. I'm a handsome native speaker, so I hope and expect that my teaching is well received. Haha.

That pronunciation of "opportunity" isn't so bad. There's an accent, but it'd be understandable to a native (or me, at least.)

1:21 HER VOICE IS TOO CUTE

As a current eikaiwa teacher I found this very interesting. Thank you for sharing! My advanced English level high school students all tell me how boring their English classes are. More emphasis on speaking, less on memorization and grammar, PLEASE!

I absolutely loved this! I would love to learn many languages. Thank you for your encouragement of diversity (in a healthy way that doesn't impair the original culture) in your videos.

I taught English in Korea and after about 9 months of intense(internet) research of how to teach and how to teach language I began to become more competent I started to have fun teaching. It is an experience I cherish and I know I could have become better at doing.

0:43 omg her eyes are beautiful.

To be fair, I've only sat in on a few grammar classes, so I can't say for sure, but on the other hand, I work at a school ranked as a "Super English Language High School", so it's supposed to be good. However, in the few grammar classes I've seen, the teachers (who teach the grammar in Japanese) can hardly explain anything themselves. Sure, they can say "with the verb, use the infinitive form, but with this one use the ing form," but if someone asks why, they couldn't say. That isn't to say that the teachers don't have the capacity to legitimately understand the grammar, but I think it's the vicious cycle thing, where they're never taught in the first place so they can't pass it on. Not to mention that even the grammar classes seemed to be ill organized (learning the many English phrases to correspond to one Japanese phrase instead of the other way around, for instance) and I don't think the students even understand basic concepts of grammar in Japanese let alone English, for when I ask them これは何の品詞？ (What part of speech is this?) about a *Japanese* sentence they must translate, I am almost WITHOUT FAIL answered in Japanese with "Uh...verb, right? No, adjective? Not an adjective...what's adverb mean again? Oh, is it a noun?..." I'm obviously speaking from my own experience here, so I hope that other teachers/schools have less of this problem...

This is funny and informative, thank you!

They treat their language the same way I treated my French teacher LMAO. I do respect my teacher she’s a multi lingual beast who can speak fluent English, German, Russian and Japanese fluently with French being her original and she was hot main reason why I paid attention although I suck at french but my god writing french paragraphs scare me.

The problem with most English teachers in Japan is, they are Japanese natives. They dont have much experience nor have they lived long enough in the "west" to teach that language the way its meant to be. I have been working now for 6 years as a native English teacher in Japan, and have even been traveling to several public high schools. And what I see, for the most, is really really sad. Only having passion isnt enough. Japanese will never develop good English / French,... skills if they listen to teachers that can barely even pronounce the words right, or barely know western behavior when saying something. Btw... most native English teacher also know Sakai and Sen no rikyu. ...　 この道に入らんと思う心こそ、我が身ながらの師匠なりけり。

The Osaka guy was awesome lol. I lived in Osaka for a while before, and I can't say enough good things about Osakans in general, always so cool

My best friend is teaching English in Tokyo, although her students are a bit younger she is very popular among the students and the staff. But I think it helps that she challenged herself to learn Japanese (despite not taking a Japanese Language course) and focused on learning together with the students rather forcing information on them. I've experienced learning a foreign language in both High School and a Language School. I personally preferred the way the HS teacher taught us, he still used English to explain a lot of the information, but I was able to grasp the grammar and meanings a lot better. When I went to a language school though (both HS and Language School was for German), I struggled a lot. The teachers only spoke in German, too quickly and too softly. Most were also too busy gossiping over teaching so I didn't really learn anything new.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THI INSIGHTFUL VIDEO YUTA. IM A NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER & I ALWAYS WONDER WHAT MY STUDENTS ARE THINKING.

I do understand Japanese people who want to learn with JP-EN teacher. I myself have Thai as my mother tongue and English is my second. Since I do love Japanese cultures, I decided to learn Japanese as well. The thing is if teachers are only know how to explain in their language which is not good when students are not understand some part of sentences or grammars they couldn't elaborate to them. It'll keep going around like this for awhile , but if they do have some basic(read & write) I think they could learn with Native English teachers just fine. Don't worry, it happened to me as well in the beginning. Keep practice and learning! :)

Poor people who had no good English teacher, they all need Ellen Baker in their life

Thank you for this great video!

