Reading Reaction Journal #3 -Kids' English education business thrives

In this article, the number of English private schools and products related English education for children has been extremely increased because English education at public school is not enough, and parents want them to study English at an early age. First, Benesse Corporation, one of the biggest companies, has succeeded at their business about English education for children 4 or older. They focus on listening, and teach English through playing games except spelling and grammar. Also, toys for children to study English have sold well. According to the Ministry, many children in elementary school have taken English class, but the number of hours and contents are not enough. To sum up, a large number of children study English at an early age.


In my opinion, it is good thing to start to study English at an early age, but people have to care about some problems. It is better for children to study in the early stage, because their brain can accept new language easily when we start to study English. Also, the government decided that elementary school students will have to study English in the near future because nowadays English skill is required in many places. With my experience, it is a good way to study English through music or games. When I was a junior high school student, I did not like English, but one of my English teachers tried to teach us English with music. He gave us time to listen English songs before the class started. It helped a lot to not be nervous about English. However, there are several problems if children start English early. First, if children are taught English at an early age, they have no time to study their own language. Recently, the decreasing ability of Japanese is a big problem in Japan. I think they don’t have to study English hard instead of studying Japanese or at their expense of studying Japanese. Moreover, studying English early makes children more stressful. According to this article, people who want to take an entrance exam have to study more if they have to study English at young age. Therefore, I agree with this article basically, but parents have to think about the problems when they make their child study English.


Kids’ English education business thrives (2004, April 7). The Japan Times. Retrieved on February 16, 2009, from http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20040407f1.html