Education

English speakers are from Mars
Kumiko Makihara
December 6, 2006

TOKYO: Despite some predictions that Chinese will become the next worldwide lingua franca, the acceptance of English as the global language, spurred by the spread of the Internet, is here to stay. Fluent English is increasingly expected, rather than respected, in the business community.
Considering Japan's economic prowess, and how many Japanese travel and work overseas, the country has a surprisingly low level of fluency in English. So rare is fluency here that my father was nicknamed "the alien" for speaking English and being Westernized. And this was in the 1990s, when he was the president of a major Japanese trading company where most of his business was conducted in English.
A growing divide between English speakers and non-English speakers doesn't bode well for a big economic power like Japan. Yet a government committee's proposal to introduce English into the elementary school curriculum has met surprising protest.
"Teaching English may be necessary in the global community, but as a Japanese, one must first be able to speak proper Japanese," declared Bunmei Ibuki, the education minister, upon his appointment in September.
Ibuki's remarks reflect a stubborn insular mentality still prevalent among Japan's elite. After all, Japan managed to become one of the world's largest economies without its people mastering much English. Foreign-language study doesn't need to be a high priority for children, they say.
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The influential author and mathematician Masahiko Fujiwara even says that Japanese should be proud that their scores on the Toefl, the test that assesses English proficiency of non-native speakers, rank among the lowest in Asia. That is the result of the country never having been colonized nor forced to speak another language, Fujiwara writes in his best-selling book, "Kokka no Hinkaku" or dignity of a nation.
While Japan slowly debates the issue, its neighbors and rivals in Asia have taken the practical road and acquiesced to the English-speaking trend.
Like Japan, none of them have historical or cultural ties to the English language. China, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have all incorporated English into their elementary school curriculum.
Poor English skills didn't matter much for Japanese in the 70s and 80s when global customers clamored to do business with any Japanese company, says John Shook, an auto consultant based in Michigan. "The competition now faced by Japanese company A is not another Japanese company, but Chinese or Korean or American. The embarrassingly low level of English spoken by Japanese managers, while a mere embarrassment before, is now a major business liability," he says.
Opponents of introducing English into Japan's curriculum argue that children should spend those precious hours studying their own complex tongue: a difficult language with layers of honorifics and thousands of written characters that linguists lament young people are increasingly unable to master. But the government proposal only calls for one hour of English per week in the 5th and 6th grades, hardly enough time to confuse children linguistically or do damage to their Japanese. And that hour could go far in impressing upon children that there is a world beyond their borders accessible by language.
To be sure there are major hurdles to implementing English classes in schools here. Only about 4 percent of elementary school teachers are currently certified to teach English. And few can pronounce the language like a native speaker. But until training is complete, schools could use audio visual materials. Better to get an early start.
To forge ahead, Japanese students will also have to overcome their shyness in trying out new words.
In this extremely conformist society, even children are reluctant to stand out by speaking better or worse than their peers, so few students are eager to speak up in class. It doesn't help that English instruction in schools never encouraged speaking.
But any language student knows that on the road to fluency, it's no shame, no gain.
I take advantage of this cultural aversion to shame sometimes by speaking English to my son in public when he misbehaves, increasing my volume until he gets into line. It usually works.
My son doesn't want to stand out like an alien, after all. I myself would be happy to have him be from outer space in Japan, as long as he could communicate with the rest of the world.
Kumiko Makihara is a freelance writer based in Tokyo.




http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/06/opinion/edkumiko.php　


I disagree with the writer. I agree to only this part" it's becoming global world, and it is necessary to speak English."


Now, people clamor to study English everywhere in Japan to prepare for global world. I expect more and more English is necessary for us to improve Japanese economy. when thinking about recently news like stock prices, we can see it's all connected to the world. However, poor English for Japanese and the fact we have the lowest English skills in Asia is viewed with suspicion. the reason is, as the writer says "Like Japan, none of them have historical or cultural ties to the English language". I think lots of our factors such as non-be colonized, island and Japanese grammar which is totally opposite range to English and Japanese shy let us be poor English Speaker.




However, I disagree to this part, "Opponents of introducing English into Japan's curriculum argue that children should spend those precious hours studying their own complex tongue: a difficult language with layers of honorifics and thousands of written characters that linguists lament young people are increasingly unable to master. But the government proposal only calls for one hour of English per week in the 5th and 6th grades, hardly enough time to confuse children linguistically or do damage to their Japanese."

I know many people have this kinds of opinion, and I had it that young people must learn their language and country at first. the reason why I changed my mind is that having interest in English is most important for children to start English. If they are warning that children does not have more time to study English in school to study their own complex tongue, then even more We have to try children to learn English from more young age.

I think when they start learning English, they do not need to study grammar and a lot of time because as I said before the most purpose for children to learn English is to having "INTEREST" in English. just they need a chance to learn what is English to meet with foreigner and learning other countries.



the reason why I focus on the interest is because learning other language needs so long time to study to get. Moreover, though mother language needs us to live but other language does not so to continue to study foreign language, we need the interest in them.