InTransition Wrote:I've been to Japan before, and I just want to go close to Japan, but not so close, plus, I can make better money in Korea than I can make in Japan.

I don't think the wages are that much higher- you can make a reasonable amount in Japan, especially if you do JET. I was working for Interac (a private company that basically does the same thing as JET) and was able to save plenty of money while having a good time. Of course, I was living in Fukuoka which is a lot cheaper than Tokyo.

If you're really keen to learn Japanese, there is nothing better than being in Japan. The money you'll "lose" will be worth it for your Japanese, if that's really what you want.

InTransition Wrote:I believe this is true as well, but I meant for the sake of making side money and saving money. You know, paying half for goods (paying the Korean prices) rather than paying what the Westerner pays because its all we know.

Maybe, the Korean knowledge won't be so important. Any more theories?

I wouldn't have thought you'd get ripped off much in Korea for prices, that's more places where you have to barter. And I'm not sure what kind side job you could do with basic Korean. I wouldn't bother with Korean personally.

Are you sure you can save more money from Korea? The Yen is pretty sweet at the moment. If you did an English teaching job out in the inaka you could save quite a lot and improve your Japanese.

@nadiatims
It seems like the English education in Japan has indeed changed a bit and they are making a half assed attempt to switch to communication based education. I found the guideline of junior high school English classes for the teachers.

（2） 言語活動の取扱い
ア 指導上の配慮事項（イ） コミュニケーション活動に必要となる基本的な文型や文法事項などを理解し，実際に活用すること。
（3） 言語材料
ア （イ） 言語材料の分析や説明は必要最小限にとどめ，実際の場面でどのように使われるかを理解し，実際に活用することを重視すること

According to this, teachers are supposed to make students understand grammar items and have them actually use them in practical contexts, but from what you've told me, they are failing this goal, which isn't surprising considering the level of English skills of most English teachers are dismally low in Japan. But this is an another issue.

Actually, "focusing on reading comprehension" in my last post could have been a bit misleading. What they are doing is more like "deciphering" than "reading" and you are right, Japanese students do/did little actual reading. But, you see excerpts from things like The Economist and Time in collage entrance exams, and there are a fair amount of students who can read, or decipher, them, so my argument still stands. Being able to read materials like The Economist is level 3 in the IRL scale, and when English speakers learn Japanese, it takes 4000 hours to be at level 3 in all 4 skills.
http://www.govtilr.org/Publications/TESO...ngFull.htm
(2200 hours in class + 1800 hours self study)
On the other hand, Japanese students only do 1000 hours maximum, so if the only thing they can do after graduating high school is somewhat getting the gist of an excerpt from Time magazine, and they can't speak, write, hear English at all, that still sounds about right to me. It's different if they are learning Korean, or you are learning Spanish. It only takes 1/4 the time. But the difference between Japanese, or Korean, and English is really great, it takes a lot of time to overcome the barrier. My English actually still sucks arse, but thanks for the compliment, and yeah it's probably better than most Japanese guys'. That's simply because I spent 10 times more time than them, something like 10,000 hours. A lot have been said about the shortcomings of English education in Japan, but the fact is, 1000 hours is only enough to get them to the "survival level". They are just trying to achieve too much with too little imo.

http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/
I learned Hanguel in 2 hours and I think in a weekend you could learn all you really need.
But I am learning Korean and Japanese at the same time and I love both languages. :} Maybe you will grow to like the language too.

Hello,

Since you say you are learning both simultaneously, can you please elaborate on your experience? Thanks.

@masaman
I totally agree that expecting fluent speaking ability after only 1000 hours is perhaps unrealistic, but on the other hand, including homework and juku, a lot of kids are spending quite a bit more time on it. There is also the problem of measuring classroom hours. How much of a 50 minute class is actually educationally beneficial to a student can vary a lot depending on the quality of the teacher, classroom discipline etc. An inexperienced teacher or one who hasn't gained the respect of students can easily spend half the class just trying to maintain discipline. In some of the really 'bad' schools, delinquent kids can completely stop a lesson from running in which case 50 minutes of study becomes closer to 0 minutes for 90% of the students (a couple of students might spend this wasted lesson quietly reading the textbook or doing homework). Teachers have little real power to discipline students in the Japanese system.

