English level at Japan's secondary schools falls short of government target
This article discusses English education in Japan and how the government is trying to improve the English proficiency level of their secondary school graduates. The government has set a goal for 50 percent of final-year students of both junior and senior high schools to reach a certain level on the widely-used Eiken profieincy test. However, a government-conducted survey revealed that only 42.6 percent of third-year junior high school students had English skills equivalent to Grade 3 of the Eiken test, a 1.9 increase from last year. Grade 3 holders are expected to understand and use English concerning everyday topics. For third-year senior high school students, only 40.2 percent had skills matching Grade Pre-2 of the Eiken test, a 0.9 point increase from last year. Those with Grade Pre-2, are supposed to be able to participate in general aspects of daily life. The government has originally set this 50 percent goal to be achieved by 2017, but has delayed it to March 2023. This survey has been conducted since April 2013, and has also revealed a wide regional gap in students' English proficiency.
This article presents statistics that is revealing of a larger problem to the Japanese government, especially in a increasingly globalized world with English being a key language in business and technology. From my time in Japan, I had thought that English proficiency of Japanese was very high from my everyday interactions, but according to the EF English Proficiency Index, Japanese is ranked 35th out of 72 countries. Among Asian countries, Singapore is placed sixth, Malaysia 12th, the Philippines 13th, India 22nd, and South Korea 29th. One other article claimed that the usual blame of the English levels being low is on the way English is taught in Japanese schools, with too much emphasis on grammar with little time devoted to conversational practice. Another article lays the blame on the rigorous nature of Japan's college entrance exams and other English proficiency exams, which leads to students only memorizing the English required for the exam, and not for daily/conversational usage.
The original article reveals that the Japanese government is trying to address the situation by "improving training programs for elementary school teachers and increasing the number of licensed teachers with a certain level of English proficiency". A major concern is that Japan does not have enough qualified teachers to achieve their 50 percent goal across their different regions.
While Japan is thriving with its tourism industry partially thanks to the wide array of English-friendly services and businesses, it seems that for Japan to maintain and increase their economic power in an increasingly globalized world, they must increase their country's overall English proficiency.
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