We had a regular meeting on August 9 after 4 months’ intervals. There were 6 persons attended for a meeting. As we didn’t know each attendant’s competency of English, we started talking about some daily topics. As far as I observed as a chairperson of the meeting, the level of English was rather high because each attendant expressed themselves with ease.

First, we discussed the issue of bridging primary and middle school English. I picked this topic because all of us come to join the meeting to brush up English. We felt envious of the teaching environments in primary and middle schools. The theme of the article is that what children learn in foreign language activities can be transferred smoothly into what they will study in middle schools. They have a shocking data that the tendency of middle school students to feel uncomfortable with English hasn’t changed in the past decade. Much collaboration between primary schools and middle schools is necessary to improve the efficiency of English education of this country.

Second, the difference between British spelling and American spelling was talked out.
Many people become familiar with American spelling such as “color” or ”favorite” instead of “colour” or “favourite”. However, some get used to British spelling like “theatre.” Those who stayed in Britain for a long time seem to feel comfortable with the British spelling. What matters is that we should be tolerant with regional differences if English is truly a lingua franca at the global community.

Third, we talked about Aso’s remark about the revision of the Constitution, which caused another international dispute. Aso said, ‘I don’t want to discuss revising the Constitution in a bustle and bustle. The Nazis did it in a “let’s-keep-it-quiet” manner, and the Weimar Constitution was changed almost before people realized it. Why don’t we learn from that method ? ( extracted from an article of “The Japan Times” on August 1)’ There is no denying the fact that such a remark hurt the feeling of many people; especially those who went through such a harsh period in Germany and those who suffered from Japan’s imperialistic invasion. It can be said that politicians should be too careful to make any political statements in public. This could hold true with the recent inappropriate remark of LDP policy chief, Takaichi. She backed down on what she said. She said during a speech in Kobe that no one was killed in the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns and that the government should restart reactors nationwide. (extracted from an article of “The Japan Times” on June 20) However, Takaichi should have kept it in mind that a number of aged people passed away in hospitals or in shelters and some killed themselves because of much stress after the meltdowns. It is rational to say that she should be more considerate of those deceased people as well as many Fukushima residents who could not return to their towns.

We also had our exchange of opinions concerning skin discoloration after using　Kanebo’s skin-whitening products. It is reported that Kanebo has yet found out the cause of the skin discoloring.(cited from an article of “The Japan Times” on July 15) It is appropriate for Kanebo’s president to apologize to those who have had the symptoms. We shared the same view that the cosmetic company should figure out the cause before the number of those who suffer from “depigmentation” in some part of the body increases.

It may be said that the bottom line is that people should try to be in their shoes each other to make our society comfortable to live in. We dealt with the subtleties of human emotions discussing several profound topics at the meeting to forget the summer heat of August. Every participants seemed to be very happy after having discussed difficult current topics in English, for the summer heat was really gone during the hour of heated discussion.
This is gilding the lily, but a friendship party after the meeting warmed up, because we had much give-and-take in our discussions.


Written by Junichi Saito, moderator of a debate.