This chapter adopts the semi-narrative style to describe the life stories of five internationally renowned Japanese masters of English—Nitobe Inazo, Saito Hidesaburo, Minakata Kumagusu, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, and Kunihiro Masao—to exemplify and examine methodologies of teaching and learning English that have presumably been suitable for Japanese people. Whereas past studies of English language teaching (ELT) have tended, in many cases based on Western theories of second language acquisition, to incriminate traditional form-focused (as opposed to newly introduced communication-focused) ways of language teaching and learning for the inefficacy of English education in Japan, this chapter argues that, considering the wide linguistic differences between Japanese and English and historical facts concerning ELT in Japan, Japanese people need to go through form-focused language learning, by means of such traditional methodologies as extensive reading, translation, parsing, rote learning of grammar and vocabulary, reading aloud, and copying, in order to acquire such a high command of English as to enable them to express themselves in highly cultural and academic contexts.