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According to Ike (1995), “Nothing has been more vehemently argued than the problem of the inefficacy of English education in Japan” (p. 5). It is more or less standard practice for scholarly works, and even Japanese government documents, to frame English teaching in Japan as a problem that needs fixing (Seargeant, 2009).

Attention has focused on the persistence of the grammar-translation approach in Japan’s schools. Grammar translation is characterized by the

deductive learning of grammar rules, and the translation of sentences into and out of the target language. Teaching is typically in the student’s first language, and there is a strong emphasis on correcting errors (J. C. Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Although in most parts of the world grammar translation was the dominant approach to foreign language teaching until the 1940s, the method was gradually supplanted by oral approaches, and especially CLT. Japan, however, is one country where grammar translation is still widely practised.

Grammar translation is commonly identified with yakudoku (訳読), the traditional Japanese method of translating languages, which Hino (1988) claims dates back more than a thousand years. Yakudoku involves the word-by-word translation of the target language into Japanese, then the reordering of the translated words to match Japanese syntax. Although there are differences between them, the terms grammar translation and yakudoku are often used synonymously in the literature. Both share a focus on written texts as opposed to oral/aural skills, and both have given rise to a regime of regular testing in public schools (Gorsuch, 1998).

Since 1989, the Course of Study has steadily placed more emphasis on practical English communication skills. Such efforts are not entirely new. In 1922, British linguist Harold Palmer was invited to Japan as an advisor to the Education Ministry, and spent the next 14 years there, promoting teaching methods based on structured conversation drills. Aspinall (2013) considers these to have been “ahead of their time” (p. 51), and they failed to make any lasting impression. More recent attempts to shift high school English teaching away from grammar translation and towards a more communicative approach include the JET Programme, the insertion of Oral Communication courses into the high school curriculum, the introduction of English language activities at the

elementary school level, and the requirement, since 2013, that English classes be conducted in English rather than Japanese.

Notwithstanding attempts to promote CLT in schools, as Tahira (2012) observes, “There remains a big gap between the stated policies and what is actually done in the classroom” (p. 3). Numerous studies have found that many JTEs continue to employ teacher-centred, grammar-translation pedagogies. Sakui (2004) conducted fieldwork in high school English classrooms and found that,

Teachers spent most of the class time involved in teacher-fronted

grammar explanations, chorus reading, and vocabulary presentations. … Overall, in the observed class periods taught by Japanese teachers, if any time at all was spent on CLT it was a maximum of five minutes out of 50. (p. 157)

More recently, Humphries and Burns (2015) and Cave (2016) report similar findings. Nishino (2011) found that although many Japanese teachers said they wanted to make their lessons more communicative, very few actually did this.

Multiple factors have contributed to the gap Tahira (2012) identifies between policy and practice. Many commentators stress the role of grammar- oriented university entrance exams in shaping what happens in high school English classrooms (e.g. Aspinall, 2013; J. D. Brown & Yamashita, 1995; Gorsuch, 2000).According to Aspinall (2013), for many schools these tests constitute a “shadow curriculum” and have a more powerful effect on classroom

teaching than the Course of Study. Traditionally, entrance exams have focused on reading comprehension and grammatical knowledge, and this in turn has meant many teachers feel obliged to use yakudoku teaching methods, which are widely seen as the most reliable way of teaching to the test (Gorsuch, 2000; Underwood, 2010). Given these powerful washback effects, many scholars have called for university entrance exams to be revised as an essential step to

reforming English language teaching in Japan’s schools (e.g. LoCastro, 1996; Sakamoto, 2012).

The teachers in Nishino’s (2011) study also pointed to large classes as making speaking activities difficult to organize, and appeared to have little confidence in their ability to conduct CLT; Lamie (1998) draws attention to the general lack of training for teachers in communicative methodologies. O’Donnell (2005) reports frustration among JTEs with institutional restrictions, including a heavy burden of non-teaching tasks, and the

expectation of parents and colleagues that they prioritize exam preparation. Given these restrictions, perceived or otherwise, teachers are likely to fall back on the traditional yakudoku methodologies they themselves

experienced as students. As Borg (2004) explains, the methods teachers were exposed to at school constitute “‘default options’, a set of tried and tested strategies which they can revert to in times of indecision and uncertainty” (p. 274).

