Fluency requires direct interaction

At a recent conference on teaching English in Singapore (co-sponsored by Japan's education ministry), I attended some disappointing presentations by teachers from Japan, and wondered how Japanese students could ever hope to communicate in English if these were the researchers selected by Japan's bureaucratic echelons to guide future generations toward acquiring English communicative proficiency.

One such talk, proudly titled "Measuring Fluency," attracted me as I have been researching the measurement of second-language acquisition in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity as part of my text-free methodology studies appearing this year on America's federal educational research home page.

I was shocked to learn in this talk that the students referred to were merely told to read a book aloud to measure how quickly they could parrot the words!

Even more shocking were the responses to my questions at the end of the session. I asked if the kind of fluency being discussed was even fluency at all, only to be sidetracked by another Japanese member in the audience, whom I guessed was the speaker's handler. That was somehow symbolic of the Japanese attitude to communication itself — namely to avoid it at all times.

When it comes to communication, books are not the main answer. Spontaneous, face-to face and unscripted communication is the only real route to the goal.

Although the textbook industry and the educational administration here would have teachers think otherwise, to communicate directly one needs to communicate directly.

Although it might sound like a no-brainer to everyone outside of education, until this basic prerequisite of language learning is accepted and acted on, the only Japanese students who will learn are those who go abroad.

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.