On Saturday October 29^th 2011, the Japan Foundation and BATJ (the British Association for Teaching Japanese as a Second Language) co-hosted a seminar about Language Education policies at the Japan Foundation, London. Over 40 people attended including teachers of Japanese from universities and schools around the UK.

The seminar started with an overview of the National Curriculum and its history by Seiji Fukushima, the Chief Japanese Language Advisor at the Japan Foundation London. Next was a section by Lydia Morey, Chair of the ALL Japanese Language Committee and teacher of Japanese, who explained the variety of styles of Japanese language education within secondary schools. This was followed by the main speaker, Stephen Fawkes who is a Trustee and Membership Officer at the Association for Language Learning, with a long history in language education. Stephen described the history of language education strategies and also mentioned some of the developments we can expect in future education policies.

The seminar received positive feedback from all attendees, many of whom were glad to learn more about the way languages are taught at primary and secondary schools in the UK.