Asahi.com (the Asahi Shimbun is one of Japan's largest newspapers; this is their website)
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!
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ReplyDeleteThis article reminds me English teaching in my country--China. English is as important as Chinese and Math. These three courses are core courses for every students. English is taught every day at least 45 minutes, from elementary school to university. Scores are so important to teachers, parents and students that most students whose English proficiency are low hate to take English class. But nobody can do anything. Some students asked, "We are not going abroad, why we have to learn English?" This is a really good question. And I totally agree with these students.
ReplyDeleteHowever, things are so different here. Those immigrants from different countries have to learn English, because they are living here.
If They don't learn English well, they would be kept out of the group.
Interesting! Thank you for your comments, Yinyin. I have heard that the Chinese school system implements English education better-- do you feel like students study just to past tests, or is there more of an emphasis on communication?
ReplyDeleteHi Ben, to me, as a student started learnin English from 3rd grade until now, I feel when I was in elementaty school, my teacher focused on communication. But when I was in middle, high school, and college, tests are overwhelmingly more important than communication. Thus, in order to have high test scores, teachers were not teaching speaking!! I remember that when I was student teaching in China in a high school (best high school in my hometown), the English teacher talked to me directly that it is no use to teach speaking to students, becuase she thought it was time wasting. I feel sorry for students. But what can teachers do? Parents cares about scores too much...I hope there will be some reform in education system.
ReplyDeleteNow in US, there is a NCLB policy. I hope it will not like what is now happening China--everybody only cares about score.