ごあいさつ　Recommendation

　The foreign language activitiy became a mandatory subject for the fifth and sixth grades in elementary schools lately.  And now it is discussed to implement it to earlier elementary school grades as an official subject.  Many elementary schools have already started teaching subjects relating to English from the first grade.  This is because English has been recognized as one of the best tools to communicate in our society in response to the recent globalization more than ever.  On the other hand, it is a common knowledge that Japanese, Japanese native speakers, are not good at listening and speaking English.  It could be said the learning English by reading is more coincide with the way of Japanese language procession rather than learning it by listening; however, it has been explained that the English education has been attaching too much weight in reading.  In fact, there is no evidence that the current Japanese university students have better skills in communicating in English than before, though Japanese English education is now putting more value in communications.  The university students would rather be referred   “introvert” because they are not willing to study abroad strongly nowadays.

　The background of the difficulty of listening and pronouncing English for Japanese people is based on one of the characteristics of the Japanese language.  Chinese infants can repeat English sounds such as smell/smel/ more correctly than Japanese infants in the same ages.  But the Japanese infants can answer more correctly when they are asked to identify the first sound of the words, in this case the answer is /s/, than the Chinese infants.  This is because Japanese infants tend to recognize and analyze the sounds by each phoneme to pronounce whole sounds, but Chinese infants tend to pronounce whole sounds from the beginning.  It could be said Japanese infants lose visual contact of the whole forest when they see each tree, but Chinese infants can really see all the forest because they see the whole forest from the start without seeing each tree.  This sound perception of Japanese infants shows an advantage to learn Japanese language but a disadvantage to listening English. 

　It is only the waste of time for children and the extravagance of the tax to teach English songs and greetings repeatedly and randomly without considering Japanese characteristics of the processing sounds.  The English language activities should be conveyed deeply considered the characteristics of Japanese native speakers how they identify the sounds of English when they start learning English.  We believe the synthetic phonics can be the valuable English language activities.  Jolly Phonics, as one of the synthetic phonics, improves children’s phoneme identifications by expressing English sounds by multi-sensory ways, such as the visual perception, auditory perception and, actions.  Improving the English phoneme identification enhances the acquiring ability of English language phonologically.

　It would not be very difficult for the Japanese who tend to “see each tree” to analyze and pronounce each English sound.  It is far more important to be able to “see the whole forest” by pronouncing and synthesizing each phoneme composing English sound.  Jolly Phonics was originally a reading method born in England for the students who have dyslexia and are struggling to read.  Jolly Learning Ltd developed many kinds of the learning materials and methods by which children can learn English with a lot of fun. 

　The rate of the dyslexia in Japanese elementary schools is much lower than that of in Europe, but once they entered junior high schools, the rate of the students who cannot read English raises all the sudden.  It is because basically each Japanese letter and sound correspond one by one, but in English language the letter and its sound do not much.  In fact, Jolly Phonics supports students not only to make them pay attention to whole sounds of the English but also it could be a method to help students who struggle to read and write English after entering the junior high schools.  It is also true this method as it is may not be successfully used for Japanese children and students who study English as second languages because it has been developed for English native speakers to learn English writing and reading.  Our training center is trying to design and develop English curriculums and exchange information for Japanese children and students by using Jolly Phonics effectively so that they can improve their ability to learn English easier than before with more fun.  I believe these activities of our training center achieve the very first step to train up teachers who change future English education in Japan.