A Case for Practical English Education at the University Level

As Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology continues its drive towards the goal of improving Japanese citizens’ communicative competence in foreign languages,at a time when there is an ever greater squeeze on contact time for English lessons, there is an increasing need for language teaching methodologies which can achieve more with less. To that end, this paper advocates for practical instruction in English courses. With reference to the literature, the case is made that practical instruction in the form of various active learning pedagogies can work towards not only primary course objectives such as gains in language and content knowledge and skills, but also towards less tangible but equally desirable goals such as enhanced social and cognitive skills, and various affective factors.