Elite private Keio University drops National Center Test requirement for admissions

Background: this decision must come as an unpleasant surprise to the National Center for University Entrance Examinations (NCUEE), since the trend had been for more and more private universities to use the unified entrance exam that the NCUEE administers. However, it's probably more lucrative for Keio to require only its in-house entrance exams. First, there will be no revenue sharing with other entities. Second, it might make it easier and cheaper for an ever larger number of high school seniors and cram school attendees to apply for Keio, even if only a small number will gain admission. Look at it the way a potential applicant might: if enrollment to Keio is the dream, it will allow them to concentrate without the distraction or expense of the National Center Test to worry about.    

The Yomiuri story is at the link below:

Keio Univ. to stop using standardized entrance exam

Key excerpt 1:


Starting next year, Keio University will no longer use the National Center Test, a unified college entrance exam, to screen those seeking admission to the prestigious private university....Keio's move is expected to spur other universities to take similar steps, finding their own ways to screen examinees....Center test organizers said they were shocked to hear of Keio's withdrawal.



Key excerpt 2:

"We'll give an original, distinctive test to enroll smart students," said a Keio faculty member.
A member of a cram school staff said, "The National Center Test only reveals slight differences in abilities among examinees who apply for top-notch universities."

Univ. groups to call for firms to delay start of recruitment in Japan

Read the full story at the link below:

Univ. groups to call for firms to delay start of recruitment+

Students feel heat of joblessness (from The Japan Times Online)

Here is a Japan Times article on the same topic--the awful employment outlook for university graduates in Japan.

Students feel heat of joblessness | The Japan Times Online

Record low 68.8% graduating university students receive job offers+

Some background to this story: Universities and their faculties, departments and programs fret a lot about this statistic. That is because young people who plan to attend university will flock to institutions and majors that can boast success in helping to get their students jobs when they graduate. Perhaps more students need to look closer at the stats the universities publish. For example, are their students really getting jobs that are relevant to their areas of study? This year looks to be another dismal year for job prospects, and Japanese companies seem to be getting used to making university students jump through all sorts of hoops in the recruitment process. Educators fear that recruitment is starting too early, way before the final term of the fourth or final year of study, and this is disrupting the learning and opportunities for educational experiences.


Read the article at the link below:


Record low 68.8% graduating university students receive job offers+

Japan's Ministry of Education launches/renews two programs to revive HE and internationalization

Japan's Ministry of Education (MEXT) launches/renews two programs to revive HE and internationalization

Combined the projects are supposed to help revive and promote inter-university exchange between Japan's designated universities and key institutions overseas, most likely in the US. A key aspect is supposed to help fund 300,000 Japanese students to go abroad while bringing a matching 300,000 foreign students to Japan. While well over 140,000 foreign students come to Japan, Japan's number of students going abroad is well below 70,000 and continues to decline. 

The government's focus is on 13 elite universities (and remember the original plan had been to fund 30 such institutions) that had previously qualified for funding, so this appears to be more of a re-branding than anything.

Read more at the links:

Launching New Project for Promoting Universities’ Activity in Implementing Internationalization as well as exchange with Asia and the United States

Promoting Universities' Activity with Asia and the United States, etc.

Promoting Two-Way Student Exchange

excerpt:

○ The New Growth Stragety (Cabinet Decision) has decided to send 300,000 Japanese students and workers abroad as well as accept 300,000 talented studensts from overseas into Japan for studying and training.
○ It is necessary to actively support sending Japanese studentsabroad as well as accepting international students.

 

 

An Unlikely Partnership Leads to a Science and Technology University in the Middle East

Last year in June, the JPN HEO blog reported on the start up of an Egypt-Japan partnership for a University of Science and Technology.

Last fall it had an intake of 100.

This week the US-based and US-focused Chronicle of HE ran a piece on E-JUST in its international section:

http://chronicle.com/article/Unlikely-Partnership-Leads-to/126052/

brief excerpt follows link:

January 25, 2011
An Unlikely Partnership Leads to a Science and Technology University in the Middle East

By Ursula Lindsey

New Borg El Arab, Egypt

The Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology is still little more than a few buildings on the edge of a quiet industrial town in the Egyptian desert. Yet when about 100 graduate students started courses here this past fall, it was the beginning of an unprecedented partnership between Egypt and Japan.

Japan's National Center Test, 15-16 January 2011

Japan's National Center Exams, 15-16 January 2011
by Charles Jannuzi
University of Fukui, Japan


The National Center Exams are being held over 15-16 January at 706 test centers nationwide (the test centers are usually located at universities and colleges with large enough lecture halls to accomodate test takers). The number of applicants rose again from last year to almost 560,000. This is because more and more universities and colleges are requiring these test scores of their applicants. (Many institutions still hold their own in-house exams as well.) About 80% of the applicants are high school seniors who will graduate this March and proceed on to university in April (April is the start of the school year in Japan).

