Also, much of the domination of the profession of ‘English Language Teaching’ comes from outside Japan. The Japanese teachers settle on ‘reading-translation’ classes to survive. The complementary strategy for foreign nationals is to have students do huge amounts of ‘pair practice’. Yaku-doku and pair practice are not going to change the situation.

I plan to publish an analysis piece on my blog as to ‘why English is (or is not) a failure in Japan’s education system’.

CJ

Also, much of the domination of the profession of ‘English Language Teaching’ comes from outside Japan. The Japanese teachers settle on ‘reading-translation’ classes to survive. The complementary strategy for foreign nationals is to have students huge amounts of ‘pair practice’. Yaku-doku and pair practice are not going to change the situation.

I plan to publish an analysis piece on my blog as to ‘why English is (or is not) a failure in Japan’s education system’.

CJ

It’s teachers who can make a change, isn’t it? Only those who have several years of teaching experience should know what is really required, and I wonder how they can cooperate to do something for the sake of all of us. Can anyone please give me concrete ideas, and I’ll do whatever I can do. If everyone just waits for someone else to take action, nothing will change for ever.

To put it into a somewhat international perspective though, I have to point out the following:

1. China and S.Korea don’t compare to Japan on TOEIC and TOEFL (yet anyway) because in Japan we have extensive numbers taking the test without really preparing. It isn’t expensive for most Japanese, and so some just take it to see what it is like and get a better idea of how to study for it. I always advise students that doing this with the TOEIC is all right, but not to clutter their record up with frivolous TOEFL scores if they plan to study overseas. In other words use the TOEIC to prepare for the TOEFL.

2. Japan sends twice as many students overseas than the US does, and most often Japanese students go abroad to study English (they don’t need the US for engineering programs, for example). So the US is a dismal failure compared to Japan on internationalization and foreign language study. Period.

Like others I think a good place to start would be a thorough-going rethink of English language policy objectives and curricula at all levels of public education, much greater access to high quality in-house training for Japanese teachers of English, including opportunities for extended overseas study, and shifting the emphasis in native EFL teacher recruitment to attracting well-qualified / experienced native EFL teachers (with Japanese language skills or the commitment to achieve them) to fairly-recompensed, secure, long-term positions. The upshot would be lots more better-qualified JTE’s and fewer but better-qualified native EFL teachers, strategically located in positions where they have the scope to make a positive difference.

I’ve been tutoring now and know what kind of skills are necessary to pass the entrance exams for universities. I wonder, however, what it is that Japanese schools (public schools, I mean) are aiming at. If it’s an ability to conduct a daily conversation (as the textbooks are full of dialogs), then more opportunities to practice it with a native speaker or a bilingual’s instruction will be essential. If reading skills are to be developed, which a large number of students find most difficult, then more focus on grammar is a must. Unfortunately, not many public schools seem to be doing either of these approaches. As I was a student, school didn’t teach me how to speak, but they taught me how to read and write. (There was a grammar class at that time, which no longer exists.) Students today, however, can neither carry on a conversation nor read long paragraphs, not because they are unintelligent but because the means school is taking is just halfway. Who wants to put time and effort into things that don’t fulfill any purpose after all? With the way schools are today, I don’t think students can be motivated to learn English. I regret to see no improvement in the past two decades.

My impression is that many Japanese people are often made genuinely anxious by the prospect of interacting with non-Japanese for deep-seated cultural reasons. In a culture that prizes values such as “omoiyari” and “enryo” that require sensitivity to the unspoken feelings of other cultural insiders - a kind of mind-reading trick that is only possible given a high degree of conformity in socialization practices and interaction norms, dealing with relatively unreadable and unpredictable outsiders under real life conditions can be more of a leap than many people feel comfortable with, however much they hanker after the cache that an ability to casually interact on the street with foreigners might bring … Hence the perennial attraction of the less risky classroom environment perhaps.

Another point not made often enough in these discussions it seems to me is the extent to which the mass media consistently reinforce the idea that some degree of competent bilingualism for Japanese verges on the unnatural. And lastly, I don’t think that old chestnut about an English “kompurekkusu” should ever be underestimated - the widespread aversion to the feelings of vulnerability - the risk of being the inferior in terms of power relations as a foreign language speaker in an interaction with a native speaker. The uchi/soto type distinction between cultural insiders and outsiders is very powerful and raises what you might call the “affective guard” very high. A commercial airing on Japanese TV at the moment captures all of this very succintly: it shows a young “sarariman” daydreaming of himself as the recipient of a victory parade for managing a brief response to a question in English from a non-Japanese business counterpart.