This study aims to discover, mainly through an online questionnaires, which behavioral characteristics are associated with good Japanese language assistants from the standpoint of Japanese Language Teachers at secondary schools encompassing more than half of the world's population of learners, in English zone countries where Japanese language teachers have had the experience of being Assistant Language Teachers (ALT) of The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. The questionnaire consisting of 37 items modified from past studies was employed netting valid replies from 112 teachers. The data was subjected to the descriptive statistics program SPSS Statistics 22. Through the analysis, the most important characteristics were enthusiasm for teaching and consideration towards learners along with “intercultural competence” and “professionalism,” two attributes which were newly extracted in this study. These results could contribute to the training of assistants in university courses on Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language.
Japanese Language Assistant
Japanese Language Teachers
TJFL
behavioral characteristics
online questionnaire