Latest 15 of 28 Total Comments Show All

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  Ah_so at 09:57 PM JST - 18th December

  Having been a JHS ALT, I agree that the textbooks were very poor. New grammar points and vocabluary used about once only and then disappeared. There were no excercises for independent study. As a language teaching guide, fairly useless.

  These books will help.

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  smithinjapan at 10:51 PM JST - 18th December

  You can stuff the textbooks with all the pages you like, and with the extra week they're adding to Japanese schools at the end of summer vacation (that's right, starting next school year Japan-wide quite a number of schools will be starting second term from August 23rd!) they might just be able to whittle away at the extra pages a bit in class, but it's not going to mean squat when the kids aren't studying in the first place.

  I swear the Ministry will do just about ANYTHING in its power to avoid doing anything worthwhile.

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  saborichan at 10:52 PM JST - 18th December

  You really think the low-level students who struggle with basic phonics are going t get anything out of a transcript of the 'I have a dream' speech?

  Speeches are full of colourful language that doesn't reflect how we speak normally.

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  Disillusioned at 11:31 PM JST - 18th December

  I think the point the ministry is overlooking is, what is the point of teaching English to high school students in Japan? If it is to fill the heads of teenagers with useless garbage English that they hardly understand and will never use, then they have done their job well. If it is an attempt to create a nation of English speakers, then they have failed miserably and should all be fired!

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  nandakandamanda at 11:35 PM JST - 18th December

  Agree with Smithinjapan. This kind of thinking, "Let's double the pages" is reminiscent of "Let's increase the number of teachers", "Let's increase the number of weeks per semester", "Let's increase the number of reports that teachers have to write", "Let's get the teachers to spell out their complete syllabus in advance and make sure they stick to the letter of it so that everyone knows in advance exactly what the students will be getting and we can see the splendid end results before the students have even attempted to get there"...ad nauseam.

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  Youdontknow at 11:48 PM JST - 18th December

  Teaching kids the classics, in any language and from any culture, is a very very bad idea! Classic texts were written by people of a different era, ergo, a different mindset!

  As for doubling the text of English - as others have rightly pointed out, Japanese students can't even handle the current texts, never mind doubling them!

  But, I guess these decisions are obvious when you have a bunch of old men trying to run things, who don't actually have a clue what's going on out here!!

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  usaexpat at 12:37 AM JST - 19th December

  It won't help, kids here stidy english all the way from elementary school through college and yet still can't speak it.

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  sf2k at 02:51 AM JST - 19th December

  curious why Japanese use japanese textbooks to learn english, when I used japanese textbooks to learn japanese? They were made by japanese or american universities of linguistics that specialized in such. There was a little bit of english in them, but clearly the point was for me to learn japanese. Why not have actual experts in teaching AND language teach english? English has lots of books already, aimed at all age groups. German and French similarly. This is how language is learned after all. It only takes a few years of study, not 10. (sorry i know it's a secret)

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  sydenham at 06:24 AM JST - 19th December

  sf2k, well, not really.

  I think the difference lies in the fact-and I'm guessing- that you learned "Japanese as a second language" here in Japan, where you saw the immediate benefit of learning the language. In this case, exposure to as much of the language as possible "JSL", makes sense, and linguistic ambiguities will eventually be overcome by exposure to much more variety and volume of the target language. Also, time is not as much of a premium for you because of the around-the-clock convenience of having the target language available anytime and anyplace.

  On the other hand, Japanese students can't see the immediate rewards, since English isn't used much in Japan and any lack of clarity in grammatical explanations further serves to detract from their motivation to learn the language. In their case, "English as a foreign language" is the more appropriate method of instruction, with all that it entails.

  This is not to say that I agree with the Mr. Aso; far from it.

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  MeanRingo at 06:26 AM JST - 19th December

  I don't think they should be forcing students to learn English at all. Doubling the number of pages will just create double the amount of apathy for the language in most kids. Sure, they start out all genki and excited about learning something new and exotic like English, but by the second or third term of the first year JHS the kids are sick of it. Make English a class that kids can CHOOSE to join. Get the lazy kids out of the room and create an environment where the dedicated kids can excel. Send the trouble makers and those clearly not interested in English to gym class or something. Let them burn off some of their energy while the smart kids learn. Sure, you will get some who want to learn later on, and that is great. They will have come to the language on their own instead of being forced into it. I'm already used to adults who can't speak a sentence after their 10 years of schooling, so if I meet one who just got interested and is at the same level, what is the difference?

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  medievaltimes at 10:01 AM JST - 19th December

  It's quality not quantity.

  Very well put.

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  sf2k at 10:24 AM JST - 19th December

  sydenham:
  yeah that's a good point. Location location location... It's like my French; learned in school and never used it so I lost it.

  However in comparison it certainly didn't become Frenglish, so to take your point, I would say that the Japanese environment to learn English with so much "Engrish" around instead, being used like a new type of kanji, creates twice the negative environment you talk about. (whereas I ignored it)

  Quality over Quantity. In Japan I'd say the quality was there because, yes, I'd get the feedback in my target language. But I fear twice the pages of English without a quality sense locally will just replace Japanese as a language twice as fast, not make cogent English speakers. Not sure why Japan has this problem. Other countries can seperate channels without as much language replacement? It's like Japanese is a dying language, which I don't understand why

  Teachers make all the difference

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  sf2k at 10:35 AM JST - 19th December

  we're all online now, having a bunch of textbooks might be nice but you can do a lot as a national strategy to have more libraries and mathematics involvement. American drama is a good example; CSI got everyone into forensics and Numb3rs for mathematics (albeit less so). It can be made more interesting that just doubling already pretty dry approaches.

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  smithinjapan at 12:46 PM JST - 19th December

  As well as my previous comment, I want to add that this sounds like yet another excuse to give the textbook Shuppangaisha more money to print more out of date drivel.

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  Zolt at 03:03 PM JST - 19th December

  Well, not that I don't have mixed feelings about that (I shudder just from hearing "Aso" and "textbooks" in the same sentence) but they may actually have a point with the exercises. The japanese school system is based on rote learning with little to no practical application of knowledge. A little bit of actual practice would do them good.

  For English education however they need kindergarten level texts, not Shakespeare, and more actual speaking practice. Oh and ban the use of katakana, forever.

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