I’m hugely concerned about the recent moves made by the Japanese government and its direction trying to introduce more textbooks into elementary school.
Now, there are new programming and English textbooks. The amount of pages in the entire textbooks is increased by 10% and the children in elementary school have to deal with them for the same amount of time as before.
This kind of bombing does not help English education in Japan get better. Please stop.
Japan has a reputation for bad English education. Japan is one of the very few countries in Asia where people from outside have serious difficulties communicating in English. It’s nothing but shame on us.
What we need is not a textbook nor proper grammar even. Why not adopt iPad and online English lessons? We need to get rid of our common sense that teachers must have a physical presence in the classroom.
The number of good English speaking teachers and the number of schools in Japan simply don’t match. There are too few GOOD teachers and too many audiences. We must adopt new technology rather than keep pouring old fashioned textbooks into the classroom.