Why English learning fails in Japan: Reason #9

Note: This is a series that was started about a year ago, so it really is time to bring it to a close, with installments on reasons 9 and 10. This blog post will be reason number 9, with reason 10 and a 1-10 recap article to follow soon.

Why English learning fails in Japan: Reason #9

Reason #9: The foreign language teaching and learning 'culture'

What is meant here by the term 'culture' is the overall approach to teaching and learning EFL (and these are collaborative activities) that is specific to Japan. Aspects of this issue might really reflect EFL situations in developed E. Asia (such as S. Korea, Taiwan, and eastern urban China) and even worldwide, but I hope to get at the heart of what is particular to the situation here in Japan.

It is often said and written that TEFL here in Japan is dominated by 'Grammar Translation'. However, usually the term grammar translation means teaching and learning a FL with compilations of grammar and then activities centered on translation of texts, often authentic and literary ones.

If you have taught at a JHS or SHS here in Japan (for example, as a JET Programme ALT), you might have noticed that students themselves do not actually do much translation (rarely above the level of an isolated sentence) and that the texts used are always 'graded', that is, reduced and re-written with control of vocabulary. Classroom discourse is in Japanese and dominated by the teacher, who presents specific rules of grammar and vocabulary terms. The communicative focus and flow, such as it is, is to get the unknown, opaque English code (L2) into the known, understood human language (standard Japanese). English texts are used mostly to illustrate the previously taught grammar rules and vocabulary.

I would argue that the overall approach goes back to the popularity of the so-called 'Reading Method' between the first and second world wars in the 20th century. The idea behind the method was appealing and simple: since it was impractical to teach oral methods in most EFL situations, why not promote a high level of EFL reading instead? The Japanese term is 'yaku-doku', which does not translate as 'grammar translation' but rather 'translation reading' instead.

So this reading method persists, and no doubt it has proved practical as a way to deliver general education English to the entire school population. However, it hasn't really led to a differentiated, sophisticated or flexible culture of teaching and learning EFL. Instead, it has resulted in a minimal level of familiarity with EFL and language learning in classrooms (and in EFL countries, this the classroom is the key 'interface', since there is no English-speaking society outside the classroom). This 'minimal level' of doing things traps both the learners and the teachers who have to oversee such a system.

Why English learning fails in Japan: Reason #5

Why English learning fails in Japan: Reason #5

Note: This is the fifth of a series that will run for at least ten parts. However, readers' comments are welcomed and, where relevant, will be added as reasons in the main series, with full credit given.

Reason #5: Lack of national consensus on foreign language education

This reason, once it is grasped, leads the analysis to many specific problems that are embedded in education in Japan. If you ask many Japanese, they will complain quite strongly about English language teaching and learning in the country's schools, from the junior highs/middle schools (where EFL first becomes a part of the official curriculum) right on up to its colleges and universities. So you might think that there is some sort of consensus for change. But it is not enough to agree that something is wrong with English Language Teaching (ELT) and classroom learning in Japan. There has to be some sort of consensus about what to do about the inadequacy of ELT and learning in order to improve it.

Instead of a consensus, what you will find in actual advocacy and practice breaks down along contradictory lines. Some advocate the education of more translators and interpreters. Some think that the current generations of Japanese who finish secondary and tertiary levels of education (and this is now the majority of young people now) ought to be able to read and even write within their specialties and professions. This thought is similar to the policy that drove EFL learning in Japan between the first and second wars. And to this day you will see the legacy of that period's 'Reading Method' (often misleadingly called 'Grammar Translation') in current EFL classes from the middle school level upwards. Still yet another voice of reform says that Japanese need practical English, and they often cite oral English or 'English conversation' being the best example of what they advocate.

All these priorities bring with them problems. First, you can not train most people to be translators and interpreters, so the education system here needs to be better at selecting talented students for these specialties. Also, if the nation's needs are for people to translate or interpret Japanese into English, more native speakers of English also have to be involved. Second, it can be excessively difficult and boring to be forced to read a FL you can't speak. In effect, it turns English into dead Latin, and most students simply flounder in Japanese translations and related 'grammar explanations' of the English texts rather than read in English. Third, most Japanese don't experience a pressing need for oral English skills, except when they travel overseas or if they work in a business or a branch of government that conducts its international activities at a level beyond translation and interpretation services.

Many in Japan have identified the same problem--an education system that fails at foreign languages. Now they have to take stock of why specifically their system fails and then forge some sort of working consensus for each level and type of education.

At the university level this might be centered on working language policies across the curriculum addressing FL learning's place in the wider general education curriculum. Reform could also be concentrated on better integration of FLT and FLL with majors and specialties for which foreign languages are a key skill.

As for general education, so much of EFL in Japan now falls in this area. There are actually very few programs for majoring in EFL or even majors that require it as integral to a given specialty. Instead, EFL is in effect an ill-fitting part of general education. If institutions do not take foreign language teaching and learning within general education seriously, should they be surprised that the students do not?