Teacher Training and Syllabus Davelopment in Elementary School English Language and Cross-Cultural Education

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This project aimed at developing ideal syllabus design for public elementary school English education in Japan and designing and finding ways to train teachers for elementary school English.Syllabus design chosen for this project is task- or them-based syllabus. One the basis of such a syllabus, graduate and undergraduate students at Tsuda gave several English lessons at the elementary schools in the neighborhood every year. The number of such elementary schools increased from just one to two each year as the project proceeded. The basic program of the syllabus developed forms the foundation of the spring and summer English courses offered at Tsuda College for children in the neighborhood.One of the features of teacher training in this project is setting up and conducting a training course at the University of Reading. The program offers visits to local elementary schools and hands-on experience in developing teaching materials, which are reviewed with positive opinions by the participants. The project also offered summer teacher training course for elementary school classroom teachers, which were appreciated by some 60 teachers each year.As a kind of teacher training program, this project has developed a special organization to develop and inherit methods and skills among graduate and undergraduate students. The forum called "Forum for Elementary School English Education" is such an organization and various undergraduate and graduate students become members and contribute their knowledge and skills for teaching English to children.One of the concerns of this project was exploring the possibility of making English as a school subject in Japan. This is still at the stage of exploration and needs further investigation.