Our son’s a second-grade student at a regular public elementary school. Curious, I ask him what happens in school each day and make note of his reports on his English lessons.
What happens seems to be that…the teacher tells the kids a few common nouns, and that’s it. This week, he got “scissors,” “pencil,” “notebook,” and “ruler.”
Is this what happens in typical elementary school “English” lessons, or has our son’s school just had a particularly lazy teacher assigned? It seems like a monumental waste of time and resources, not only for our son and the other kid with an English-dominant parent and the three kids born and raised until this year in English-dominant countries, but also for all of the Japanese monolinguals in the class.
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English classes don’t regularly start until 3rd grade.
Your son is receiving an even higher level of English than is mandated in Japan since elementary school classes aren’t supposed to start until 3rd grade. English classes in a public Japanese school at any level are going to be nearly a complete waste of time in terms of learning English. I would encourage your son to help other students learn during these time slots. It most definitely is a monumental waste of time and resources and will continue to be so until enough bilingual parents make enough noise about it and Japanese demographics start to change.
That entirely depends on if that ALT is a T1 or T2. I was a T2 the one year I had 2nd grade, so I was entirely at the mercy of whatever the homeroom teachers wanted to do, which often meant just acting as a human tape recorder. I had zero say in lesson planning, and even though I knew the “lessons” were terrible I wasn’t really in a position to do anything about it.
My son speaks English pretty fluently with me and he’s so bored when it comes to English in elementary school. He says they teach such easy words. I’m sure if anyone is in the same boat their kids must feel like English is a waste of time in elementary school here
From my experience the standardized curriculum for public schools basically goes:
1-4th grade -> raw vocabulary with very little sentence structure if any
(Colors, shapes, animals, et)
It’s a lot of vocabulary building. They assume the kids wouldn’t be able to handle large amounts of grammar and vocabulary at once.
5-6th grade is the start of very basic grammar and a continuation of basic vocabulary. Granted from my experience 6th grade is mostly learning how to talk about Japan and describing school activities instead of anything practical.
If your child is a native speaker or a competent speaker, you might want to start teaching them yourself or enroll them in after school English classes. The public ones won’t help them any bit. Assistant English teachers are usually at the mercy of the curriculum and can’t do much to change it.
All it takes is a look at how the Japanese view English learning as a society to know you won’t find a quality education for it in the public school system.
It is a hobby, a way to brag about your disposable income, or a mark on your test scores to get you into a better university.
The government doesn’t actually care about the citizens achieving fluency. It’s just a talking point.
You sound like you’ve already made up your mind and are just looking for conformation. It’s hard to make broad sweeping statements about teachers and curriculum. You as an adult should know from your own experience of education how varied it can be depending on the nature of programs being run, the teachers assigned and various other environmental factors at your sons school.
Generally the thought process in Japan at that elementary level is about exposure to the language and building student desire/tolerance for second language learning. If your sons school is doing English once at week at the at grades 1-2 they are far above the national level in class time assigned. 3-4 tends to be once a week or twice a month at the least. 5-6 is where ‘serious’ English study begins and students will actually start having course work that will meet your perceptions of what might not be a ‘waste of time’.
When I was in the game I was the main teacher and planned the lessons. For first and second grade (which was only once or twice a month if that) we would start off with everyone moving around (stand up, jump, smile, etc) opposites (long, short, up, down) go into a song like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and then some flashcards like colors, animals, numbers etc. Then some simple game (Do you have green socks? Then everyone with green socks stand up and says yes I do etc.) Snake janken was popular, too. I’d line up the vocab cards on the black board for that.
But some schools didn’t want the kids to be noisy or get up from their chairs so…vocab cards it was. We’d practice the vocab then I’d put the cards on the board backwards. Kids had to remember where the dog or cat was etc. Still popular. I made all the kids little paper name plates and they’d get a sticker on their plate when they got the correct answer.
I was transferred every year, of course, and after that I’ve no idea what the new teachers did. But I did meet my old students out ‘n about who told me they missed me and didn’t like the new teacher’s lessons. I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t want to leave either.
