Hokkaido -> Ishikawa, Japan

Another long flight down to Komatsu, plus a bus, plus a train, then arriving straight into a meeting with tomorrow’s teachers.

Although they have a teachers’ workshop in the afternoon, in the morning they have a “let’s play with English” set of sessions with the local ALTs. Then they want me to do a “model lesson”. As you probably know, Genki English is the best method in the world for teaching kids starting from 1st to 4th grade. So which grades do they give me? 5th & 6th! There’s just nothing remotely like a “model lesson” that you can do for that age group, so I was more than a little worried.

So then I asked why and found out it’s because they had one of the Ministry of Education staffers come down to do a presentation where he banned them from doing any English, actual teaching or even just “getting to know English”, in any grades other than 5th and 6th!

With the appalling Eigo Note coming out, we’ve known that are promoting English for the upper grades is happening, but it was always hoped that we could continue on teaching real English in the lower grades, where anyone can see it is much more effective. I have heard of other areas banning it in 3rd and 4th grades, but to actually have a Ministry presenter going round the country saying it is really going to ruin things for the kids of Japan.