English education

I have read some articles about English education in elementary schools in Japan on the Japan Times. Those were relatively old, but I have found an interesting survey result on this article, and I quote,  "A survey published by the ministry in 2005 found 71 percent of parents and guardians favored making English compulsory in elementary schools, while 54 percent of teachers were opposed." This survey was done in 2005, and can be too old, however, I believe this result depicts the reality well.
    It is now a common knowledge that learning English is important to have some kind of advantages in Japan's society. If someone has high TOEIC score, he or she might have more chance to get a well-paying job, which is considered as a good job.
    It seems that many Japanese people, especially parents of young children, may be obsessed by English education. The survey shows that 71 percent of parents or guardians want their children to learn English, in elementary schools. This might be because they had some difficulties with not being able to use the language. 
    Looking at the real situation, the one who has to teach English language at elementary school is mainly the homeroom teachers, who have not trained to teach it. Therefore  they are not confident, and also it can be too much of a work for them  because they teaches many subjects and also have to deal with pupils' parents and even with some 'monster parents'. They might have some help from ALT, but as the words indicate, Assistant Language Teachers are just to assist, so mainly the homeroom teacher have to make the lesson plans. For this reason, I assume that, as the survey result showed, teachers do not want to make English language compulsory.
    I do not know how teachers at elementary schools are coping with English lessons right now, but I hope the lessons are interesting for pupils. Otherwise it is nothing but a disaster, possibly making children to hate English language at an earlier age.


Thankfully, I did not receive proper English education at secondary schools so I did not hate it, but I must admit that since I have entered the university and been having to study English, I started to have less interest in it than before. However, by enjoying using English, especially in this class, I hope I will be able not to hate it. (?)

Something about education this week?

This week we wound up talking a lot about education, especially language education, and especially English language education, and maybe especially English language education in Japan. It's a big topic. Wikipedia has a whole category of articles about English language education, including one about English language education in Japan. Of course Wikipedia is controversial, and not always accurate, but it's a good place to start researching anything. I always tell students to use Wikipedia but don't cite it. Read the footnotes and track down the information as far as you can, to find out where they're getting it from. Don't forget to go back a few weeks later to see if the article has changed. I have some favorite Wikipedia articles that I like to follow as they change. But I do use Wikipedia, especially to start research, although I don't think I would put it into a footnote. I'll let you find other sites about learning English and link to them for us. I'd like to show you a video from YouTube about English as a second language: I hope you enjoy it! (^_^)

I have no favorite food; I eat meats, fish and vegetables.
I like cooking and eating. Recently, I have tried to cook various food; chili con carne, borshch, fried chicken and so on... I always enjoy cooking.
 However, I don't like mushrooms, konnyaku, bean-starch vermicelli (harusame in Japan), jellies and chocolates.

Economics

I used to sneak into classes which were related to business, while I was in New Zealand. It was the closest that I have got to economics, because I had interests in other subjects but not in them.  However, someone told me that if I am planning to work for a company in the future, it will be better to know about things related to business. Therefore, now I take an introductory economics class, and some business classes.

    However, I do not usually read any economic newspapers. I get information on economy by reading economic topics (?) on Yahoo! JAPAN, or by skimming through general newspapers such as The Japan Times, though I do not particularly try to pick up economic articles.

    The only Japanese economist that I know is the lecturer of my economics class.

    I do not know much about economics now but I am hoping to obtain some knowledge through taking the economics class. Right now, I can only tell that by restoring from the Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan's economy grew slightly.

Something about economics this week?

Somehow we went from ordering food to my discussing basic economics and why I think it should be a required subject. Economics at Japanese universities seems to be a very diverse subject, with Keynesians, Marxians, Ricardans and even supply-siders, although I can't say I've met anyone from the Austrian school here yet. This is an English class, though, not economics, although a little basic English vocabulary about economics probably wouldn't be a bad subject for you to learn. I studied economics when Paul Samuelson wrote the standard textbook in the US. Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith defined the right and left of US economics respectively, but they're both dead now, as is Paul Samuelson. Economics has moved on, and I was never really an expert, anyway, I just knew enough to follow stories and discuss it intelligently, or at least try to discuss it intelligently. Some of my favorite economists working today include Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize winning development economist with some original and challenging ideas, and Paul Krugman, another Nobel Prize winner who writes for the New York Times. They are both controversial, but even if you don't agree with them you can't ignore their ideas, which are always interesting and thought provoking. I recommend you read something they wrote if you are interested in development economics or the problems of contemporary policy. Do you read any economists? How do you get information about the economy? Can you tell us about Japanese economists? I'd like you to link to some source(s) of economic information, but I don't know if you have any sources in English. The Wall Street Journal is sort of the 日本経済新聞 of the United States. Even people who don't read their editorials trust their information. AAMOF, I was just reading one of their articles before posting this to the blog. What can you find about economics on the Internet, preferably in English, and what can you tell us about it?

