The shocking discovery that Japan ranks worst in Asia after Laos and Cambodia in English language ability despite the vast resources and time spent teaching the language.
And now we have a prime ministerial advisory committee report saying English should even be elevated to the status of second official language in Japan.
Teaching English in primary schools obviously will do no harm.
But it won’t do much good either, so long as students are later subjected to six years with middle and high school teachers interested only in textbook English, grammar and preparation for university entrance exams.
Reformists are envious of the way Southeast Asians seem to absorb English naturally.
But even if English was an official language here it is hard to imagine the Japanese nation emerging as a fluent English speaker.
If Japan wants a model it should look much more to the universities in the United States, Australia and Europe now producing numbers of good Chinese and Japanese language speakers.
Many of these students do not begin serious study before university.
But they have two things going for them: high motivation and daily access to correct techniques for language learning.
In fact, anyone can learn any number of languages if they use the right techniques.
If young children are good at languages, that is simply because they are receptive to what they hear.
If women learn languages better than men it is often for the same reason.
The problem for most of the rest of us is that we subconsciously impose barriers to absorbing foreign sounds. English teaching in Japan seems designed deliberately to retain and strengthen those barriers.
Most Japanese teachers of English themselves cannot speak or understand English properly. They have a vested interest in keeping their students in the same condition. To preserve their tattered prestige they have no choice but to impose on hapless students their bookworn and often mistaken knowledge of obscure English grammar and vocabulary.
The main result is to create in most students a profound dislike of having anything to do with the English language for the rest of their lives.
Even the more enlightened seem to think that concentrating on “yomikaki” (reading and writing) English does no harm since it provides the foundation for learning the spoken language later. But if anything, it is the reserve: Once people set out on the yomikaki route, it becomes that much harder later on to switch to speaking.
In particular, Japanese have a real problem understanding spoken English. It is as if having wired their language “computer” for yomikaki they cannot adapt it for any other purpose.
Some now rely on cassette and video sets promising instant ability in English. But for the most part, students listen superficially, using the second they hear simply to confirm the mistaken English they already have in their “computer.” Conversation practice has much the same result.
How to reform the system?
By all means start at primary school, with simple songs, conversation and the identification of written words with sounds. Continue along the same lines at middle school, with increasing emphasis on writing and grammar.
Motivation is crucial to language learning. Students at age 18 understand the need for language study far better than 12-year-olds. And at 18 the mind is still young enough to absorb language easily.
Cheers 