When reflecting on their own experiences studying English at junior and senior high school, several participants commented that while some concerns remain about what is behind the teaching of English, the classroom experience for young Japanese studying English at school is much better now due to the improved quality of Japanese teachers of English and increased focus on developing speaking abilities.
Noriko believes that students have greater access to native English speakers and that the general standard of English teachers is higher than when she was a child:
In my age the Japanese English teacher knows about grammar and reading but very bad at pronunciation. My teacher, I think specialist, special, maybe, I don’t know, but my English teacher very bad at pronunciation in Japanese accent, bad Japanese accent. And doesn’t speak English at all, Japanese only. Many teachers like that in my age. Nowadays foreigner speak, teach English with Japanese teacher. I envy them.
The wider context has also changed and as Misato noted, not only do young people now have greater opportunities to meet English speakers but they also have access to the internet and English language resources through this. Kazue, who is a high school
92
English teacher, has seen teaching practices change since graduating as a teacher herself with a greater emphasis now on developing listening and speaking abilities. However, despite some improvements, Kazue believes that some problems remain and may even be getting worse. It seems that while teachers may be better trained as language teachers and while policy makers may understand better the best way to teach language, wider policy issues continue to be driven by schools wishing to maintain appearances, such as the example of choosing textbooks that are too difficult or structured in a certain way that is not effective in order to impress parents and market the school:
The problem is the school focus on the improving the ability to get high marks in exams. So, it’s a private school and they give students a lot, give them workbook that contains many errands. So they have too much things to do. And they, so, besides the students ability is not so high. But the school wants to teach them all more. So the students fails to acquire the basis of English. That’s a problem…Because as you know the decreasing birth-rate, the competition in the private schools is becoming fierce and especially the situation about girls private school is very severe. So the level of the students is getting worse and worse in my school…The school wants to choose a difficult textbook. Maybe, partly because advertisement for the parents and cram school.
Kazue sees this approach to English study as part of a wider, ongoing social problem that influences the educational context. The focus on passing exams is, according to Kazue’s analysis, part of a wider deference to authority. Teaching students to think for themselves or to express original ideas is, therefore, a revolutionary act and when the
93
teaching of the English language is also brought into this a range of difficult political and ideological issues of become entwined:
Recently I think, I’m afraid the Japanese government try to make people obedient to the government so maybe the Japanese education, education in Japan focuses on too many examinations just to obey the authority. So I think to, in the democratic country to have autonomous judgment is most important. But I am afraid that current education does not succeed in doing so. So as a teacher I want to make the student acquire the ability to think for themselves. When I teach I’m worried about the students because they want to know, when I solve the workbooks in class they want to know only the answers. “Why this is so?”, they don’t think about, “Why this is so?” … Maybe the root is maybe after the war. Some people say, of course Japan is said to be a democratic country. But we didn’t win democracy by ourselves. The democracy was given by the United States. So both the politicians and also the citizens have little conscious about what the democracy is. It’s a problem I think.
Kazue’s own experience at junior high school was similar to this, with the focus on developing obedience. That students are only interested in what the correct answers are reflects the basis on which English study has been built.
When talking about the classes that her daughter attends, Yuriko also expressed concern that some of the same negative motivational factors that she experienced are still present in classes now, and that with the pressure that has come from the increased value that English is perceived to have, the educational-context is not one which will positively motivate students to study English,
94
Textbook is very, textbook has changed very much. Compared to my generation the textbook is very harder… the speed of lesson [in my daughter’s class] is very high, rapid. Pace is very high. So, and every week, every day she takes English class in the school but just one time, for only one time in a week she can’t understand the lesson, next time she completely can’t understand the whole lesson. And also the teachers imposed or pushed, teachers push students to study too hard. It was good, in a sense, but it is not good because that kind of thing is probably causes, one of causes of the student come to hate English.
As with the high school classes, there is a feeling the university English classes are now changing with students having more opportunities to speak in English, as Fumie’s comment regarding her university-aged children demonstrates.
There is a small class and they can choose conversation classes if they want. So that is very different from what we got at university when I was young.
Fumie’s children attend university now and are able to participate in smaller conversation classes, which is a great change from when she was a university student herself.