Self-introduction and Favorite Food

It's Rikako!
Finally I figured out how to post here...

Well, my name is Rikako Nakajima.
I do not care how you call me, so call me whatever you like.
I belong to Mr. Caprpenter's International Politics Seminar.
By the way, I am junior.

About my favorite food...
I really like sweets with drinks, like some chocolates with cups of coffee.
But recently I can not just eat sweets...maybe I got old.
So I also like salty food, not spicy, not hot.
I have cried by Thai food many times...
If it is not spicy or hot, I really like Chinese food
like Mabo-tofu, Mabo-egg plant, and Chinjaorosu
(I cound not find good English words for them...)

Roti Canai!

I have many favourite food. One of my favourite cuisines is Roti Canai. It is an Indian-influenced Malaysian (or Indonesian) crêpe-like food often served with curry. OMG! It looks so delicious in the picture! It contains quite a bit of ghee (butter) so it can be oily, but tastes soooo good. They way people make it is interesting as well. Check the youtube video! I like to have Roti Canai with beef curry and tea with milk called Teh Tarik.

I have tried hummus at some Turkish restaurants and I loved it! Hummus is pasted chickpeas mixed with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and oil, originated Egypt (according to Wikipedia). I usually eat hummus with lamb shish, pita bread, and apple tea.

I have never tried Greek food so I would love to try it someday.

Next assignment: FOOD

Since I brought money to explain about other countries' systems of currency, and since we're going to use menus to order food with the money, I thought we should talk on the blog about what kinds of food we like and what we would like to try. One cuisine I miss a lot in Japan is Greek. There are plenty of French, Italian, Chinese, Indian and of course Japanese restaurants in Japan, but I can't think when I have ever seen a Greek restaurant. Does anyone know of a Greek restaurant in Japan? Greek food is very popular in the US, to the extent that it's a stereotype of Greek Americans that they own restaurants. There are plenty of other stereotypes, of course, but the Greek American diner has even been satirized on "Saturday Night Live." According to the New York Times:

Estimates are that there are well over 1,000 coffee shops and diners operated by Greek immigrants in the New York metropolitan area alone, and countless others up and down the East Coast.

The most stereotypical Greek dish is probably Moussaka, but the word is derived from Arabic, and in fact the dish is found all over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Greek is really just one variety of cuisine from that part of the world, and is similar to most of the others. There are many "falafel joints" in the United States that sell the same bean cakes in pita bread. Sometimes they are Greek, sometimes Lebanese or Egyptian, sometimes Israeli, but they all have basically the same food. I remember asking the waitress in a Greek restaurant one time what the "Greek Coffee" on the menu was. She leaned over and whispered "It's Turkish Coffee, but don't tell my boss I said that." Whenever I'm back in the States or passing through Europe I try to get to a Greek restaurant. I hope you try Greek food someday. They really know how to cook lamb deliciously. Here are some pictures of Greek food from the Internet:

 Hello!!

 I'm Kanae. I have been in Aomori since I was born. There are many good things in Aomori; the Nebuta Festival, beautiful cherry blossom and sea in the park, and stars in the sky.

 I belong to international society course and major in international politics. Now, I'm interested in relationships Taiwan and China. I believe in the improvement in their relations, but it's very difficult. I want to consider the solution some day!

 See you, next!

I am the Ryo!

Hi, everyone!
My name is Ryo. I'm in Humanities.
I take this class to improve my English. Especially, speaking skill.
My dream is to order a hamburger in the US like an American.
I've been dreaming about that since I was little.
For my cool dream, I'll do my best in this awesome class!!

One of my favorite hobbies is traveling.
Egypt was pretty fun because I did scuba diving.
When I dived in a sea at night, I felt as if I was in the space.

Also, I joined the Egyptian revolution in 2011.
I'll never forget what I experienced there.

Hello there!


I am Sasha, majoring in Natural Language Analysis in the Department of Occidental Culture at Hirosaki Univerisity. I was born and raised in Tsugaru area.


I love learning languages including programming languages, and looking at paradigms (inflection charts) and letters. I think they are neat and beautiful, however, I do not really like capital letters of the Latin alphabet.


Recently I am interested in Japanese language, and hoping to continue my study in that field and become a Japanese language geek.
I also like listening to music, singing, drawing, snowboarding etc.


In this class, I would love to practice English by discussing some topics or watching sitcoms, especially The Big Bang Theory. I am also interested in learning English idioms, sayings and proverbs. My recent favourite proverb is 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. It refers to someone who is a generalist but not a specialist. Probably, we can pick up several useful idioms, sayings or proverbs and introduce them to the others in the class.