According to the Ministry of Education (MEXT), the number of universities and colleges using the Center Exam results as part of their admissions requirements is also at a record high of 828 national, prefectural/metropolitan and private institutions. Based on the tests applicants have registered to take, many are aiming to get into teacher certification and nursing programs. Also enjoying a rise in popularity are traditional and new departments in science and technology. This is because more and more high school graduates are worried about the scarcity of jobs and the difficult employment environment that awaits them even after 4-6 years of higher education. Young people want tangible qualifications that will help them find career employment for all the trouble of spending tens of thousands of dollars and years of their time on higher education.

The first day of the exams covers history, geography, Japanese language (Japanese native language arts), and EFL reading/grammar/vocabulary and listening. Other foreign languages, science and maths are covered on the second day. There is a make-up set of exams held on 22-23 January for those examinees who have legitimate excuses for not being able to attend the regularly scheduled tests.

In addition to the usual colds and flus of the season, students on the Japan-Sea side of Honshu (the largest of the main islands of Japan) had to brave winter storm conditions to get to the test sites.


See also last year's article on the exams, as much of what is explained about the exams still applies to this year's.

Over half a million take university entrance exams in Japan

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2010/02/over-half-million-take-university.html

Last year's entry on the Center Exam (2010)

Not much has changed since last year. The number taking the test, according to registrations, increased again, although not as much as last year. So sorry doomsayers, the demographic collapse for Japan's HE system hasn't happened yet. It's important to remember that there is probably enough students withholding their university admissions in any given year to fill one year's worth of admissions. That is because these young people are studying for one, two and even more years to try and get into a top-ranked university and/or program.

Last year's article:

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2010/02/over-half-million-take-university.html

Center Exam time in Japan again

This photo, from the Chunichi Newspaper, shows high school students and other test takers, wearing masks (it's the cold and flu season) and mufflers (it's frigid) making their way to a testing station in Nagoya City. Over half a million test takers are braving winter weather and contagious colds and flus to take the multi-subject exam all over Japan this weekend. The Center Exam serves similar purposes for university admissions and placement as the SAT and ACT in the USA.

JPN HEO will follow with another post on some basic stats and facts on the all-important Center Exam.

TEFL FORUM: Teaching English /r/ and /l/ to Asian EFL learners: a lexical approach (Part II)

This is the second part of a series on teaching English /l/ and /r/. The piece published below incorporates the first installment and then discusses possible sequences for teaching English /l/ and /r/.

Teaching English /r/ and /l/ to Asian EFL learners: a lexical approach (Part II) 
Charles Jannuzi
University of Fukui, Japan

Introduction

English /r/, /l/ and contrasts between these two categories of sounds are often cited as pronunciation and listening perception problems for a variety of EFL learners, most from E. Asia. The language backgrounds most often associated with these problems are Japanese, Korean, Chinese and some languages of SE Asia (e.g. Thai but also Cantonese Chinese). Other language speakers have also expressed an interest in improving their pronunciation of English /r/ and /l/, including Russian and German EFL learners.

Perhaps the most well-known group to have a problem with the two categories of sounds is Japanese EFL learners. This could be because their native language background creates the most difficult problems to overcome. It could also be because Japan attained affluence before most of the rest of Asia and hired native speakers of English to help teach and model the language. So a lot of information based on knowledge and experience of Japanese and Japanese learners of EFL has been exchanged and discussed in 'global ELT'.

What is the issue for Japanese learners of English?

In the case of Japanese learners of English, just what is the issue? The most common account is based on a simple 'contrastive analysis'. Japanese is said to have one categorical sound (or phoneme) whereas English has two. The Japanese sound is often referred to as a type of [r] that is tapped, flapped or trilled.  The Japanese sound never closes a syllable and has a very limited distribution in Japanese. One form of the Japanese /r/ helps to form the syllables used in grammatical inflections (such as verb forms which are suffixes). Also, word-initial Japanese /r/ is limited to words of foreign origin (e.g., ramen, the type of Chinese noodles now a national dish in Japan, or ramune, a soda the name for which seems to be derived from the English word lemonade).

English-speaker descriptions of the Japanese sound or of the Japanese learner of English's sound represent the Japanese sound as variably resembling English /l/, /r/, or /d/ (especially [d] in the middle of a word, like in the word 'middle'). Phonetic descriptions have also said that the American medial voiced [t] of words such as little  are quite like the Japanese /r/.

However, it is not really clear how useful a cross-linguistic, contrastive analysis of phoneme inventories is in diagnosing the problems or in helping Japanese learners of English to overcome them. For one thing, the often-read argument that Japanese has only ONE phoneme, Japanese /r/, is arguably wrong. That is because, using structuralist criteria for determining what is and what is not a phoneme, we can isolate at least two Japanese [r] sounds that are distinct: initial [r] in the word rou  (candle) from palatalized intial [r] in ryou (dormitory).

