ABSTRACT
The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, as a central administrative organization of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, officially requires an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) to "be qualified as a language teacher or be strongly motivated to take part in the teaching of foreign languages". In order to understand the local implementation of this broad official hiring policy, this study examined the tertiary qualifications of 101 ALTs—in particular, qualifications related to teaching or English language teaching. To some extent, the present study was able to clarify types of language teacher qualifications as realized by the officials in the present JET Program. The JET Program is a national program that the Japanese government has developed to recruit youth from overseas to "promote grass-roots internationalization at the local level". Finally, the results also suggest that the official priority on ALT applicants with "a high level of Japanese ability" was relatively well implemented in the individual selection process.
