The Role of Junior High School English Textbooks in Communicative Language Teaching Based on a Case Study of Two Junior High School Teachers Teaching Sunshine

Making English education in Japan more communication-centered has received attention since 1974(Torikae,2014). In the 1980s, education policy by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology(MEXT) began to make provisions in its Course of Study (National English Curriculum) for secondary school English to make developing learners' communicative skills a primary objective(LoCastro,1996). However, numerous researchers have found that MEXT policy has not had its hoped-for effect on English education in Japan because of its incompatibility with the school context(A partial list of such research is Aspinall, 2006;Butler,2011;Gorsuch, 2000; Humphries & Burns, 2015; Nishino & Watanabe, 2008; Sakui, 2004). Although policy changes have not met expectations, it would be misleading to say that they have not had an effect. For example, research by Hall (2014a, 2014b) shows how teachers navigate contextual constraints to incorporate an element of communication into their students’ English learning. Furthermore, there are various practical books on communicative methodologies for English teachers (For example, see Miura, Nakashima, & Ikeoka, 2006; Nakashima, 2000; Takeshima, 2011). Thus, rather than add to the literature describing the weaknesses of English education in Japan, this study seeks to describe how junior high school English teachers interpret and then adapt MEXT approved textbooks to develop students’ communicative abilities. Through doing this, from the perspective of using MEXT authorized textbooks, we hope that we can elucidate the challenges that teachers face in developing students’ communicative abilities and how they overcome these challenges