ABSTRACT
In march 1922, Harold E. Palmer arrived in Japan to take up a post as Eigokyōju komon (‘Adviser on English Teaching Methods’, or, as Palmer preferred to describe his role, ‘Linguistic Adviser’) to the Ministry of Education (Mombushō). The initial arrangement was that he should stay for three years, but he remained committed to his task for fourteen. During this time, he was ‘the most outstanding figure on Japan’s foreign teacher scene’, 1 and the Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET), which he established in 1923 and directed until his retirement in 1936, carried out work which was to have a strong influence on approaches to teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL, or ‘ELT’) throughout the world. Before World War II there were no comparable centres of research outside Japan. As his friend Vere Redman was later to say:
Palmer came to Japan as Linguistic Adviser to the Mombushō; when he left in 1936, he had become, through the work of the Institute and his work with and through it, Linguistic Adviser to the whole English-teaching world. 2
