Interest
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Teaches English to New High Schoolers
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Starting this April, eccentric teenager and fellow student Haruhi Suzumiya will help teach English to new high school students in Japan. The new revised edition of World Trek English Communication I, which is available for first-year students for the upcoming school year starting on April 1, features a reading section based on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
The reading, titled "Haruhi, an Amazing Girl," tells the story of how the paranormal-seeking Haruhi and sarcastic Kyon meet after entering high school. Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito's original light novels and their television anime adaptation begin with the same story.
The reading is meant to take six hours of class time. For English-teaching purposes, the theme of the reading is school life. The unit that contains the reading is at the end of the textbook. Students should read it during their third semester at the end of the school year in February. Due to appearing in the end of the book, the reading is likely some of the highest-level content in this first-year English textbook. The book's other main reading is about Nobel Prize-winning Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai.
Haruhi and friends already appeared in English vocabulary and grammar books published in Japan. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers began publishing the original light novels in English in 2009.
Source: Gazette Tsūshin (Ishijimaeiwa) via Hachima Kikō
