Learning English in Japan as a "half" person is not an easy thing. If one is "half"--that is, of mixed nationalities--as the author is, one is aware of the differences between oneself and other children even from a very young age, and it is often a struggle to find where one belongs. But this is not only an issue for people…

This article questions the appropriateness of communicative language teaching (CLT) in classrooms teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to Japanese students. The four main criticisms of CLT are the ambiguity of its description, the benefits of CLT for language learning, the amalgamation of CLT methods with local classroom practices, and the…