I had a few great laughs watching this video 😂 Thanks Yuta-san!

1:30 "None of my English teachers were good.." hahaha she's really cute!

0:45 That girl is so pretty omg, Yuta ありがとう！！

6:20 put it best. Learning Croatian and French, while my first language is English, was best achieved when I was placed in an environment entirely in the language I was learning. The moment you know you can refer to your mother tongue instead of depending on the new language, is the moment you know you don't have to try as hard. It makes you give up easily because you KNOW you don't actually need the new language within the situation you're in; instead, you just speak in your native tongue without trying.

Taught for three years in Koenji. Great experience and wonderful people. The key is to gear the lessons toward what people want. Some people want to chat, some want to review vocabulary and others want to review text books. Many of my more popular lessons were reading and talking about articles in Japan Times or news sources. Customize the lessons and you won't have a problem. It is easy after the first year. Truth is, the teacher learns as much as the student. There is always a need for caring and kind teachers. If you are introvert it can be a little easier as you can read the room a bit better.

"I wouldn't be able to focus if the teacher was handsome". I'm going to have a bright future ahead of me in teaching English in Japan, as soon as I learn Japanese of course... which I can do by subscribing to Yuta's email group(link in desc) and learning to speak like a real Japanese person!

The girl at 5:00 is kind of hyper. But in a funny and cute way. HAHA.

Thanks for this video ❤

This is so helpful because I want to teach English in Japan. Thanks Yuta!!!

These interviewees are so chill. Almost makes me regret I've got no friends

I would totally be an English teacher *I am British* but my Japanese is bad and as one of the girls said in the video only speaking English during the lesson would be hard for some student to understand, being able to explain the harder parts or help people in the native language would be beneficial.

Great video Yuta and I am a Math, Science, and English Teacher. I am looking forward in visiting Japan in the future and even seeking a Japanese woman for a serious relationship! Take care and maybe I'll see you there!

The end about using English instead of focusing on grammar is so true. I learned English as a second language and was really bad at it most of my school time, teachers sucked and would focus on boring stuff. Most people would dislike English classes. At the end of high school I switched to an English intensive program and I was shocked because the teaching was totally different. Almost no more boring grammar, no more memorizing verbs and such. The teacher would require everybody to speak English once in the class and most classes consisted of teamwork about anything. The goal of the teamwork wasn't about the task required but about making people discuss as much as possible. I learned so much from these classes.

0:52 gosh her eyes, what a beautiful girl and so is her friend

the girl at 5:50 looks like dancing when having interview, acted so cute

It's very helpful, thank you

0:44 yowza she's so pretty, what a smile on her!! damn.. Her whole face literally lights up!

0:45 This girl looks like the happiest girl on the planet

Forget the English Grammer. Learn English conversation in Grade School. Then when you can converse easily build vocabulary and teach grammar. It really works.

Yuta has such energetic openings and ends on his videos :D

Currently working as an ALT. It can be a very thankless job but there are those moments where a student asks me a question and with my limited Japanese I understand what they are asking and I am able to help them by giving them the English translation. When I see the light go on and they thank me it melts my heart everytime. I have been spending the last few months trying to improve my Japanese. For personal reasons but this by product of it being very effective with my teaching has definitely made me want to continue to improve. I kills me when I get a question about English in Japanese where I have to respond “Wakarani”. I know Education fails to use ALTs most of the time, and a lot of ALTs treat the job as a working holiday, but regardless I try to take every little victory I can get.

7:38 my friend taught me that term ;)

"...you have to have a sexy body, or you have to be Justin Beiber." lel.

I loved this vid. 😂❤

Loved this video. They were super funny!

Considering most japanese people don't speak english, I'd say these english teachers aren't doing a very good job.

Imagine being a teacher and then a few years later you see your students again and having a conversation in English.

You are absolutely hilarious! Why didn't I find you sooner!

This was a very funny interview 👌

0:43 She is absolutely gorgeous!.

00:45 She looks like Uraraka From My Hero Academia

6:48 he is really well spoken and uses fancy vocab compared to the others. Thank you for making this video just discovered your channel and subsrcibed

0:44 naniiii?! she reminded me Uraraka from Boku no Hero lol By the way, so nice that you recorded this video at night.... it´s so pretty at night there. Do it more times so we can also enjoy the night time of Japan in your vids! =D