Unless they provide sufficient budgets, manpower and teacher training to support the scheme, we can expect no positive results. Making English an official subject at this point would be a premature de

I agree. Where are all the English teachers going to come from?

English language tuition does start too late in Japan. But he is quite right - there is a lack of qualified English teachers to add it to the curriculum at this point.

Yeah, he is probably right. But for the country as a whole, is there any other expenditure on any other activity which yields so little result? In fact, the overall results are so poor it looks like the activity is repeatedly and consciously subverted rather than just being inept. There's got to be a better way.

Japan just doesn't care at all about English. Instead of employing qualified teachers on competitive salaries, what does it do? It uses blood sucking parasitic dispatch companies for the main to place totally unqualified unmotivated kids in the classroom and expect this will somehow improve the students' English skills. Or they waste taxpayers money on some totally flawed holiday" scheme" called JET.

If Japan really cared about English, dispatch companies would be banned and declared illegal, This JET "scheme" should be scrapped and only well qualified highly compensated foreign teachers should be allowed in Japan's schools. And all Japanese English teachers should be required to spend 1 year in an English speaking country as part of their training.

Will never happen though will it? Japan likes the cheap route of employing foreign kids on piss poor salaries. It's all lip service.

umbrella,

It's all lip service.

On the button!

Nakasone started the JET "scheme." It was ridiculous then and still is now.

If the "Ministory of Education" wanted to improve English proficiency, they would first gather a team of experienced ESL or EFL teachers to develop a meaningful curriculum for the kids, develop a training curriculum for the Japanese English teachers and train the Japanese English teachers.

Most of the Japanese teachers of English are capable of holding only a very simple conversation in English and have no clue about English grammar beyond long lists of memorised "rules."

And, for heavens sake employ teachers and administrative personnel with COMMUNICATION SKILLS. Any teacher with a problem in communication cannot be called a teacher.

I've been around Asia, but notice Japan is not up to par their Asian couneparts in English. Especially younger generation. Do they really want to fix it? Been saying that for a long time.

Erikawa is quite correct: more succinctly he complains about lack of appropriate teaching infrastructure.

There is more: so frequently I have seen people here succeed in language learning as individual learners rather than as collectives. In other words something happens or is going on in their own context that effects competence. It might be time overseas or some other environmental reason, a person around them who becomes motivational factor, self-discipline or strength of character to follow some learning instinct for success, and don't forget luck of situation. So, yes, people do become competent in English in spite of detrimental public education system and institutions.

There is also cultural stuff, such as trauma of standing out. This is not significant in the knowledge domain, but it is very significant in the public behaviour domain. Therefore pressure to have people here speak or use English publicly as some kind of target competency or behaviour is not going to work for most people, period. Similarly, encouraging discussion as part of active learning in classes on the face of it will also fail. Does this mean that people in Japan cannot have discussions? Of course they do. However it is not until discussions - and also active public use of English - become established practices in students' learning repertoire (and teachers' teaching repertoire) that competence in using English will improve on a mass basis. This is where the work needs to be done and this makes Erikawa's comments spot on.

It would be interesting to consider sometimes what is going on with other foreign languages education as well. The world, especially East Asia is not just English.

It's amazing how much money Japan is willing to get throwing at this problem year after year without any real changes or plan.

Singapore starts english education in first grade. It seems to work for that country.

There's actually nothing wrong with teaching English early in elementary school. Not only that, but the average elementary school home room teacher could probably get their English up to a level sufficient to teach it to 3rd graders with no more than 6 months of eikaiwa training. It's very achievable.

The problem is the teaching methodology. The popular notion of how English should be taught here runs counter to every research paper published in the TEFL field has recommended for at least the last 30 years. There are a few genuine innovators whose classes are at the cutting edge of research because they constantly push themselves to improve their skills, but the vast majority just teach in whatever dinosaur methods they were taught with. I've actually gotten mouth agape stares of disbelief from teachers when I tell them that the style of English teaching they grew up is not what the field recommends. Until MiniEd discovers that teachers can't just discover completely different teaching skills magically on their own, nothing will improve.

