Communicative Language Teaching in Japanese Elementary Schools

「児童英語『楽しく』第一」(Youth ELL "Enjoyably," Part 1), no author listed

Asahi.com (the Asahi Shimbun is one of Japan's largest newspapers; this is their website)

http://mytown.asahi.com/nara/news.php?k_id=30000171010250001

Summary: Although Japan's public school system has taught English as a compulsory subject beginning in middle school (7th grade and up) for many years now, the upcoming school year, beginning in April, will be the first year that it enters the elementary school curriculum. The "Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology," (MEXT) which overseas the nationally-standardized curriculum, has introduced 35 hours / term (or approximately one class period per week) foreign language study requirements for 5th and 6th grade elementary school students.

The traditional model of English study has been drill-and-kill, even more focused on test results ( specifically the entrance tests for non-compulsory high school education, and higher ed) than in America. This has generally resulted in a group that can answer obscure grammar questions for a test, but cannot speak more than a sentence or two. The idea that MEXT is encouraging communication as a goal is a big step out of the dark ages of language instruction, and into the modern era in which the "communicative" approach is one of the most widely followed philosophies.

Key Points:

• elementary school teachers are excited, but apprehensive-- many of them have never taught a language before
• the system of assistant language teachers (ALTs) is already stretched thin trying to cover all the high schools and middle schools to which they are dispatched
• the school featured in this article is trying out several approaches, including relying on the textbook from MEXT that accompanies the new curriculum; they are also trying to keep students engaged with the TPR-style activities highlighted in this article

Audience: general public curious about what the changes in mandatory curriculum will mean, educators wondering how their school might smoothly adopt the new requirements

Relevance: I am rolling around ideas for a grant that will take me back to Japan for a month or so in summer 2012, and my current top choice is a project looking at how elementary schools are integrating the newly mandated curriculum-- and whether they are doing it "successfully" or not. I realize that this article doesn't have much relevance to most of you (and that probably no one can read it), but it really caught my eye and I wanted to use it in a review. I would love to talk about it if anyone is interested!