This tendency is highlighted by Humphries and Burns (2015), who provide a case study of JTEs at a kousen college, which combines a senior high school curriculum with two years of tertiary education. This means that unlike teachers in most other high schools, kousen teachers are under no pressure to prepare students for university entrance examinations, so are free to adopt new teaching styles. The authors discovered, however, that teachers

circumvented the CLT-oriented approaches of the new textbooks and expressed considerable uncertainty about how to implement them. In the face of such uncertainty, … [they resorted] to routine teacher-centred approaches where they maintained practices that were familiar and comfortable. … [T]here were no opportunities for students to interact with the materials or their peers to investigate new cultures, solve

problems, and/or express their interests and opinions. The teachers guided the students through the content, supplying answers orally, and providing Japanese translations and explanations. As a result, class-time was mostly devoted to teacher-talk. (p. 246)

Similarly, in a study of 92 senior high school teachers, Taguchi (2005) found that even in Oral Communication classes,

the methodology used in teaching spoken skills was essentially the same as the one used in traditional English classes. Teachers did not seem to understand how to use speaking and listening exercises in a

communicative manner and consequently reverted to their traditional methods (e.g. going over vocabulary items, choral repetition). (p. 10)

Perhaps the highest-profile government initiative to shift attention to English communication skills has been The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. Since its inauguration in 1987, the JET Programme has promoted team teaching in schools, which involves Japanese teachers collaborating with Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) in some classes. There are now more than 4,500 foreign ALTs attached to the programme in any given year (CLAIR, 2015), the majority of whom are native English speakers, typically from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia or New Zealand. The opportunity for Japanese teachers to work with ALTs has important implications for the incorporation of citizenship teaching into English classrooms (see 7.2.3), so it is worth

considering the JET Programme in some detail.

Although the JET Programme is most often discussed in the context of EFL in Japan, its origins were political (Miyazato, 2009). The programme was first proposed by the Ministry of Home Affairs – not by the Ministry of

Education, which was initially reluctant – and then championed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an instrument of kokusaika or “internationalization” (McConnell, 2000). Hood (2001) argues that the main motivation for the programme was not the improvement of English skills at all, but rather the projection of a positive image of Japan around the world. There are now some 62,000 former JET participants in 65 countries (CLAIR, 2015) all of whom will

have acquired some understanding of Japan while living there. The Japanese government judges the JET Programme to have been successful, and has signalled its intention to increase the number of ALTs to as many as 50,000 by 2023 – at least one for every elementary, junior and senior high school in the country – in order to “improve the English communication abilities and raise the ‘international spirit’ (kokusaisei 国際性) of young Japanese” (LDP, 2013, p. 7, my translation).

In terms of its impact on English teaching, opinions on the JET

Programme are mixed. As described above, attempts to promote communicative language teaching in Japanese schools are widely judged to have been

unsuccessful, with numerous studies revealing limited uptake of CLT by Japanese teachers. Nevertheless, some research suggests team teaching has had beneficial results. Gorsuch (2002) found that Japanese teachers who had taught with ALTs reported improvements in their English-speaking ability and

displayed more positive attitudes to CLT. She concludes that “ALTs are causing positive changes in JTEs’ professional abilities” (p. 22). In another study, Miyazato (2012) found that team-taught classes were highly motivating for students.

From the Ministry of Education’s standpoint, the ALT’s main function is to assist Japanese teachers in improving students’ English communication skills and act as a cultural resource, but depending on such factors as the type, size and academic standing of the school, the way team teaching is conducted varies greatly between schools. Many scholars have focused on the JTE-ALT

relationship and concluded that successful collaboration hinges on the way each perceives their respective roles (e.g. Hiratsuka & Barkhuizen, 2015; Miyazato, 2009). Some JTEs tend to defer to ALTs as native-speaking authorities on the language, assigning them a prominent place in lessons, while others may see them in a more limited role, as exotic embodiments of foreign culture whose activities and comments always need to be explained to students (Mahoney, 2004). While many JTEs welcome the opportunity to collaborate with ALTs, others view them as a troublesome distraction from the task of preparing students for university entrance examinations.