Talia, who i know from back in the day at Hampshire
asked
"ok so heres a cultural question. youre teaching younger kids, right, like elementary school? what are the school like over there? I taught K-6 here for a year and im curious to know...."

funny you ask, im in an after school type conversation school so its nothing like the real deal
but i am teaching an elementary school math teacher "english @ work" for school teachers

so i have a bit of an idea,
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disclaimer::: this is my opinion/what ive
figured out and may not be at all true or real
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first and maybe coolest, all the kids get colored hats, like yellow or green or pink or baby blue
it corresponds to their class and they wear them when they walk to and from school, its cute
especially when you see a huge group on the train, sometimes they say hello and giggle when
you respond, japanese kids = uber cute.

and as i learned most schools in japan have pools, they teach swimming in pe during the summer
how cool is that. the school day is pretty early and afterwards kids either have clubs (baseball drama soccer etc)
or goto JUKU (cram school) to prep for school exams which they take to get into the next level of schooling
basic subjects are math, history, home ec, japanese (sometimes Kanji, the cool characters that camefrom china, sometimes
writing/composition) english (focus on grammar and i think often memorizing, not speaking so much)
they have test weeks where everyday multiple subjects are testing and the kids work really really hard
some kids do real school then juku then english conversation then school clubs then home homework tv or games and bed
average up time that ive gathered from my students is 6 and bedtime is about 11, and its pretty go go go during the day
the school week is mon-fri but most kids have clubs juku or english on saturdays

they love their tests and even the youngsters come in to take the jr step, an english measure test

i know this seems like they are all work and no ply but that's far from the truth,
that being said, when you ride the train, adults and students alike are more often than not
passed out asleep, even when standing

back to schools, im terrible at remembering how its laid out but you've got
grades, and jr high, high school and then college/uni
the STEP test is huge here, it measures your ability with English
and step 2 is the big miilestone, there are 7 levels: 5,4,3,pre2,2,pre1,1
5 is the easiest and 1 is college/university level
at level 3, i think, there are 2 parts a written and an interview
its pretty intense

on the flip side there's my school, which is an english prep school
we specialize in conversation but do offer test prep etc
its basic, we do infant through anyone classes
at one point my youngest student was 2
and in december i will have a class of 4 1 somethings and their mothers
for adults we have 2 options, grammar or conversation
i teach 30/40/50 min lessons
today i talked about making complaints, asking where you are going, world religions
nuclear power and its place in the world, " if i were you i'd...", questions with do
and adverbs of frequency, expressing feelings and... that was it for today
youngest student was maybe 8 oldest maybe in their 40's/50's

im not sure if that helped or not, but i hope it did.
ask more questions and get more answers
this is kinda fun!!