抄録
In this study, I have attempted to show the outlines of the five English textbooks used at junior high schools in Gunma and Saitama, Japan, intending to provide useful information for high school or college teachers of English in both the prefectures, especially for the teaching staff at Gunma National College of Technology. The paper deals with the following topics: (1) how each textbook begins, (2) countries referred to, (3) English expressions used in classrooms, (4) what the students will be able to do, (5) contents of the appendices, (6) stories for reading, (7) problems about the current textbooks.
Today's English textbooks for junior high school students in Japan look quite new and so different to older Japanese students of English in that they were written for international communication. With the help of this modern version of English textbooks, the new generation of Japanese is expected to have the ability of speaking English in what we call the global age. This is the very dream of the older generations' because they have been criticized for being very poor at speaking English and have had a sort of interiority complex about it. In fact the new textbooks were made for the young students to learn mainly to talk, rather than to read English.
Therefore it cannot be denied that the present textbooks are much easier to read than those published decades ago. Ironically this fact has brought some new problems: generally speaking, most young Japanese can introduce themselves in easy English and are supposed to have little difficulty in ordering hamburgers at McDonald's in the U.S., though may of them cannot and are not likely to be able to read English to the intellectual extent that their elders used to have achieved. In the near future, a newer and more improved version of English textbooks will be needed in order for the junior high school students-to-be to attain both abilities.
