Difficulties facing Japanese learners of EFL
Not too long ago, a friend of mine who's doing research on the topic asked me for my thoughts on English teaching in Japan. As it was an open-ended question, and seemed to flow right into the last blog that I'd written, I decided to put it into blog form. Comments welcome!
I've been an English teacher for approximately six years now, roughly five of which was spent in Japan. Thus far, it's been an interesting experience to say the least, and after spending so much time here, I still find myself asking the same question that I've heard posted time and time again by those that come here: Why is it that people in Japan have such a hard time speaking English?
I've come to deduct that, like any complex question, the answer itself may not be particularly difficult, but involves looking at it from more than one angle. I think there's a myriad of factors that come into play in facilitating the difficulties that Japanese people face in communicating in English, but in particular, culture, lack of easy opportunities for practice and the Eikaiwa system itself all constitute major reasons. I'll describe each in detail as follows:
As aforementioned, the first major factor that creates difficulty in Japanese people's ability to communicate in English is culture. As anyone who has ever been there will tell you, (in particular in Tokyo), Japanese people are notoriously shy and cautious around people that they don't know. Being able to both think in, and produce speech in a foreign language requires a great deal of mental effort, and as a function of that, as with excellence in anything, mental relaxation is the key to quick and accurate responses. In Japan, everyone is required to study English for 6 years in Junior High School, and in general, most everyone seems to maintain a working base of grammar, and are capable of conveying and understanding meaning through reading and writing. One of the biggest problems blocking their ability to actually produce speech is simply their nervousness. Anyone who's ever given a speech can tell you how much more difficult it is to produce when you are shy (even if you know the material), and for the average Japanese person on the street, talking to foreigners represents a particular challenge that they rarely feel they are prepared for; even if just in casual conversation. This is particularly the case when talking to western foreigners. Although economically, Japan is relatively egalitarian, socially most people are either oriented towards looking up or looking down at people who are different from them; not simply seeing them as being in the same position on the social ladder. Given the economic, military, and political strength of the west, many Japanese see Western foreigners as holding a stronger relative position in the scheme of things, and may view their lack of shyness (and oftentimes humility) as an indication of their 'superior position'.
At the same time however, it is equally likely that a great deal of this shyness simply stems from lack of exposure and the uncertainty that comes with dealing with someone who looks, walks, talks, and acts completely different from you. This brings us to our next factor; lack of opportunity to speak. As aforementioned, mental relaxation is a key attribute to effective and quick thinking, both of which are necessary for language production.
Unfortunately however, the only way to develop it is through enough repetition and practice that one's mind can learn what factors to take into account in making decisions, and what factors not to concern itself with, thereby allowing it to relax and hone it's processes. In the case of Japanese language learners this offers a particular challenge in terms of the fact that for the average person, there are very few opportunities to get this repetition at home. This is further complicated by the fact that those foreigners living in Japan- in an attempt to make things 'easier' for them- will oftentimes speak to them in broken English themselves, thereby depriving them of the only interactive model they have available as what natural English is supposed to sound like. Although traveling abroad in search of opportunities to speak naturally may be a viable option for some, they may still be hindered by the aforementioned nervousness they feel around Western foreigners, and many will settle into groups of other traveling Japanese so as to avoid the need to communicate individually at all.
This may not particularly be the case when traveling to other areas in Asia (where Japan holds the strongest relative position), but at the same time, in the speaking opportunities presented by communicating with others who learned English as a foreign language, key elements such as accurate grammar and pronunciation may or may not be present, even if the person whom they are communicating with is capable of a greater level of articulation in English.
This, of course, leads Japanse students of EFL to their last available resource, the 'Eikaiwa', or English conversation school. Having worked extensively at a myriad of Eikaiwa in Tokyo, I can attest to the fact that they can truly give Japanese students the simple practice of speech that they very much need to improve. Unfortunately however, oftentimes, the function of the demand being higher than the supply necessitates they may also be staffed by people with little to no education in the field of English teaching (or even in education in general), and the models of learning that they put forth may or may not be entirely accurate. (Take, for example how may Eikaiwa texts have face-to-face dialogs that start with the word 'Hello'. In English, hello is a telephone word and is rarely, if ever used when native speakers greet each other).
Another problem facing English learners at Eikaiwas is the fact that, as much as staff and management may care about their students, the fact remains that business is business. As such, and as a function of the fact they have to remain competitive with other schools, oftentimes a students' constant buying of new materials is of more relevance than that business than whether or not they are actually learning and progressing at a pace that is suitable for them. As any Eikaiwa teacher will tell you, students may be advanced to a higher class before they are even competent with the text, grammar or functions that they are given, leaving it to teachers to find the delicate balance of keeping things moving for the capable students while still slowing things down enough so as not to leave the low ability students behind.
I've been an English teacher for approximately six years now, roughly five of which was spent in Japan. Thus far, it's been an interesting experience to say the least, and after spending so much time here, I still find myself asking the same question that I've heard posted time and time again by those that come here: Why is it that people in Japan have such a hard time speaking English?
