Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: Mitsue Allen-Tamai (Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan)
The introduction of English education into elementary schools has been much discussed in the last few decades. In order to keep up with the pace of globalization, people in non-English-speaking countries are eager to acquire high levels of communicative English proficiency, while people in English-speaking counties have striven to develop appropriate educational curricula to help young immigrant children learn English. Thus there is a strong social demand for teaching English to young learners throughout the world. However, this strong focus on young learners has not yet occurred in Japan. English will only become a regular subject in Japanese elementary schools in 2020. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has specified the course's aims and contents a new Course of Study, and MEXT-approved textbooks for upper elementary school children, which will only be used in 2018 and 2019, are now accessible. This seminar will provide an introduction to the theory and practice in the teaching of English as a second language to young learners, from the ages of three to twelve, focusing especially on English education for Japanese children. The objectives of the course are to develop: (a) an understanding of the psychology of young learners and their language acquisition and (b) a working knowledge of methodologies and classroom practices for teaching English as a second language to young learners.
Organization: Temple University Japan
Cost: free
Venue: Azabu Hall 2-8-12 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0047 map
Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan
Work phone: 03-5441-9800