Today, I picked up the news about the English education in Japan. If you think raising kids there or currently have kids, you must listen it.
Every April for sixth-graders and third-year junior high school students is aimed at measuring students’ basic knowledge of mathematics, Japanese and their ability to apply those skills to solve complex problems.
Starting this year, the ministry included English in the assessment for junior high school students, in line with the government’s plan to improve students’ abilities in the language. The test results were disclosed last Wednesday. The Japan Times reported.
The English test measures students’ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. The average score of 68.3 percent in the listening section and 56.2 percent in the reading section. But they scored only 46.4 percent in writing and 30.8 percent in speaking.
When I was a third-year junior high in 2008, I had this test time first time in my life. Teacher told us not to study in advance. They explained that it doesn’t affect our score in the school. I was in the public school then, and I was studying at the clam school after school. Neither of them have a writing nor speaking test.
According to the Japan Times, In the speaking section, many students struggled with improvised speech on randomly chosen topics. In the writing section, many students had difficulty using their vocabulary and grammar skills or struggled with writing coherently, the results showed.
For example, only 1.9 percent of students answered correctly when they were asked which of two pictographs best symbolizes a school and explain their decision in 25 or more words.
“The test results confirmed that students have poor communication skills — in both writing and in conversation. … And we take it as reaffirmation of what has been long deemed a problem in English teaching in Japanese schools,” said Takeshi Hayashi, an official in charge at the education ministry’s National Institute for Educational Policy Research.
But Hayashi has high hopes that such problems will be addressed with the introduction of a new curriculum for junior high schools beginning in 2021 in which more focus will be put on speaking and writing.
“Previously, English was only taught as an official subject to grades five and six but from 2020 this will extend to include third and fourth grade classes for primary school, as well.”
Liam Carrigan wrote in the Gaijin Pot.
“The new textbooks are titled We Can (for grades five and six) and Let’s Try (for grades three and four). I think they are definitely a step up from the previous textbooks called Hi Friends.
The activities are simpler, easier to explain to the students without having to revert to Japanese and designed around starting with single word responses. The books then build out to answering in full sentences before finally being able to converse and exchange questions and answers using their own vocabulary inputs.
What is the phrases of these text books? Look into the Let’s try. According to the bilingual Kokomo eigo.com For the third grade students, they learn such a phrase like:
How are you?
How many?
I like blue.
What do you like?
What’s this?
Grade four students learn such a phrase like:
Let’s play soccer!
I like Monday.
What time is it?
Do you have a pen?
What do you want?
These are used in daily conversation. Hopefully the new curriculum change Japan’s English education better. The government should invest the money for the employment. As the result of the test showed, some of the school didn’t have the writing and speaking test because of lack of employment. More native teacher needed after changing the curriculum, Japanese English teacher’s English are hard to listen.
