More and more elementary school teachers in Japan are turning to English language schools with native speakers, as they seek to gain confidence in teaching the language before it is formally added to their curricula in the academic year starting April 2020.
Many teachers admit to lacking confidence in their English, in areas from vocabulary to grammar, expressiveness and pronunciation. Elementary school teachers say they are afraid of teaching their students “the wrong thing.”
In 2011 Japan made English compulsory for fifth- and sixth-graders as part of their extra-curricular “foreign language activities.” Last year the guidelines were further revised to start English education from the third grade as part of foreign language teaching, and make English a formal subject from fifth grade, starting in 2020, in an effort to enhance the nation’s global competitiveness.
Of the 346,000 elementary school teachers giving English lessons in Japan, only 5.1 percent have teaching licenses for English at junior high schools and high schools, where it is on the curriculum, according to the education ministry’s latest data for fiscal 2016.