To English speakers, I am writing about the immersion program in Japanese in this blog. But I want YOU, English speakers, to know my ideas about English education. So, please come to my blog and share your ideas about it.
(1) What is immersion?
Immersion is the process of learning a language by being showered with immersion in a language that has not yet been learned.
For example, in English immersion, students learn subjects such as science and mathematics in English and acquire English in the process.
(2) Immersion and me
I happened to encounter immersion education through my work and spent three years teaching science in English at a junior high school.
I have had time to look back and examine those three years, so I would like to summarize the knowledge I gained from the teaching materials I created during those three years and from my interactions with my colleagues with whom I fought for immersion education in the form of a blog.
(3) Will the middle school science immersion program help me acquire language skills (English language skills)?
To be honest, the program is not for everyone.
It is a difficult program for complete beginners of English.
This is because many junior high school students find science difficult even in Japanese.
In junior high school science classes, students study a variety of fields in an omnibus format, which means that they have to study new fields and also learn English, which is a double burden (according to students).
Therefore, if English is to be introduced in junior high school, it would be better to have almost no English in the first year of junior high school, and to increase the percentage of English as the school year progresses.
For kindergarten and elementary school, it can be more reckless.
The language is still in its infancy, and the science content is not that difficult.
There is less jargon.
The focus is on listening and speaking.
4) Immersion programs for teachers
In Japan, there are still few schools that offer immersion programs.
There are no dedicated teaching materials.
Therefore, we had to make our own handmade materials.
We intend to upload these materials as samples in the near future, but it was really difficult to create the materials.
We had to work closely with an English-speaking teacher (I dare not say "native English speaker"), but this was a tough job.
This is because we science teachers were suddenly assigned to the immersion program by the school's policy, so we are not necessarily fluent in English.
I happen to speak a little English, so I will be in a position to specialize in immersion... but more on that later.
I started this blog with the crazy idea of helping science teachers in Japan who may be doing immersion programs in the future.... Or so I thought.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
