English Education in Japan

One day, one student wrote on his journal :

"It seems that English schooling is inclined in Japan. I think it is terrible thing that the people had been studying English for six to ten years can’t speak English well."

Then we started to discuss about English education in Japan. It’s very difficult, but interesting to think and talk about. We spent about three weeks for brainstorming, talking and discussing about this issue. At the end, we tried our first debate n English which was very active and interesting.

 

 

Pre-debate discussion on 6/9/01

Things that are necessary to be a good English teacher

Group 1

  1. Teachers should teach clearly: No Japanese, but clear English instruction to make students understand well.

  2. Teachers should make students laugh: no serious situation

  3. Teachers should make students use English: we don’t have many chances to use English everyday

Group 2

  1. Teachers should make students laugh: being relaxed

  2. Teachers should speak English in class.

  3. Teachers should dress well: they should be beautiful and cool

Group 3

  1. Teachers should not be absent from school often

  2. Teachers should provide interesting lessons: something that we can’t do at home such as group/pair works

  3. We don’t care about appearance

Group 4

  1. Teachers should not give a lot of homework: time is money!

  2. Teachers’ pronunciation should be good: we have some bad examples

  3. Teachers should make students laugh: being relaxed is important to study English

Group 5

  1. Teachers should give students high mark

  2. Teachers should be very very glamour: good motivation for us

  3. Teachers should wear sexy costume

Group 6

  1. Teachers should speak English in class: we don’t want to grammar and translation

  2. Teachers should make students laugh: we want some jokes to laugh

  3. Teachers should come late: look very cool and relaxed