Elementary English Education - what, exactly, am I supposed to be doing?

I teach middle school 4 days a week, and elementary 1 day a week.

I work at 3 different elementary schools and all three schools run the English program somewhat differently. At A School, the largest school, I mostly plan the English lessons for lower-level students (1st grade through 4th grade) on my own, and we use a textbook sort of thing for 5th and 6th grade although we deviate from the prescribed activities somewhat.

At B School, I plan all of the lessons on my own. However recently we had a open demo lesson there, and the protocol has been changing to the illusion of other people planning the lessons. By illusion, I mean that instead of me having a meeting where I plan out the lesson with one other person present, we've switched to having a meeting where I plan out the lesson with 5 teachers present. Illusion of cooperative lesson planning. ahem. At C School, a school with roughly 13 students and 9 teachers, they plan everything for me, fax me a lesson outline the day of, and I show up. For the Christmas party they asked me for suggestions and I obliged. I would do anything to help these people but at the same time I'm very relieved at how easy their lessons are for me.

As for WHAT we are to teach, the Ministry of Education has dictated some guidelines which go into place in a few years. English class is to foster interest in English education. Reading/writing activities are to be avoided. Phonics is not to be taught. The focus should be on 'communication'.

I feel like they're shackling English to permanently be this goof-off period where children are taught 800 different animal and vegetable names in English, or set phrases such as 'My birthday is August 14th.' Also the homeroom teachers are supposed to be able to plan the lessons, but they are not English experts, they are untrained to teach English, and they have no idea how to teach a language they themselves have a tenuous grasp on the basics of.

The thing is...my elementary kids know a lot. They learn some English and it does stay with them from week to week. But when we get into junior high, it's like they've never seen an English word and it's right back to square one. Huh?

Let's just teach them phonics and pronunciation for most of the year...