Country Profiles
Japan
In partnership with Kumamoto University, we are going to hold a primary ELT Conference in Kyushu (South Japan) for the first time. Dr Richard Johnstone will be one of the main plenary speakers and BC teachers will also run practical workshops.
We are presently conducting primary teacher training at Adachi-ku, one of the 23 wards in Tokyo with 80 participants, 8 of whom are bilingual advisers employed by Adachi BOE who support the British Council trainer in delivering the sessions. The participants are teachers who are teaching English as a part of their Foreign Language Activity under the umbrella term, International Understanding as English which has not yet been defined as a subject in state primary schools in Japan. In 2010, MEXT will launch the state designated textbooks Eigo Notes 1 and 2 at 5th and 6th grade but reading and writing will not officially be introduced at primary level.
These workshops are designed to equip teachers with skills and knowledge to enable them to conduct their classes communicatively through reflective practice. Materials that correspond directly with Eigo Notes 1 and 2 are being developed by two British Council Tokyo teachers who are teaching at primary level, full-time. The training sessions are conducted in English and Japanese as the level of the homeroom teachers range from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate on the CEF scale. We also conducted summer workshops using the same materials in Okinawa, Kyoto, Sendai, Gifu and Suginami, Tokyo plus 3 workshops at the Tokyo and Osaka British Council Centres. The trainers are British Council teachers who have an operational knowledge of Japanese and experience with young learner teaching and training.
We’re working in partnership with online home learning materials company Izumi Shobo KK. We have digitised and translated all LE parents booklets and made them available in e-book format on the partner's site. Author of the booklets, Opal Dunn will write an article for Japanese parents.
Meet
Yukiko Sekikawa who manage this work in Japan.
