![]() ![]() What Do Children Learn in Japanese Schools? However, in the past, because of the rapid population growth, this number was lot higher, exceeding 50 students per class. The number of students in one class is usually under 40. ![]() During elementary education, in most cases, one teacher teaches all of the subjects in each class. ![]() There is often homework during these vacations.Įvery class has its own classroom where students take all the courses, except for practical trainings and laboratory work. Vacations are 6 weeks long during summer break and about 2 weeks long during both in winter and spring breaks. Even after the school ends, children still have drills and other homework to keep them busy. Most schools operate on a three-term system with new school years starting every April.Except for the lower grades of elementary school, an average school day on weekdays lasts for 6 hours, making it one of the longest school days in the world. Even though high school (koukou) is not compulsory, high school enrollment is still pretty high: over 96% nationwide and nearly 100% in the cities. *The gimukyoiku (compulsory education) period is 9 years: 6 in shougakkou (elementary school) and 3 in chuugakkou (junior high school).ĭue to the fact that their educational system is so good, Japan has one of the world’s best-educated populations (with 100% enrollment in compulsory grades and zero illiteracy). Japanese state education system is a national pride in this country, with a traditional approach that has helped Japanese pupils easily outperform their counterparts all around the world. What makes Japanese school system so unique? Sounds complicated? Not for a Japanese person. Katakana is used to write words introduced from other languages, names of foreign people and places, sounds, and animal cries. Hiragana is used together with kanji to write ordinary Japanese words. Combined with specific dots used for marking changes of the original sounds, these characters are enough to express all the sounds of modern Japanese. Each set has 46 characters which behave as syllables (usually including a consonant and a vowel, like “ka”). In addition to kanji, Japanese have two sets of phonetic scripts, hiragana and katakana. At the age of 15, when they end their compulsory education, they will know additional 1,130. However, because of high quality approach to teaching, by the time they leave primary school, Japanese children will have already known 1,006 kanji characters. Japanese parents know how difficult it can be to help their children learn all the characters and use them in spoken and written communication. Do you know how many characters Japanese children need to know in order to read and write? More than 26, that’s for sure. Also, it’s important to have very little downtime or rest time and to constantly keep them motivated.Ĭhildren all around the world usually learn between 26-33 letters (not taking into account certain Asian languages which have a rather pictographic approach). I f teachers stand at the board and just lecture, through mere listening, the students will retain far less “” say, 40 percent “” so it’s far more effective to have them discussing problems and teaching each other. The Japanese say that if you teach what you learn, you will remember about 90 percent. Math is also a type of a language, so why wouldn’t we approach it as if we were learning English, Japanese or social studies? But, this time the first student takes the role of the teacher, or the corrector. The student then gets up and away from his seat. The teacher walks over, glances at the problem and circles it to signal it was correct. The first student to finish shots a hand up. That day his class is supposed to learn how to solve equations with multiple fractions and he instructs his fifth-graders how to approach these math problems. The class starts with the customary aisatsu (greetings) to the teacher and is followed by his question if students know how to solve a problem he had previously put up on the board. Here’s an example of a regular math class in Japan: ![]() This is because teaching in this country is about the quality of lessons, not quantity.Ĭheck out this short video, and see it for yourself. Any kid can do that, even a five year old. Well, Japanese children do it in no time, with a help of several lines. And, what about 123 times 321? More than one, for sure. How fast can you multiply 21 times 13? One minute, probably. Did you know that, according to the newest study, children from Japan lead the world in numeracy and literacy skills? So, what makes the approach of Japanese school system so unique and different from the rest of the world, and more importantly, what can we learn from it? ![]()
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