Published on 06/30/2008
The Nintendo DS is one wildly popular device in Japan, and despite being available there for a fair number of years already, it consistently stays at second or third spot on the Japanese hardware sales charts each week even until today. One of the main reasons for its phenomenal success is the wide range of games which appeal to everyone, while non-game titles are also successful. So successful, in fact, that the DS is now used to teach kids how to read and write English. The Tokyo Joshi Gakuen all-girls school has opted for the DS to teach English vocabulary, penmanship and audio comprehension under a 1-year trial, with positive results showing. Does this mean English teachers in Japan will be out of a job soon? I don't think so, since the DS has no way of marking your own homework.