Before retiring three years ago, I spent 40 years of my life trying to teach Japanese students real communicative English. Now, when I switch on the TV and hear NHK come up with phrases like "Catch Insight," or see Hitachi, for example, using the advertising slogan "Inspire the Next," and many other international companies using similar "Janglish" expressions, my heart sinks and I fear I was wasting my time and energy.
I was interested, therefore, to read your editorial "Honda makes English official" in the July 19 edition and learn that some Japanese companies are finally waking up to the fact that being able to use English is not only necessary if you wish to succeed in increasingly competitive global markets but, as your writer explains, it helps foster a "forward thinking, flexible attitude."
Long gone are the days when Japanese products, with little competition, virtually sold themselves and few companies bothered to encourage their staff to master English. I personally was lucky enough to teach for nearly 20 years at a relatively progressive high school that employed a number of "natives" (native speakers of English) full time, and did not employ ALTs (assistant language teachers) at all.
If you were qualified enough, as I was, to be chosen to teach the International Course, in addition to Spoken English we were even entrusted with Writing, Reading and Grammar classes — much to the chagrin of the Japanese teachers, who seemed to believe they were more qualified to teach English to Japanese students than we "mere" native speakers!
Ironically, in the last year before I retired, these same Japanese teachers were thrown into a state of panic at the announcement by the education ministry that in the future greater emphasis would be put on teaching students how to actually use English communicatively rather than being mainly a tool for passing exams, as in the past.
To help the teachers prepare for this "revolution" the ministry produced videos of model lessons to show the teachers how to go about it. We "natives" were highly amused to see that these "new" techniques were exactly the same techniques we had already been successfully employing for years in our classes, and that the Japanese teachers, and even the school administration, had previously shown no interest in them.
I feel sure that in the future if, to get a good job with a major company such as Honda, students will need to demonstrate good English skills, this will give the schools a major incentive to improve and also hopefully encourage the students to study harder.
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.
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