The Japanese society has been internationalizing at a rapid rate and as a result, the number of foreign- born children attending Japanese schools has also been growing. Students who attend public institutions and need Japanese language education are increasing yearly, and it has been reported that there are around 20 thousand such students as of September 2001 (Monbu Kagaku Sho, 2002). Under such circumstances, Japanese Schools have been coping with such situations.
The purpose of this paper is to 1) report on the current situation of ESLL education for foreign-born students who have limited English proficiency, 2) provide some suggestions which may lead to solve some of the issues related to the instruction of Japanese for subject matter studies. The second issue is related to the "sheltered instruction" which is popular in the field of ESL.
Documents and materials used for this research include books related to the issue of education for foreign-born children, materials published by Department of Education、and Honolulu District Office. First-hand information about the English language education for foreign-born children was obtained through class observations, and hearings from ESLL teachers.