Why English Education in Japan is Failing (a 20+ years English Teacher’s Perspective)

What is wrong with English education in Japan? I'm Jordan aka Inside Outsider in Japan. Most of my videos so far have been on topics other than education. But in truth, this is my actual area of expertise. For over 20 years now, I've been working in the field of English education here in Japan, both in the classroom, in a lot of different classrooms, and working with administrators at the municipal level. So if you're wondering who's to blame for the current state of English education here in Japan, look no further. Just kidding. But I do think that my experience to this point has given me a certain amount of perspective on the issue. Or at least I have a lot to say about it. So where were we? Ah, take a look at this article. Japanese middle schoolers average 12% on English speaking exam. The exam was taken by 1.9 million 9th graders across the country and is a new type of exam designed to more accurately and efficiently access students' level of speaking ability in English. And considering that 3 out of 5 students didn't answer a single question on the test, there wasn't a whole lot to access. Well, maybe it was just the test. Let's look at these newer numbers from an international English testing company. Japan ranks 92nd in English proficiency and declining. This is a ranking of 116 countries where English is not considered the native language. Not the best results here either. So what are we doing wrong here? Well, I could think of a few things. But no amount of critique I could throw at the English education system here in Japan would properly explain the current situation. In my opinion, it isn't primarily an educational issue at all. But something much more interesting. Let's talk about it. I'll start off with an overview of English education provided by the public school system in Japan. In the 3rd and 4th grades of elementary school, students in Japan have one 45-minute English class per week. There is a set curriculum, although it's considered a foreign language activity rather than a subject for these grades. From grade 5, English achieves subject status. And there are two classes per week in the 5th and 6th grades. All schools in the country are equipped with physical and online textbooks, including various audiovisual resources. Elementary school teachers receive a limited but gradually increasing amount of training for English language instruction. Schools are also regularly visited by foreign assistant language teachers. At this level, English education focuses mainly on communication activities. Spoken, not written. Next, junior high school, sometimes called middle school, covers the 7th, 8th and 9th grades. At this level, students have four English classes per week. Including speaking, reading and writing activities. With an increasing focus on grammar and translation as they progress. Teachers at this level have received subject-specific training as part of their teacher training in university. And while their actual speaking ability is varied, they are at least considered subject experts. After junior high school, many students go on to study English in high school or university. Although there's a lot of variation in that, since we're now out of the range of compulsory education. There's also a whole ecosystem of private English schools attended by children and adults, depending on their goals and finances. But in spite of all of this, most students never go on to achieve communicative competence in English. Why is this? First of all, I should mention that Japanese and English are extremely different languages. As an example, let's take the English sentence, Jordan wants to drink beer. In Japanese, that would be, ジョーダンはビールを飲みたい。 Or, Jordan, topic marker, beer, object marker, drink want to. The amount of time it takes for a native Japanese speaker to master English, or vice versa, should not be underestimated. I know this from personal experience. But this alone doesn't explain why, in spite of the considerable resources going into English education in this country, so few people can actually communicate in English. So let's look at some other reasons. The original point of foreign language education here was not communication, but translation. That has long since changed. But despite the best efforts of many teachers and policy makers, the education system has been unable to meet the needs of modern-day society. One result of this has been that Japanese companies and research institutions have been unable to create integrated, multi-national teams or workforces, since Japanese staff can't communicate well with non-Japanese speakers. So, why hasn't the English education system been able to adapt? It's not due to lack of will or financial support. To get a sense of why repurposing the education system here has been so difficult, there's something you have to keep in mind. Japan, as a society, is resistant to change. Not just in education, but all across society. No one is saying change is bad or anything like that. It's just kind of built into the culture. One reason, I think, is because this is a society where group identity is favored at the expense of the individual, and rocking the boat is not encouraged. And as a result, progressive ideas in any organization, whether educational or corporate or whatever, tend to get shut down in favor of maintaining the status quo. Next point. There are also other cultural forces at work here. This part is purely speculative, but I've noticed a kind of socially constructed psychological barrier to learning foreign languages here. Specifically, there's this weird idea that many Japanese people have that there's something at the biological level that somehow prevents them from learning multiple languages. People don't really say this out loud, or even necessarily know they have this idea until it comes up in conversation. Like when people comment that someone must be really smart because they can speak a foreign language well. Or when people freak out to see a fellow Japanese person speaking English or another foreign language smoothly. And so consider the effect of this in a society where people are also taught not to stand out or seem obviously different from their peers. Study English. You'll probably never master it. But if you do, then you'll be considered a freak or a social outcast. Not the best motivational message. Then there's the cultural trait of perfectionism. People in Japan hate to make mistakes in front of others. So in class, when I ask a question to my junior high school students, for example, they generally won't answer unless they're completely confident their answer is correct. I think I know the answer. But what if I make a grammar mistake? When you ask a Japanese person if they can speak English, their answer will usually be, Oh, sorry, I can't speak English. Or something like that. Many of these people actually do know quite a lot of English, but they just feel their English isn't perfect. So they're ashamed to use it at all. Anyway, the fact that Japanese people generally tend to understate their ability isn't the problem here. The socially held belief that making mistakes in front of others is unacceptable. This is a problem. Because language learning is all about making mistakes. If you don't speak because you're afraid of making a mistake, you're not going to improve. And unfortunately, your English teacher telling you that making mistakes is okay, doesn't seem to override the deeper social message. The final point is the most basic one. But I also think an important one. In Japan, until very recently, there just hasn't been a convincing reason to learn a foreign language. In other countries that are rich and powerful in society can generally speak English. Obviously, not everyone, but it's the definite trend. Here, on the other hand, the social elite are mostly monolingual. It's true. The vast majority of people who hold positions of power or prestige in Japanese society speak Japanese. And that's it. So no role models. And no real motivation or need to learn English, a language that is really hard to learn due to its difference from Japanese. Would you take it seriously? It seems to me that our brains don't really want to commit resources to something unless there's some kind of tangible pressure or reward. If we feel a real necessity, we can accomplish amazing things. But if not, why make the effort? But speaking of effort, I really do get the sense that in the last few years, there is a conscious social change happening. I've seen a real change in the way people are talking and thinking in education circles, and a lot of changes in the way things are being done in the classroom, and even the way testing is being done. In fact, that test that the vast majority of junior high school students failed was, as far as I know, the first nationwide effort to make a standardized test of students' actual communicative ability in English. And obviously, the results showed that we're not there yet. But what makes me hopeful here is that finally, the tests are actually being designed to measure students' ability to communicate. This is new, right? I mean, up to now, it's been basically translation and memorization of specific grammar and vocabulary and things like that, but not actually communicating their ideas. And what this does is put pressure all the way down the system to change the way we teach and change our expectations of what we're getting out of English classes in general, and what we expect of students and teachers. And this is something that we haven't seen before. I'll have to report back to you in a few years and let you know how things are going. Thanks for watching.