It depends on the homeroom teacher, the city, and the school. Sometimes the homeroom teacher is the lead, sometimes the assistant is the lead.
I live in Yokohama and we have pre-planned lessons from the city. They just updated all the lessons maybe 2 years ago.
1-4th grades are pretty basic. Mainly introducing vocabulary (colors, numbers, animals, food, stationery, days/months,etc) and a simple sentence.
What ( ) do you like? I like ( ).
They’ll also learn very basic greetings. My name is (). Nice to meet you. How are you? I’m ().
They don’t have classes very often so it is mostly just reinforcing vocabulary many times. There are sometimes simple role play activities.
In 2nd grade, there is a vegetable shopping activity. There’s also another activity (colors) where you practice giving colored pencils to make a picture book (What color do you want? Green, please. Okay, here you are. Thank you).
3rd and 4th they’ll be introduced to the alphabet (uppercase for 3rd and lowercase for 4th). In addition to “I like ()” they’ll learn new phrases such as “Can you ( )?” and “Do you have ( )?” There is an introduction to directions (go straight, turn left).
For 5th and 6th, they have the option (up to the school) to switch to a textbook for lessons. This is where they start to expand a bit. Learning to say multiple sentences.
For example: This is a bakery in my town. You can buy bread. I like curry bread. It’s 180 yen.
They have English lessons every week (2x a week but depends on the school schedule and what events are going on.)
5th and 6th grade a real classes and they have tests and grades. (1-4 are activity classes so no grades/tests)
They also start writing in English in 6th grade (every unit has a speech they must write and present). They might also start writing in 5th grade if the teacher wants to push for that.
The quality of 5th and 6th HEAVILY depends on the homeroom teacher. I’ve had some amazing teachers who use this opportunity to really push the students. These teacher all speak English decently well which is helpful.
For example, this year I had the greatest 6th graders ever. They loved class. They teacher gave them a little freedom and multiple examples for speeches. The students could use JP/EN dictionaries or their tablet to look up words outside the scope of the textbook. The assignments require 4 sentences for a presentations but many students did more than that. They would volunteer to present multiple times, even writing multiple speeches. (Edit to add: this teacher also gave them a lot of alphabet worksheets for homework. And before every test they would do a practice test so they understood how the tests worked and what was being covered.)
On the other hand, I’ve had teachers with low English confidence and their students struggle more. There is more confusion in class, including sometimes the teacher explaining things incorrectly. These students will only copy the textbook examples almost word for word and will have overall lower English skill and confidence. These students also talk to me less, probably because of their lack of confidence.
Phew, so there my basic summary of elementary school English classes.
I work in 10 elementary schools and what you described sounds very regular to me, particularity for a 4th grade Foreign Language Class which is just 45 minutes a week. English is not a “real” subject until 5th and 6th grade in Elementary School, and even then its only twice a week and no homework. This is mainly to expose children to a bit more English ( and hopefully grasp the alphabet before Junior Highschool English classes. My personal pessimistic opinion; it doesn’t (wont increase anyone’s English proficiency) matter if they even shove more English into ES it wont make any difference unless they change the archaic test based English curriculum in JHS and HS. Just to add, that the majority of my Japanese friends with 1st graders in ES complain there is already too much homework, meaning the curriculum is actually already too full in ES. So if the government truly wished to make English a subject in ES they would have to be willing to remove something else to make room IMHO.
Well, why and how are you asking him? You’re asking a child to turn passive knowledge into active knowledge, immediately, after he’s learned it apparently.
If you want to gauge what he learned, you’ll need a better approach.
As others have mentioned, it depends largely on the area, then the school.
The most common I’ve seen is, grades 1 and 2, 1 class per month (or per 2 months). In such programs, they typically just introduce simple songs and vocabulary (feelings, actions, colors, numbers, animals, etc). There is only so much you can do in 45 minutes every other month.
