IMAGINE this. A teacher announces it's time for quiet reading and a pupil pulls out a copy of the Beano. Appalled teacher confiscates the comic.

Now pretend you are in Japan. The teacher says it's time for an English lesson. The children open their books and come face to face with Dennis the Menace and Gnasher.

It is a scenario that would horrify parents and teachers in Britain but it seems the Dundee-based publication is now required reading in Japanese schools.

The phenomenon started when Scots teacher Matthew Brawley left a copy of the Beano on his desk at Kokubunji Junior High School on the island of Shikoku.

The children spotted it ''and took an immediate interest'' and now the DC Thomson comic, which has more than one million fan club members, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, is catching on.

Mr Brawley, 23, from Bellshill in Lanarkshire, said: ''My colleagues thought it was as good a way as any - and better than most - of teaching English.

''It has certainly proved to be more fun and more interesting than learning from a dry-as-dust textbook. In fact, it has become a roaring success, and seems to be catching on elsewhere.

''The children are learning quickly and the Beano makes it enjoyable for them to learn new words, new colloquialisms, and something about British social situations as well.''

The unconventional teaching method was welcomed by former English student Tomoko Pearl, 22.

Mrs Pearl, who came to Glasgow from Niigata, on the main island of Honshu, four years ago, said: ''Reading is the best way of learning a language, and comics are probably good to use because the stories are more interesting for children.

''I wish my teachers had done the same because we learned English from ordinary textbooks and it was very boring.''

Mrs Pearl, who is married to a Glaswegian and works at a Japanese restaurant in the city, said her first impression of the Beano was that it was ''more old fashioned'' than Japanese comics. However, she welcomed its use as a teaching tool ''as long as the content is OK'' because she said ''the English is probably more real''.

Mr Brawley is supplied with the Beano by his parents Paul and Helen, of Park Gate Place, Bells-hill. Mrs Brawley said: ''Matthew has been Beano mad since he was a small boy. He still is.''

Mr Brawley plans to continue teaching in Japan for a further two years before returning to the United Kingdom.