"How many Islamic people are there in the world?" Andrea Landis asks a class of 11th-graders at Ohara High School.

The American comes to the school in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, once a week to teach in the English program. But her work covers much more than just grammar and vocabulary: today's lesson, for example, is on "Races and Religions of the World."

Landis is one of 5,470 assistant language teachers (ALT) invited to Japan as part of the government's Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. "But," she stresses, "it is not only about teaching English. My presence in the classroom is about communication culture."