Assistant Language Teacher, often abbreviated to ALT, is a term that was created by the Japanese Ministry of Education at the time of the creation of the JET Programme as a translation of the term (外国語指導助手）"gaikokugo shido joshu" or literally "foreign language instruction assistant." Often the term ALT is referred as ELT instead, abbreviation of "English Language Teacher." It is used primarily by the Ministry, local Boards of Education (BOEs) and schools to refer to native language speakers who assist teaching languages in elementary, junior high and high schools. In practice, the ALTs assist with the teaching of English.