Grades 2 and 3, 1 class per week. There is a textbook and they spend about 4 classes per unit, building on vocab and very simple structures (I like …), and question and response (How are you? What … do you like?) in some cases, without a large focus on correct grammar (I like blue. I like apple.)
Grades 5 and 6, 2 classes per week. There are a number of different textbooks, and which is used appears to be up to the board of education. In some cases, the accompanying digital media is quite comprehensive, with video and audio that the HRT can just push buttons to play. It’s not at the level where they can totally eliminate the role of the ALT, but it seems like the direction they would like to head towards someday.
I’ve also seen areas where they have 2 classes per week, starting from grade 1. The English ability of children in these areas is significantly higher than those above. At grade 1, it’s mainly building vocabulary, phonics, writing the alphabet. And from grade 2, they try to incorporate simple grammar points (a dog, an elephant… One apple, two apples… I like blue… I like apples…)
Sounds like you should read this article and discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/tdrrhy/opinion_japan_wastes_a_lot_of_money_teaching/
How many times does your school have English in the first and second grades? Where I am, it’s only 3 times a year. So yeah, it’s very basic stuff.
I work at a small school where year one and 2 are put together and get a lesson once a week. We do both basic vocab and grammar. For grammar they know things like “I want…”, “I like…” as well as being able to ask and respond about things like weather, day and feelings. The nouns we do are colours, shapes, numbers 1-20, feelings, animals and sports. We also do some verbs with “let’s” for instructions too like “let’s stand” etc. Hope that helps.
Listen, u/dougwray, you mentioned down thread some ways you hope that learners are taught lexical chunks. I get it, you want to see meaningful instruction from the HRTs and ALTs that are teaching your child.
The reality is that HRTs and ALTs are for the most part unprepared and poorly supported.
For some years, I taught a handful of lessons each week at two elementary schools while I was assigned to an administrative role at a municipal BoE. My main job was to build curriculum and lead the city’s ALTs.
The HRTs I taught with and the ALTs were troopers, but in reality, there are such huge gaps in skill sets and knowledge. You’ve got HRTs who never intended to deal with teaching additional languages, ALTs who aren’t literate in Japanese and uninformed about the course of studies. On top of that, the number of ALTs who have solid ELA teaching practices and SLA knowledge is so hit and miss since the bar for ALT jobs is very low. And then pie in the sky BoE that thinks HRTs can function as T1 and the ALTs as T2 in all situations.
The result is you get HRTs and ALTs merely doing notional syllabus with flashcards, karuta, and fruit basket for lower grades. It’s unlikely you’ll see experienced and knowledgable teachers able to execute lessons that incorporate communicative tasks that result in real gains or meaningful communication.
Others have told you that the time constraints are tight, and it’s true that lower grades are lower priority since the course of studies doesn’t extend down to Grade 1 or 2.
Okay, so is gaikokugo a waste of time and effort? In terms of educational goals, yeah, probably. But as enrichment, it’s great when children can get exposure to foreign languages with their HRTs and interact with a non-Japanese person.
What really counts is the spirit in which it’s done. If language education and support for your local school is important to you, get involved with the PTA, the school board, and support for ALTs.
Honestly, do you expect more from someone with zero qualifications in teaching who makes roughly 1,200 yen an hour?
Would YOU work very hard for such low pay? And would you know what to do with a class of 8 year olds who don’t know why they have to learn a word like “ruler”?
Point being, yes it is a waste of time and resources. If you want your child to learn fluent English, you’d better look into tutoring. You should also make a point to only allow English at home. They need an impetus to learn.
As an example, one friend of mine (Canadian) whose daughter was only allowed to speak English at home and had a tutor twice a week is now perfectly bilingual. Another friend (Ozzie) has one son who is fluent and another who only speaks Japanese. The difference being, the older boy spent several years in Oz, while the younger was born in Japan and insists to everyone that “I am Japanese, I don’t speak English!”
Attitude, aptitude, and motivation – very important in language learning.
The beauty of the Japanese public education system; its total shite enroll them in expensive after-school cram schools to learn anything.