It is also misleading to teach EFL learners that there is one English /r/ and one English /l/. That is because they will hear native and fluent speakers of English make a wide array of both sounds in actual speech. In terms of articulation, there is a wide variety within both categories of sounds. Interestingly, the distribution in the lexicon of English [r] sounds strongly parallels English [l] sounds: word-initial (right vs. light), word-initial cluster unvoiced (crime vs. climb), word-initial cluster voiced (grow vs. glow), post-vocalic (fear vs. feel), medial (correct vs. collect), and unstressed syllabic (batter vs. battle).

There is some complementary distribution if we consider clusters: [tr-] as in true but no [tl-], [sl] as in slide but no [sr-], [shr-] as in shred but no [shl] (except some loan words), and [l] can cluster with [r] post-vocalically, as in girl or world, but not vice versa. Moreover, since both of these sound categories tend toward 'vowel-like', it is not surprising that in some cases they might reduce to a vowel or vowel lengthening in some accents, dialects and word contexts (such as post-vocalic [r] in London, Boston and NY Englishes, or the lost [l] of the word chalk).

Given the variety of English /r/ and /l/ sounds and how they parallel each other in the lexicon of English, it is little wonder that EFL learners, even after they have practiced making an English /r/ vs. /l/ distinction, lose the ability when actually communicating orally. Therefore, it is best to teach--over a period of time and through a variety of activities--the full parallel variety of English /r/ and /l/ sounds as found in the most frequent words of the lexicon. A proposed sequence is this: first the variety of English /l/s, then the variety of English /r/s, then /r/ vs. /l/ contrasts in common words, then a follow up on the variety of post-vocalic [r]s in rhotic accents, such as US and Canadian Englishes.

What sequence should be used to teach English /l/ and /r/?

One line of reasoning might say that, since English /r/ is typically the last consonant acquired by native speakers, it might be best to teach English /l/ first to EFL learners because of the inherent difficulties with the English /r/ group of related sounds. A different line of reasoning that might support this first approach might be based on interlanguage analysis. If Japanese has its own /r/ sound, the argument goes, then Japanese learners of EFL would find it easier to differentiate and master English /l/ first. However, as noted above, Japanese /r/ and Japanese learners' interlanguage /r/ and /l/ sounds are often described as sounding more like English /l/ (or /d/ or medial voiced tapped [t]) than English /r/. If all these arguments are considered together, the issue of which sequence to follow starts to look rather difficult to decide.

One compromise might be to conclude that the Japanese /r/ and palatal /r/ are not acceptable substitutes for either English /l/ or /r/ and to start an instructional sequence with English /l/ first. The strongest justification for English /l/ coming first is that even English native speakers acquire /r/ rather late in their language development and this complex set of sounds actually often requires remedial practice.

So one possible proposed sequence of instruction (as a pronunciation segment of a longer class, such as 20 minutes out of a 90 minute class period) is as follows:

First class: English /l/
Second class: Review of English /l/, English /r/
Third class: Review of English /l/, /r/, contrast of English /l/ vs. /r/
Fourth class: Review and revise as necessary

English /l/ should be taught using the most frequent and useful words of English as possible (and teachers should be prepared to provide an L1 translation in the case of less common words) and should cover the following types of /l/:

Word-initial [l]: like, lake, let, lot, low, lamp, leap, last, etc. 
Unvoiced cluster [l]: clean, close, clock, place, play, please, slide, slow, slip, etc. Voiced cluster [l]: blue, blow, blood, blame, glad, glue, glow, glass, etc.  
Post-vocalic [l] (dark l): feel, fall, fail, call, sale, all, deal, tall, etc.
Medial [l]: follow, hollow, yellow, jello, hello, pillow, filling, collect, etc. 
Unstressed syllabic [l]: settle, beetle, battle, riddle, middle, puddle, little, tunnel, etc. 
-rl cluster: girl, world, whirl, hurl, curl, twirl, swirl, unfurl, etc. 

Then, English /r/ should be taught using the most frequent and useful words of English as possible and should cover the following types of /r/:

Word-initial [r]: right, raise, rise, risk, rose, run, red, road, etc. 
Unvoiced cluster [r]: cry, cream, crazy, tree, true, try, pray, praise, prize, three, throw, etc.  
Voiced cluster [r]: broom, bring, British, grow, grass, great, dry, draw, dream, etc. 
Post-vocalic [r] (reduces to or alternates with 'schwa' in many dialects and accents): car, fear, far, tear, fair, form, farm, dear, hear, more, war, etc.  
Medial [r]: correct, Korea, porous, preferring, occurring, recurring, referring, transferring, etc. 
Unstressed syllabic [r]: ladder, litter, batter, motor, runner, sadder, madder, heater, etc.  
-rl cluster: girl, world, whirl, hurl, curl, twirl, swirl, unfurl, etc. 

In the next part of this series, we will look at actual classroom activities that might be used to teach and practice English /l/ and /r/, both in terms of listening perception and language production.