By NAOKO KOBAYASHI/ Staff Writer
February 11, 2026 at 07:00 JST
Teacher Yumiko Imanishi, left back, and students of Yokohama Science Frontier High School, who revealed their survey results at a poster presentation on an English education program reflecting feedback from learners, pose for a photo on Dec. 5 in Yokohama’s Tsurumi Ward. (Naoko Kobayashi)
YOKOHAMA--Teacher Yumiko Imanishi wrestled with the fact that some students form a negative view of English after entering high school.
With this in mind, she embarked on a project to foster more positive attitudes toward English learning among students.
Imanishi arranged for 230 first-year students from all six classes at Yokohama Science Frontier High School (YSFH) to fill out and submit a “self-reflection sheet” once a week on the school's English lessons.
As initially expected, Imanishi discovered in spring 2025, when the new semester had just started, that many students were having “difficulty understanding” their English classes in particular.
So, she joined with students at the high school to design a specialized educational program for English learners.
Like many English teachers, Imanishi had been grappling with a common yet intractable issue in language education under Japan's schooling framework.
Educators are aware that senior high school students have to master a plethora of grammatical topics and that they often feel a wide “gap” between the advanced curriculum and the relatively easy foreign-language classes in junior high schools.
STUDENTS EMPLOYED AS ‘RESEARCHERS’
Seeing the feedback on their reports, Imanishi set a specialized summer assignment for all first-year students: they were told to commit themselves to learning English in their own unique ways for four weeks to note any changes they experienced as a result.
Imanishi, who is likewise working as a researcher in English language education and is pursuing a doctoral degree at an overseas university, was thinking of how to listen more to students to plan a better class.
Seeking to leverage the findings from the summer homework for accomplishing her academic goal, Imanishi embarked on “joint research” with seven volunteer students in their first year.
Ryunosuke Kishi, 16, a member of the research team, created a list of Western tunes suited for English-language learning during his summer vacation.
Kishi found that songs with lyrics heavy in slang are difficult for beginning learners to decipher. Another of his discoveries was that musical pieces with unclear pronunciation cannot be considered ideal teaching materials. He assessed these factors in songs quantitatively.
“It was a valuable experience for me because I could connect my passion for music with my learning,” recalled Kishi.
Sakuya Mizunashi, 16, spent four weeks scouring a programming manual written in English.
“Reading the book was tough at first, but by the fourth week, I became able to understand it quite well,” said Mizunashi, looking back.
Taking full advantage of the knowledge gained, Mizunashi developed an English-learning app in fall 2025.
Cooperating with these student members of her research team, Imanishi analyzed the comments in the self-reflection sheets of all students on their learning outcomes during their summer breaks.
The entries input by the children themselves were categorized by perspectives, such as “autonomy” and “relationships,” so that their impact on learning motivation, alongside correlations among each element, could be evaluated.
In the analysis process, the student researchers made the most of the know-how they had accumulated through the mandatory first-year “science literacy” course, as well as artificial intelligence, since YSFH is particularly famed for its devotion to math and science education.
In November, Imanishi and the students unveiled their team's survey results in a poster presentation at a divisional conference of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
The volunteer members appeared at the team’s booth and briefed academics from outside Japan on their findings in English.
ENHANCED MOTIVATION
The research project similarly brought positive changes to the participating students.
Yuri Kakimoto, 16, acknowledged that she had begun to feel uncomfortable about studying English after being admitted to YSFH.
“Conversations were the main focus in my English classes until junior high school,” Kakimoto said. “I was suddenly faced with too many grammatical rules to memorize in senior high school.”
Kakimoto, however, said that the survey has helped change her mindset.
“I have recently become increasingly motivated to train myself in English,” she said.
The research project is still continuing. One of its next targets is to prepare the member students to deliver a presentation at a local educational institute during their visit to Malaysia, because second-year students at YSFH are expected to go on an international study trip together.
Imanishi stressed the collaboration’s significance.
“This opportunity made me realize that I might not have been listening to my students at all until recently, even though I had believed I had been turning an attentive ear,” she said.
The educator is grateful for the never-ending stream of ideas and suggestions from the participating students.
The volunteer members have suggested organizing group activities as well to involve less motivated students more actively, while another proposal is awarding additional grade points for independent learning to boost learners’ morale.
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