This paper addresses the problems encountered in implementing methodology that face vocational English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language (EFL/ESL), native language teachers in Japan. Teachers in "senmon gakko," two or three year vocational schools for high schools or high school graduates, are unable to take advantage of a significant amount of the literature describing constructive methodology in EFL/ESL programs. Social factors within and outside the schools combine to confound the process of innovative design and implementation in academic programs by curtailing the teachers' opportunities to utilize the advances in education and to participate in research. This paper draws upon personal experiences in education and research, and discusses the ways these social parameters are affecting teachers and the pedagogical strategies that accommodate their environment. Resistance is encountered in updating methodology because teachers do not have enough control over the environment and because they are burdened with social and temporal constrains. Sufficient attention has not been given by ELT (English Language Teaching) research to the environmental problems that classroom teachers face, leaving teachers without pragmatic models that give an adequate account of human parameters. In exploring the institutional parameters, the paper discusses the teachers' role and administrative priorities and accountability. Teachers are confronted by: (1) students' lack of preparedness, misconceptions, and motivation; (2) lack of accountability inherent in administrative policy and students' attitudes; (3) low order of priority given to educational prerogatives; (4) lack of esteem for career teachers; (5) work overloads; and (6) overall lack of support from ELT research. (DK)