As a sales representative traveling all over Japan, I have had the opportunity to meet many teachers. I have met teachers in all different kinds of situations: teachers with large classes in the biggest building in their area, teachers teaching classes in huge rooms at English schools for the Academic Affairs Division, teachers teaching out of their homs just starting out with five students, teachers at both private and public junior high schools who are fighting the battle to be considered “English teachers”, teachers/owners of international schools who are serious about education in Japan. One thing that has surprised me is how many of them were familiar with APRICOT and its products. On a visit to one private elementary school, the teacher introduced me to the class as “the publisher of the English textbook you are using”. The students cheerfully called out, “Hello! Namaste!” and other expressions they had learned from the book. It was a very moving experience for me.

The first time I visited an English school set in a rural area, I met a very enthusiastic teacher who told me, “I recently started using APRICOT materials with my students. They’re perfect! I had been looking for materials like these for a long time. If you can, I’d like to have these types of supplementary materials… At the end of the year I want to do a class presentation and need…” It was great, but sometimes I felt overwhelmed figuring out how to produce the materials that fit all of the teachers’ requests. It was not all good, though. I can remember times when I walked over a kilometer up a steep hill, lugging my bag with over 20 books in it, and was not able to meet a single teacher. I wanted to just give up and throw the bag away! (Laughs)　

“I want to hear the voices of each teacher individually.” With this simple thought in mind, I visited 45 prefectures (sorry to teachers in Shimane and Miyazaki) and met more than 800 teachers. I gained a huge wealth of knowledge from these teachers. One key concept that I came to realize is that we don’t need English education materials that are just fun in the short term. We need English education materials that are fun, but also really improve English education in the long run. The lessons that I learned during this significant era of APRICOT’s development form the basis for APRICOT’s core values today.