The current trends in teaching English are seeking for heavily skill oriented learning. On the contrary, there is the Japanese English teachers’ efforts to develop students’ character through teaching English. English textbooks for junior and senior high school include varieties of topics to use in this. Those traditions can be combined with international development such as the resources from European Youth Centre in Budapest (EYCB) for human rights education and others for Conflicts Resolution skill building training. In this workshop local teachers’ efforts in Japan are introduced and also several exemplars from overseas are exercised. The discussion will be on the proper contents and methods which have more holistic pedagogical meanings for foreign language teaching in Japan.
Mr. Kazuya Asakawa is a professor at Tokaigakuen University, Nagoya, Japan. He has been developing teaching materials including the topics: peace, human rights, environment and development issues and promoting participatory methodologies in foreign language education, currently his interest is “to integrate peace education in the local context with international trends.” He has published various textbooks for English classes and articles. His team translated international documents into Japanese such as Learning to Abolish War (Huge Appeal for Peace) and Great Peacemakers (LTS Press).
Info is: http://globalenglishteaching.jimdo.com/