Saw this article in the Asahi newspaper online yesterday. Basically, the government is leaning towards making English an official subject (it isn’t one at the moment, just an extra set of activities), which would mean more classes, and lowering the age at which students start learning English.

Great. This is yet another good idea that is going to be executed horribly.

You know what I would like to see in elementary school.

You know that Japan’s English teachers are on the whole undertrained and not proficient in English (only 20% of JHS and 35% of SHS English teachers have reasonable English qualifications).

I think there should be English classes in elementary school, but they need to be well-planned and implemented by teachers who know how to teach and are proficient in English. Sadly I don’t think we’re going to see either of those…

Am I being too pessimistic?

Thanks to everyone who attended.

I’ll be attending and presenting at one of my favourite conferences, the JALT Pan-SIG, this weekend.

I love the pan-SIG because it is a gathering of teachers that belong to special-interest groups (the SIGs) that focus on things they are passionate about. The quality of the presentations and interactions at pan-SIG is always very high, and I always come away with new information, techniques, and memories.

I’ll be presenting on Saturday at 14:30, on student reactions to extensive reading classes.

The full schedule is here.

Hope to see a lot of you there!

Right, this is the third and final post (for now) about graded readers and word counts. From now on, I will be posting about this issue only at the Facebook page I have set up to co-ordinate the various proposed campaigns.

http://www.facebook.com/GradedReaderWordCounts

I think as well as the boycott, it would be useful to encourage teachers to write to publishers directly, as well as create some educational resources aimed at informing publishers about the issue.

Thanks for all the support and suggestions so far, and hopefully see you on Facebook!

I really enjoyed reading all the replies to yesterday’s proposal. A few people thought that calling for a boycott was a bit harsh, but it was very interesting that so far not one person has offered a reason for publishers not to print word counts on graded readers.

My personal take is that some editors are not aware that word counts are a useful and, for some teachers and programs, essential tool.

I am going to proceed with the boycott. To assist in that effort and to help connect with publishers who are not yet aware of the issue, I am going to create a website listing various graded reader series in three categories:

• A Greenlist of series that clearly print accurate running word counts on books
• A Greylist of series that do not print word counts on books, but do make full and up-to-date word count information available on the Extensive Reading Foundation website
• A Blacklist of series that do not print word counts on books, and also do not make word count information available on the ERF website

I hope this will become a useful resource for teachers and institutions when they are choosing materials for their classes and programs. The site will be maintained and updated if conditions change (ie a publisher starts printing word counts on books, or makes the information available on the ERF site).