An awkward interview with Norah Jones

“the problem with english in japan is that it is taught by japanese teachers in japanese to prepare for tests designed by japanese people.”

The number of English “teachers” in Japan doesn’t have much to do with the situation. For one thing, very few of them would be qualified as teachers in their home countries. Knowing how to speak a language and knowing how to teach/knowing how to teach a language are completely different skills.

Some of the folks who wind up in Japan with bachelor’s degrees in random subjects and good intentions do a good job, of course, though self-education and what-have-you, but generally speaking, you need training in order to teach language well. That’s why ESL teachers in the US generally have master’s degrees specifically in teaching ESL.

In addition, few Japanese people have any real need or motivation for speaking English, kind of the way many Americans studied Spanish or French in high school or college (also mostly from pedagogically untrained teachers). It didn’t stick for most of us because most of us didn’t need it. Most of us didn’t care enough to study on our own or do any of the out-of-class stuff–reading French novels, watching telenovelas, etc.–that really helps you grasp a language. We knew it wasn’t important to our daily lives. (Well, and most of our teachers didn’t know much about modern teaching methods either.)

Another major factor is the lack of exposure to immersive, natural English. It takes a lot of effort to hang out with highly fluent/native English speakers in Japan, much like if you’re in non-urban Canada and want to surround yourself with Japanese speakers. Reading and listening aren’t easy either; the handful of motivated learners usually make the mistake of choosing materials that are way too hard on the theory that challenging is good, get stressed out, and quite naturally give up.

Finally, as mentioned above, the focus on English as a thing by which one gets certain test scores to get into the next school/job/whatever is also unhelpful. People don’t learn to use English; they learn ABOUT English. English gets reduced to a series of oversimplified, often ridiculous rules and grammar transformations–whatever can be memorized, regurgitated, and scored easily. It’s not treated as a medium of genuine communication. But that’s not surprising since English really isn’t that useful for the average Japanese person. (It would make much more sense for there to be a choice on college exams of Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, English, etc.)

So while I think English teaching methods (and teacher qualification standards) need be improved for the sake of the students who really want to learn English, I don’t actually see the average level of English in Japan as a particular surprised or a particular problem. The focus on English for no good reason (entrance exams, jobs, etc., when it’s not directly relevant) is a problem, though. And I say that as an English teacher.