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In a recent contribution to Yomiuri Shinbun, Morikawa Yoshihide, a former principal of the Hokkaido Otaru Deaf School, warns against the introduction of sign language use in the classroom at deaf schools and lends his support to oral methods of teaching (Morikawa 2006: 7). Morikawa places importance on pronunciation drills and lip reading, assuming that students will be able to bring out any ‘remaining hearing’ they might have. For Morikawa, language is audio based—if deaf children begin to learn through sign language, their spoken and written Japanese will suffer. He cites examples of successful deaf professionals that have benefited from such oral education. Less than two weeks later, a reply appeared in the same column from a deaf lawyer that Morikawa cites as benefiting from oral education methods. Tamon Hiroshi (2006) states that contrary to being a success story, he is a prime example of the failure of oral methods (p. 15). Lip reading and pronunciation drills did nothing to improve his Japanese skills. His Japanese skills were acquired outside of deaf school from his mother who taught him to read through gestures. Tamon argues that reading and writing Japanese skills can be better acquired through sign language teaching methods. The amount of time required for lip reading and pronunciation prohibits the studying of other subjects so that deaf students can be up to 3 years behind their hearing counterparts. Tamon claims that there is no problem in translating even complex legal terms from spoken Japanese to sign language.