Latest news with #EnglishCommunicationI
The Mainichi
06-05-2025
- Sport
- The Mainichi
News in Easy English: MLB star Shohei Ohtani appears most in new school textbooks
TOKYO -- Famous Major League Baseball player Shohei Ohtani is in many new school textbooks. The textbooks will be for first-year high school students from the 2026 school year. Textbooks sometimes use famous people to make learning easy and interesting for students. But textbook publishers must be careful. If a famous person has problems or scandals, the companies must change the textbooks. Ohtani is in 12 new textbooks. He appears in textbooks for four different classes in two school subjects. For example, in one "English Communication I" textbook, students can practice English using Ohtani's goal-setting chart. Other famous athletes, like Haruka Kitaguchi (javelin throw), Hina Hayata (table tennis), and Tokito Oda (wheelchair tennis), are also in new textbooks. Books teaching Japanese language have songs and works by music artists and TV stars, too. Examples are Gen Hoshino and Neru Nagahama. One textbook from Taishukan Publishing first included Ippei Mizuhara, who helped Ohtani with English, in an English lesson. But Mizuhara had a gambling scandal, so Taishukan Publishing changed that part of the textbook. It now uses a story about a Japanese-Canadian baseball team from before World War II. The education ministry said Mizuhara's scandal made the lesson "difficult" to use. Another textbook for junior high school also had to change after Mizuhara's scandal. A different textbook with a picture of entertainer Fuwa-chan also took her out after she wrote a bad thing about a comedian on social media. Textbook companies say choosing famous people is very difficult. A worker at a textbook company said, "We always think about scandals when we decide the people in our textbooks. We can only check online. We just hope that people don't have scandals in the four years until we make textbooks again." Vocabulary celebrity: a famous person (example: singer, actor, or athlete) athlete: a person who plays sports scandal: a big problem about someone's actions, usually in news or on the internet gambling: playing games for money -- can be bad or against the rules entertainer: a person who sings, acts, or makes jokes to make people happy publisher: a company that makes books or textbooks
The Mainichi
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Mainichi
Shohei Ohtani tops Japan school textbook appearances as celebrity scandals worry publishers
TOKYO -- Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani has emerged as the most featured celebrity in textbooks that have passed education ministry screening for use primarily by first-year high school students from the 2026 academic year. Textbooks have adopted celebrities to help familiarize students with the content, but their selection is a source of concern for publishers, as corrections need to be made if those celebrities become embroiled in scandals. Ohtani appears in 12 textbooks for four courses across two subjects. In "English Communication I" published by Daiichi Gakushusha Corp., Ohtani's nine-by-nine goal achievement sheet was incorporated for English learning. Many other celebrities featured in textbooks are athletes, including javelin thrower Haruka Kitaguchi, table tennis player Hina Hayata and wheelchair tennis player Tokito Oda. In the modern Japanese language textbook "Gendai no Kokugo," works by musicians and entertainers, such as Gen Hoshino and Neru Nagahama, were also included. Taishukan Publishing Co. initially introduced Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani's former interpreter, in a learning unit for "English Communication I." However, the portion was entirely replaced with a story of a pre-World War II baseball team comprising Japanese Canadians due to Mizuhara's involvement in a gambling scandal, with a screening comment saying, "It could disrupt learning." The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology explained that since he had been charged in connection with the scandal, the learning envisaged through the material had become difficult. A junior high school textbook mentioning Mizuhara that had passed the 2023 academic year's screening process was also partially replaced after the gambling scandal surfaced. While a textbook that carried a photo of personality Fuwa-chan passed the 2023 academic year's screening, it was deleted after she made an inappropriate post on social media about a comedian. Publishers say the task of picking celebrities to be featured in their textbooks is "challenging." One representative of a textbook company revealed, "At our editorial meetings, we always discuss whether there are any scandals about people featured in our textbooks. As a private company, the best we can do is to check online whether there are strange rumors about them, so we just keep our fingers crossed that they will go scandal-free over the four years until the next screening."
