We strongly feel that it should be avoided in classrooms if possible. The problem here is that most teachers in the early days could not read hiragana and so all of our resources were produced so that teachers had access to romaji throughout. The students only saw kana, initially hiragana at first. An interesting sideline to this comes from a town that is visited by many Japanese tourists each year. Some of the schools in this area teach Katakana first, as that is what most of the local Japanese signs are written in.
Parents expect their students to be able to read street signs in the language they are learning.
The problem arises when trying to find books written in Katakana only. Working together By letting teachers know that we will help in any way we can, we have been asked over the years to track down particular books, or resources for teaching certain topics. I am always pleased to receive requests such as these as it gives us a good indication of what will help teach Japanese. The Japanese Language teaching environment has really developed over the past six years. The emphasis is shifting from how to teach Japanese and what aspects to teach, to how can the Japanese Language Program be integrated into other areas of the school curriculum.