Hello. My name is Azusa.

I am passionate about changing school curriculums and English education in Japan.

When I was a student, I studied English as a subject in junior high school and high school in Japan, for 5 classes per week, 5 years. I had been a model student. When I was in my second year of high school, I went to the US for an exchange year. Guess how great I did there? I was surprised. For the first couple of months, I couldn't catch anything in people's conversations. I brought nothing from my classes.
The reality was severe and I struggled, yet I needed to survive my senior year in the US anyhow, and eventually, I did! I went back to Japan with a US high school diploma. My exchange year left me with a lot of memories; good ones and bad ones, humiliated ones, proud ones.

Years passed, I graduated from university in Japan. I got a nice job, I got married, I had two children, and became a mom.

Then, when I was living in NY temporarily with my husband and our two children about 10 years ago, I observed how our children picked up English and how it was taught at schools in the US. I was amazingly inspired by how English was taught there. It gave me the conviction that Japanese children must be able to obtain English skills in the same way they do, not as I did. It was totally different from the English education I recieved at schools in Japan.

3 years of NY life got over, we relocated back to Japan. I started teaching academic English to my 5-year-old son who only went to nursery school in the U.S. and didn’t learn any academic English before moving back to Japan. I taught using the techniques and methods I found in the US.

It turned out that my teaching was effective, and soon, my son started reading English books on his own! My older child kept improving her English level far above her grade level in the US.

One day, a friend of mine asked me to teach English to her children. At first, I was hesitant because I was not a certified English teacher, but I had my method and techniques developed for my own children. Why not? I said yes.

Since then, other moms came to me for English education, and so did their friends, and the number of students grew and grew. I launched my own home English school, OEC,  and offered opportunities to gain real English skills.

I came to notice that English education in Japan hadn’t changed even a bit for decades. At the end-of-term exams, there were often unreasonable questions, and grading was only based on whether the answers were correct grammatically or not. Students never have opportunities to speak English as a communication tool.  This unfavorable education even leads Japanese students to tend to lack communication skills, global minds, and knowledge. I gradually started to believe that what I need to do is not only to offer English lessons privately but also to try to change the school curriculums. In order for Japanese students to find their places to bloom themselves in the global world, Japan's education needs to change.

I have decided to update the English education in Japan. I started sharing my ideas with others who were also determined to work on this issue. I don't want to see any more Japanese children and adults who get confused and lose their confidence in the real English environment. I would like to shift school English education to something that can provide real skills, that reach "acquisition", not just "learning".  I hope things will finally change for the students; for the sake of Japan's future.