I've come to deduct that, like any complex question, the answer itself may not be particularly difficult, but involves looking at it from more than one angle. I think there's a myriad of factors that come into play in facilitating the difficulties that Japanese people face in communicating in English, but in particular, culture, lack of easy opportunities for practice and the Eikaiwa system itself all constitute major reasons. I'll describe each in detail as follows:
As aforementioned, the first major factor that creates difficulty in Japanese people's ability to communicate in English is culture. As anyone who has ever been there will tell you, (in particular in Tokyo), Japanese people are notoriously shy and cautious around people that they don't know. Being able to both think in, and produce speech in a foreign language requires a great deal of mental effort, and as a function of that, as with excellence in anything, mental relaxation is the key to quick and accurate responses. In Japan, everyone is required to study English for 6 years in Junior High School, and in general, most everyone seems to maintain a working base of grammar, and are capable of conveying and understanding meaning through reading and writing. One of the biggest problems blocking their ability to actually produce speech is simply their nervousness. Anyone who's ever given a speech can tell you how much more difficult it is to produce when you are shy (even if you know the material), and for the average Japanese person on the street, talking to foreigners represents a particular challenge that they rarely feel they are prepared for; even if just in casual conversation. This is particularly the case when talking to western foreigners. Although economically, Japan is relatively egalitarian, socially most people are either oriented towards looking up or looking down at people who are different from them; not simply seeing them as being in the same position on the social ladder. Given the economic, military, and political strength of the west, many Japanese see Western foreigners as holding a stronger relative position in the scheme of things, and may view their lack of shyness (and oftentimes humility) as an indication of their 'superior position'.
At the same time however, it is equally likely that a great deal of this shyness simply stems from lack of exposure and the uncertainty that comes with dealing with someone who looks, walks, talks, and acts completely different from you. This brings us to our next factor; lack of opportunity to speak. As aforementioned, mental relaxation is a key attribute to effective and quick thinking, both of which are necessary for language production.
Unfortunately however, the only way to develop it is through enough repetition and practice that one's mind can learn what factors to take into account in making decisions, and what factors not to concern itself with, thereby allowing it to relax and hone it's processes. In the case of Japanese language learners this offers a particular challenge in terms of the fact that for the average person, there are very few opportunities to get this repetition at home. This is further complicated by the fact that those foreigners living in Japan- in an attempt to make things 'easier' for them- will oftentimes speak to them in broken English themselves, thereby depriving them of the only interactive model they have available as what natural English is supposed to sound like. Although traveling abroad in search of opportunities to speak naturally may be a viable option for some, they may still be hindered by the aforementioned nervousness they feel around Western foreigners, and many will settle into groups of other traveling Japanese so as to avoid the need to communicate individually at all.
This may not particularly be the case when traveling to other areas in Asia (where Japan holds the strongest relative position), but at the same time, in the speaking opportunities presented by communicating with others who learned English as a foreign language, key elements such as accurate grammar and pronunciation may or may not be present, even if the person whom they are communicating with is capable of a greater level of articulation in English.
This, of course, leads Japanse students of EFL to their last available resource, the 'Eikaiwa', or English conversation school. Having worked extensively at a myriad of Eikaiwa in Tokyo, I can attest to the fact that they can truly give Japanese students the simple practice of speech that they very much need to improve. Unfortunately however, oftentimes, the function of the demand being higher than the supply necessitates they may also be staffed by people with little to no education in the field of English teaching (or even in education in general), and the models of learning that they put forth may or may not be entirely accurate. (Take, for example how may Eikaiwa texts have face-to-face dialogs that start with the word 'Hello'. In English, hello is a telephone word and is rarely, if ever used when native speakers greet each other).
Another problem facing English learners at Eikaiwas is the fact that, as much as staff and management may care about their students, the fact remains that business is business. As such, and as a function of the fact they have to remain competitive with other schools, oftentimes a students' constant buying of new materials is of more relevance than that business than whether or not they are actually learning and progressing at a pace that is suitable for them. As any Eikaiwa teacher will tell you, students may be advanced to a higher class before they are even competent with the text, grammar or functions that they are given, leaving it to teachers to find the delicate balance of keeping things moving for the capable students while still slowing things down enough so as not to leave the low ability students behind.
posted by Chuck at 12:06 AM
1 Comments:
Another setback for Japanese English-learners is that since English just uses more sounds (phonemes, to be linguistical) than Japanese and has exceptions to every grammar rule, unlike Japanese, that we're not playing on a level field.
It's discouraging for a Japanese person to spend years sudying English (with or without a native speaker teaching them) and still not have most native speakers understand their pronounciation of "thunder" while English speakers have a little difficulty pronouncing "tsu" but not much else.
Not to mention that it's possible for an English speaker to learn Japanese relatively quickly and have decent pronounciation with enough effort by following the strict grammar rules. I've had a few Japanese students ask me why their American co-worker who has only studied Japanese since he moved to Japan can speak so well.
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