Abstract
This article tries to provide a rationale for using English presenatation and performance events such as OPP to help develop students’ English presentation and communication skills. To do so, I use MATSURI (rituals/festivals) as an analogy to explain how such events provide learners the opportunity as well as the motivation to obtain the necessary skills. This will clarify how active/collaborative learning may not be a panacea to all predicaments that we are confronted with in terms of teaching English to Japanese learners. I hope that this article will encourage the readers to put active/collaborative learning in perspective and be more understanding towards the implementation of speech-related events, which are apparently long-standing practices of English education in Japan’s history.
