The world of English education is, in some respects, a reflection of broader world we live in, and both of these worlds are constantly changing. Through my years as an instructor of English I have seen more and more of my students visit English-speaking countries for travel, study, and even employment. Teaching materials are no longer simply textbooks and worksheets but now also include online information, video streaming sites, daily podcasts, and learner management systems (LMS). Moreover, the role of technology has expanded from merely helping us to be more productive to becoming, through social networks, a medium for everyday communication.

And it is not only technology that has changed our approach to language education; the reasons that people study English are also shifting. As more employers in Japan (and other countries) come to expect some level of English ability from their workers, and as more students aspire to study outside of Japan, learning a foreign language no longer seems optional. For many, it has become essential.

Along with these shifts in English-learning materials and learning motivations have been changes in the language teaching approaches used by instructors. It is all quite exciting but can also occasionally be overwhelming to teachers in this field. For example, during the past several decades there has been a broad movement in classroom education away from ­teacher-centered approaches (in which the instructor is the focus of knowledge and learning) and towards student-centered approaches (where the focus becomes the learners rather that the instructor). Student-centered language education emphasizes productive skills such as speaking and writing, in other words the kinds of abilities that learners need in order to produce language rather than passively receive it. Presentation, self-expression, and critical thinking are all keys to student-centered education because these are believed to be crucial skills in the 21st century. That is why we emphasize them here in the Faculty of Global Communications.

This shift from teacher to student has been (and continues to be) a dramatic and important development in the field of language pedagogy—the ways or methods of teaching—and it is occurring at different speeds in different places around the world. To take a couple of examples, English instruction in the West now tends to be dominated by student-centered approaches, and GC students who study in countries like Canada, Australia, and the United States will almost certainly encounter some variation of these when they go abroad. Japan is also experiencing this shift, but it is happening more slowly here due in part to the traditional focus on testing and passive skills.

Although the pace of these changes is more gradual in Japan than in other countries, they are happening nevertheless, and that makes the field of English teaching a particularly exciting place to be right now. New instructional methods and approaches are currently being adopted at all school levels, including CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching), and ESP (English for Specific Purposes). For new teachers, these methods can look more like alphabet soup than meaningful approaches, and it is easy to get lost in all the new variations on language pedagogy. Fortunately, GC is here to help! We now offer our students the chance to participate in a teaching certificate program while they are studying at Doshisha. This program will help aspiring language instructors to understand these new developments and to utilize them effectively in their own future classrooms.

I have been teaching English in Japan for over two decades now (how time flies!), and during that period I have seen various approaches come and go. The current educational environment is quite different compared to when I started out, and that is a good thing! One certainty is that now is a great time not only to learn English but also to learn how to teach English, and for this I look forward to helping our students at the beginning of their own exciting educational journey.