Abstract
This research article explores the reason why Japan ranks low on the English proficiency and study about what the government does to improve it. The author used 1 article, 2 websites and 1 book to research about the topic. The author’s analysis shows that Japan’s English education has many problems, but the government is doing many things to support it.
Introduction
Japan is a home to 100 million Japanese, and most of the population is unilingual. Many Japanese don not use English in their everyday life, so they do not have a strong connection with English. Recently, the English proficiency level for Japanese was ranked 53rd in an annual survey of 100 non-English speaking countries and regions by EF Education First and was down from 49th place in last year’s survey. The aim of this research is to explore the reason why Japan ranked low in the test and study about what the government does to improve Japan’s English proficiency.
Literature Review
As written in the introduction, Japan ranked 53th place out of 100 countries. However, many Asian countries such as Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia ranked higher than Japan. Among the problems of English language education in Japan, no other topic has created more controversy than the sufficiency of communicative skills in English. In general, it is often said that Japanese people are proficient in grammar but are not in listening and speaking abilities. This happens because most of the population in Japan don’t use English in their everyday lives and they have a very few opportunities to use English. So at Japanese school, they do a lot of activities to grow their communication skill and their listening skill by doing more output work.
As you know Japanese and English is very different from each other such as the order of nouns and verbs. So it is fundamentally different from each other. Therefore Japanese people struggles both inputting and outputting English skills they learn at school. Also, the textbooks used at Japanese school are low leveled, so they cannot input many English skills compared to other countries such as South Korea. However, now the government is thinking of a new policy for English education, so maybe this is going to change.
Japan’s English education is mostly focused on translating English into Japanese and Japanese Teachers of English (JTE) lack skills in speaking English. According to the article, “What’s wrong with English education in Japan? Pull up a chair” in JapanToday states” JTEs often teach all the grammar in Japanese, and check that the students can follow the textbook by translating the English into Japanese. Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) are regulated to human tape recorders, and then set free to roam the class and help the students. Of all the hours of English education, how many of those hours are spent actually listening to and speaking English? “ But now, many schools have changed how they teach English, both JTE and the ALTs use English in most of the time in class.
Conclusion
Japan has low English proficiency compared to other non-English countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia. This shows that Japan’s English education still has many problems such as lacks in English in class and lacks of opportunity to output. But recently, things are changing. For example, many English classes at school use English all the time and no Japanese and doing many activities in English. However, Japan still lacks in exposure to English compared to other countries. In conclusion, Japan ranks low, because Japan’s English education has many problems, but some of them are getting better.
References
1.Japanese ranked 53rd in English skills in annual worldwide survey. (2019, November 9). The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/09/national/japanese-ranked-53rd-english-skills-annual-worldwide-survey/
2.文法の勉強をする前に『日本語と英語の違い３つ』を知ろう｜英語＊ワーホリ in イギリス&カナダ -English for-. (2018, December 11). 英語＊ワーホリ in イギリス&カナダ -English For-. https://english-for.net/2018/12/11/grammar1/
3.Japan Today. (2014, October 6). What’s wrong with English education in Japan? Pull up a chair – Japan Today. Japantoday.Com. 4.https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/whats-wrong-with-english-education-in-japan-pull-up-a-chair
