Paul Beaufait's List: English education in Japan

"The government has decided to increase the number of Assistant Language Teachers considerably over a five-year period, starting from the next school year, to strengthen English education at primary schools" (¶1).

"From 2020, there will be 2 major changes to the current education model:

1. English education at elementary school will begin in the 3rd and 4th grade, with ‘Foreign language activities’.
2. For elementary school 5th and 6th grades, English will be taught as a subject in 3 lessons per week.

MEXT is developing curriculum content and textbooks for the English subject to be taught in the 5th and 6th grades.

One of the goals of this new system will be for students to progress through the Eiken test levels to the second and pre-first level by the time they graduate from senior high school. In addition, to support this goal, English language classes at junior high school will be conducted primarily in English, as they are done now at the senior high school level" (Changes in English Education, ¶¶ 2-4).

In this Lifestyle section article (Apr 15, 2010), Melinda Joe referred to Mark Shrossbee, who had "point[ed] out that, in business, education and travel, Japanese people are far more likely to encounter non-Western, non-native speakers" in almost the same breath as David Crystal's (2004) estimate from <i>The Language Revolution</i> "that non-native speakers of English outnumber native speakers three to one" (Joe, 2010, ¶16).

Okamoto, Michael. (2014). A case study of team teaching perspectives. <i>Humanising Language Teaching Magazine, 16</i>(2). Retrieved April 10, 2014, from http://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr14/mart01.htm