Then there are the classes that run smoothly but because the teacher is completely missing the point the lesson is of little actual educational benefit (I'll get into this later). Another problem is kids don't repeat grades in Japanese schools so they will pushed through the system whether they understand the material or not. In this case a thousand hours of english doesn't mean much if for example the kid fell massively behind in the first grade. There are so many kids in this boat, just cruising through with little to no comprehension and there isn't any division of low level and advanced students which might work to counter this problem.

Lesson are far from optimal in my opinion because I believe Japan has shifted its english curriculum from one extreme (based on rote memorisation and perfectionist focus on grammar) to another extreme, communicative language teaching (which sounds good in theory but is quite ineffective in practice). Balance is needed. The communicative approach provides insufficient explanation of structure so students have little depth of understanding, and while the supposedly communicative classroom tasks and games give the illusion that the students can communicate in effect they are just rote memorising scripted dialogues with little ability to deviate from their scripts. Put simply the communicative approach focuses on performance rather than competence.

A much better approach is to focus on bucket loads of input while also offering sufficient structural explanation, basically focus on students comprehension at the start. This means the teacher should be speaking english in class (except when explaining grammar) and students should be given regular reading material. The focus should be on teaching the concrete competencies that lead to language competence, structural understanding, knowledge of vocabulary/idioms (including correct usage), accurate interpretation of unknown sentences, phonics and so on. Students should then be tested on their competence through reading, listening and interview tests.

If they fail, they should be held back. If a whole class fails, the teacher should be fired. I believe that the fast food model of language education in this country is filled with teachers just going through the motions and blindly delivering the curriculum by following the textbook protocol all the while failing to apply common sense and ask themselves the vital question "do my students actually understand this?"
</rant>

Sorry to derail your thread InTransition

"If they all fail, the teacher should be fired."

Is English really THAT important?

How does this way things SHOULD be done compare to the standard monetary wise?

nadiatims Wrote:I believe that the fast food model of language education in this country is filled with teachers just going through the motions and blindly delivering the curriculum by following the textbook protocol all the while failing to apply common sense and ask themselves the vital question "do my students actually understand this?"
</rant>

Yep. But can you really expect teachers to teach a language they can't even speak or fully understand? One of the teacher's in the school I used to teach at had a bunch of English books that she'd started and couldn't finish because they were too hard. Another had a really high TOIEC score but couldn't speak well at all. I thought everything was moving in the right direction with Eigo Note because it takes the shitty teachers out of the equation, but I'm not sure it's going to get fully implemented.

Dude.

There is no benefit to your going to Korea if it's not in line with what *you want to achieve*.

You want to learn Japanese, you don't want your girl to run off with another guy, and you aren't interested in Korea.

Natural conclusion --> find a job in Japan.

It doesn't matter if you don't make as much there. Going to Korea is a waste of a year of your life if you're not interested, and if you ARE interested in learning Japanese, it's a waste of your motivation, which you should take advantage of while you have it!

You obviously know this, but are not managing to align your actions with your motivations because it requires a CHANGE. Don't do that -- make the change. Align your actions with your motivation and goals, and you will rock out learning Japanese _in_Japan_. And just maybe keep that girl too.

I'm not really sure what I want to do. Money is my main motivator right now, and I am really, really, really good at being cheap. Really! So, if I have to suffer through 1 year in Korea (It may be a great year, but I said "if") then so be it. It is a sacrifice. I'm still only 50% sure I'm going to Korea anyway. I 'll let it be know what I will do when i firmly decide. Thank You for all of the advice.

Is the pay really that much better in Korea? When I lived in Fukuoka my rent & utilites were about 5.5万 my pay came out to about 23万 after transit, taxes and insurance. Not sure what I did with 17.5万/month- which is almost $2k US- but I managed to save a reasonable chunk of it.

Now if you're going to live in Tokyo, of course your living expenses are going to be higher, but there are plenty of reasonably priced places to live in Japan. If you get in on the JET program the pay is better and rent is often subsidized or free...

How much can you make in Korea?

Its probably similar to a starting position at a non-jet and non-berlitz job in Japan, but they pay for your housing. But they don't pay for your transportation.