Today the topic of English education system in Japan was brought up in class and here are some of my personal thoughts.
In the Japanese elementary school curriculum, children learn the alphabet when learning romaji. By the time children become middle schoolers, they’re into this habit of pronouncing every English word in a romaji way. One revolutionary way to solve this problem is to teach them English alphabets and pronunciation before romaji. Another more realistic solution is to have phoenix as a curriculum, teaching how the English spelling system work.

Teaching grammar is necessary, but only after finishing beginners textbook. English grammar or any foreign language grammar seems very complicated first and focusing too much on grammar from day one might lower some of the students motivation. However, that does not mean grammar isn’t important. Rather it should be a big part of curriculum, so that students can be better English writers.

It has been pointed out many times that Japanese students are very weak on listening and speaking. Just like babies learn how to speak. Their language from listening to their parents, language acquisition requires considerable amount of listening. An ideal English-speaking class would be a classroom with less than 20 students per teacher, so that every student gets the chance to talk every class. Instead of playing CDs from textbooks, teachers should utilize YouTube content more for “real” English. Also making YouTube English content as part of the students’ homework would also increase the input that the students need to be able to speak English.