Communicative Language Teaching

The 2011 Japanese Ministry of Education English teaching curriculum (otherwise known as the MEXT Course of Study, 2011), advocates the use of English rather than Japanese in English language teaching in public junior high schools. The MEXT 2013 Course of Study document went beyond English use for the teaching of English advocacy to require teachers to utilize English as the medium of instruction for other subjects in Japanese public junior high school. However, many years thereafter, this policy directive seems largely unachieved. This study investigated the reasons the implementation of CLT in Japanese junior high schools as advocated by MEXT 2011, 2013 seems to have remained a mirage. Using the instrumentality of the questionnaire and observer report forms, the research surveyed 5 Japanese ELT teachers at public junior high schools in the Kanto Region of Japan. The teachers had their live lessons observed. They later filled out a self-report questionnaire.The research proposes 10 recommendations that may effectively advance the implementation of CLT in the Japanese ELT classroom.