Photo/Illutration High school students have a conversation with a non-Japanese moderator in English during a camp program in Tokyo’s Koto Ward on Aug. 22. (Yuka Honda)

Tokyo high schoolers are battling for spots in an overnight English immersion camp that doesn’t even take them out of the Japanese capital.

The program, run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, gives participants the feeling that they are on an overseas trip where they must communicate in English.

It is aimed at offering them hands-on experiences in the language, making them realize that real-life situations are different from classroom settings, and motivating them to further improve their speaking and listening comprehension abilities.

Students who attend metropolitan government-run high schools are eligible.

The program has been such a hit that operators doubled the initial quota of 120 participants for this summer after around 700 individuals applied for slots.

On the night of Aug. 22, eight students surrounded a non-Japanese moderator in the grand hall of a hotel in Tokyo’s Koto Ward.

“What Japanese food do you like?” one of the students asked the moderator, who remarked, “A nice question.”

The participants can only speak English during the two-day session. Forty-eight students, in the first through third years of senior high school, joined the camp that day.

They spent time at Tokyo Global Gateway (TGG) Blue Ocean, an English learning facility also in Koto Ward that simulates scenes in foreign territories.

The students tried out some practical conversations typically required on airplanes, during immigration inspections and in other scenarios.

They also conversed in English over meals and gave talks on what they had learned in the program, including on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

“English was spoken faster there than in school classes, so I found it difficult to catch what was being pronounced,” said a second-year female student after the camp. “It was so tough using English all the time, but it wouldn’t hurt if I were to develop the ability to speak it. I did have an extremely valuable experience there.”

The overnight camp was held six times in August, with a total of 270 or so students from about 80 schools taking part. 

The initial quota was widened after organizers received far more applications than expected.

“Our objective lies not so much in dramatically improving the participants’ English skills during the overnight program but in getting them accustomed to an English-only environment,” said an education board official. “We hope those who wish to go abroad to study will get a clearer image of what that would be like.”

The metropolitan government came up with the idea for TGG, which was opened in 2018 by a private business that now runs the facility. The metropolitan government subsidizes part of its operating expenses.

TGG allows users to experience English in real-life settings, such as at a restaurant or a hospital.

Around 360,000 elementary, junior high and senior high school students had visited the facility, mostly on a school-by-school basis, by the end of fiscal 2022.

A fiscal 2020 survey by the board of education showed that 88.3 percent of the students who visited TGG said the experience stimulated their desire to study English further.

Tokyo’s second TGG was opened in Tachikawa in January.

“Some students may be weak in English, but we still hope they can experience being understood in English, even by uttering a few words while using gestures,” the education board official said. “What is essential for them is to feel that communication in English is nothing to be afraid of.”

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This area of Tokyo Global Gateway Green Springs allows visitors to experience English communication aboard an airplane. (Yuka Honda)

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