JIJI
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Aug 1, 2016
The education ministry will put more emphasis on conversation skills in teaching English in hopes of producing people who can communicate effectively in the language, according to a draft outline of revised school curriculum guidelines.
The draft includes moving up the starting year for English education to third grade of elementary school from the current fifth.
It says conventional English classes have been placing more emphasis on grammar and vocabulary, suggesting that they should stress teaching appropriate expressions for different situations.
The draft underscores the need for students to learn all English skills — listening, reading, writing and speaking, including conversation and presentation — in a balanced manner.
To achieve this goal, the guidelines will set goals for each skill through elementary, junior high and high school, in line with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, or CEFR.
Using the goals set down by the guidelines, schools will establish detailed achievement targets for students.
The draft also suggests that fifth and sixth graders should learn English as a regular subject, with additional reading and writing in current activity-oriented programs for listening and speaking, with the aim of helping children become more accustomed to English.
At the third- and fourth-grade levels, lessons should focus on introducing English.
The draft requests that the changes should not simply bring forward to elementary school students what junior high school students now learn, but new classes should help students nurture a basic command of English by letting students get used to reading and writing in line with their levels.
To keep students from growing to dislike the English language, it is important to encourage them to keep a good attitude in trying to use English, the draft says.
But an elementary school teacher in Shizuoka Prefecture asked, “How many teachers are there who can teach English in a balanced manner, including grammar and pronunciation?”
The ministry plans to proceed with boosting the English education system by using core teachers who are proficient in English and by improving training courses, but teachers are concerned if this will work well when the new curriculum guidelines go into full effect.
Our Latin teacher was complaining that we read "et" the French way, the Spanish teacher went wild with us using "avec" instead of "con".
Living in California Spanish is essentially taught in every High School and College but nothing else really, I only wish they taught me Spanish sooner!
I always thought Latin would make learning any Romance language easy. Learning all of them at once does sound confusing!
JUICE = JUICE! 
