Although I’ve done lots of speeches and workshops sponsored by the Ministry of Education (MEXT) before, this was the first time that they had directly contacted me to help out. I also haven’t chatted to any of their new people this year yet and it was good over lunch, and in their speeches that preceded mine, to hear that they do have lots of really good stuff in place even for Junior and Senior High. The problem, as always, is that the teachers on the ground don’t take the time to read the new guidelines and still go on teaching in the hundred year old Meiji era way of doing things!

I also found out that today’s participants only have one day of training, so as well as the main motivation speech and Q&A ( which is what I was hired to do) we also did some “Swiss Army Knife” practical stuff that can be used straight away e.g. What’s your name? and Mingle for elementary school and my two top killer games for Junior / Senior High: Spiderman/Stopwatch Game and Gokiburi games.

Then in the Q&A panel session we had lots and lots of good questions, included affirmation that it’s “World Englishes” and not any one single accent that should be taught and that communication should be the main focus even in test ridden Junior and Senior High.

One interesting thing I learned was that although using katakana to represent pronunciation is banned in elementary schools, there is no official position on its use ( or not ) in high school text books. Very interesting.

Then a very nice reception hob nobbing with drunk people from the Foreign Ministry, an equal opportunities spread of beer by every manufacturer in Japan ( as the government was paying!) and some of the best fresh tempura I’ve had in my 9 years here!