Bill Fugate, La Porte International Kindergarten

There are more than 10,000 English language schools in Japan. Systematically, there are very few meaningful differences between most of these schools, resulting in very little growth within the industry. Many resources are used in trying to figure out how to make students interested. However, equal efforts should be made towards questioning our own assumptions about what’s truly important in this field of education. Few industries are capable of thriving without having the highest regard for the preferences and priorities of the very people they serve. Children are natural learners and inherently curious, never losing their passion for learning until we extinguish it with antiquated paradigms about how and what they should learn. In this presentation, we will discuss the current state of the language school industry and how it can be improved for school owners, teachers, and most importantly the students.