If a Japanese kid wants to improve their English they will find the motivation themselves. It almost doesn't matter how many English classes they have in a week when all they do go right back into a total Japanese speaking environment in clubs, at home,,etc.. I think this is the biggest reason the majority of Japanese kids can't speak English.

Well I agree with him, but he doesn't mention pedagogy at all, which is the critical issue facing Japan with English. It has to recognise that teacher centred, direct instruction, rote learning delivery of courses is an archaic approach to education that clearly has very limited results in Japan interns of language acquisition.

From what I understand, current pedagogy for learning languages in school in the in terminational system emphasizes that lessons are predominately taught in the target language, you teach meaning first, grammar later,lessons are always imbedded in a cultural context because you can't decouple language from culture, and you use authentic text as much as you can.

I think also, that Japan needs to get away from the idea/obsession of 'Native Speaker' English, because there is no one consistent form of English. It's a living, breathing language with hundreds/thousands of incarnations worldwide. Japan may work towards producing their own functional dialect of English, like say, Singapore English, that has it's own quirks and character traits and sits comfortably within the spirit and space of the Land of the Rising Sun.

I don't understand the Singapore comparison. English is one of the official languages of Singapore and English is the medium taught in schools. Can't even compare the two.

I don't understand the Singapore comparison. English is one of the official languages of Singapore and English is the medium taught in schools.

Well, as I said, Singapore English is a form of English that has it's own distinct and consistent patterns and character - it's not a replica of British English despite the history there. It's used as a standard of communication between the multitude of polyglot ethic groups living there.

The point I am trying to make is that Japan doesn't need to obsess on North American English. It needs to worry more about effective communication than the perfection of 'native speaker' English. They might create a functional, communicative version of English that suits itself perfectly well in the process. And that will be all good, just like it is in Singapore.

My American accent not good, lah.

Just a thought.

Japanese learn English fairly well but there isn't a need to use spoken English to pass a school test nor are speaking mistakes correctly dealt with due to there being no need to do so.

Who was it that said, "Everything about the language and not the language itself."?

Bruin fan,

NHK.

I wonder if anyone has ever observed a high school English lesson.

Around 80 percent of the lesson consists of the "teacher" gibbering on in Japanese and the other 20 percent is heavily accented (pseudo American/Japanese English).

Nothing is drilled. Nothing is practiced. The "teacher" delivers a one way diatribe and so has no clue whether what he has said has gone in or not.

It's no wonder Japanese people can't use English.

Using English just doesn't happen in the classroom.

round 80 percent of the lesson consists of the "teacher" gibbering on in Japanese and the other 20 percent is heavily accented (pseudo American/Japanese English).

Pathetic.

As long as (English) education is politicized young people will be second class citizens in the international arena. It's a fact. If they DO know English, they could learn things our politicians here don't want youth to learn. In neither case is there no defense.

"we can expect no positive results. "

A shrill statement. Very unlikely to be true. Hyperbole.

Spend enough time in Japan and you figure out that things evolve slowly. I see this extension of English education as a commitment that is not likely to be walked back by a ministry or administration in the future. Resources will be allocated continually to develop programs. People need to stop expecting everything to happen immediately.

Haruo Erikawa is not talking about fifth graders. I think Haruo Erikawa is speaking AS a fifth grader.

Almost every Japanese I've met who speaks English fluently spent some time in an English-speaking country perfecting his or her ability in the language. And I've spoken to many other Japanese who have been extremely critical of how English in taught in local schools. It's a sad situation that the Ministry can't get it right. They're also trying to introduce the IB Diploma in English in a large number of Japanese schools and going all the wrong way about that as well. I speak from considerable experience of seeing that fail in other countries.

Unless they provide sufficient budgets, manpower and teacher training to support the scheme, we can expect no positive results.

"budgets?"

Plural?

Oooops Professor Erikawa!

Also some strange tense/mood pairing in the second sentence:

Making English an official subject at this point would be a premature decision, and the education ministry's plan almost certainly faces collapse.

Looks like the good professor has some brushing up to do!