Japanese Children Studying With DS At School

[leunas]

First, it was American kids sweating it out on a DDR. Now, it's Japanese junior and senior high schoolers studying English via the Nintendo DS. Starting this September, students in Kyoto
Prefecture's Yawata City spend the first ten minutes of class, studying vocab on their portables. Says a Yawata City teacher:

The students are getting accustomed to using the DS and are studying enthusiastically. Progress can be expected.

Thanks to traditionally poor language instruction in the classroom, English is notoriously difficult for many Japanese. The software includes 1900 words for high school students and 1800 words for junior high student. They practice writing the words on the touch screen, and the DS emits the correct pronunciation for new vocab. There's talk of expanding this program elsewhere and plans to introduce Kanji software as well. These classroom applications for the DS are a no brainer, really.



www.kotaku.com/gaming/ds/japanese-children-studying-with-ds-at-school-209279.php