What is the Problem of English Education J apan?:Presenting a Case Study for Cor pus-based
Analysis of English Textbooks

1. Introduction
Among the problems of English language education in Japan, no other topic
has created more controversy than the sufficiency of communicative skills in English. In
general, it is often said that Japanese people are proficient in grammar but are not inlistening and speaking abilities. In response to such growing criticism that Japanese do
not have sufficient communicative skills in English, the Japanese government revised
the Education Ministry guidelines and at the same time proposed a five-year “Action
Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Activities” in 2003 (Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology). These innovations have two specificcharacteristics (Goto & Ino 2003). One is English language education in comparatively
early stages, especially in junior high school. In the past ten years, the needs for
effective English language education at junior high school have steadily increased. It
can be speculated that this enthusiasm for English language education in early stages
has taken place against old discussion-generating topics such as the background ofinternationalization. The other character is the pragmatic use of English. The newversion of the curriculum guideline emphasizes communication skills especiallylistening and speaking (See below).

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THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Ⅰ. Overall Objectives
To develop students’ basic practical communication abilities such as listening
and speaking, deepening the understanding of language and culture, and fostering a
positive attitude toward communication through foreign languages.
(Curriculum guideline of the MEXT 2003)
English has played a central role as the common international language inlinking people who have different mother tongues. For children living in the 21st
century, it is essential for them to acquire communication abilities in English as acommon international language.
(Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Activities 2003)

As a result of these innovative trends toward pragmatic English education at an
early stage, all English textbooks for junior high school students were revised in 2006.
Newly edited versions put more focus on communicative skills than the old ones.
The aim of this paper is to analyze each English textbook used in Japanese
junior high schools and to demonstrate how much the current Japanese reforms in
English language education have an influence on actual education, comparing English
written in textbooks with English used in actual scenes. At the end, this paper will
present better guidance plan of teaching English to Japanese-speaking people.

22. Why are J apanese not good at communication in English?
It is often said that Japanese people are not good at communication in English.
Many Japanese students cannot speak English well, even though they achieved highscores on grammar tests. According to the TOEFL test score data in 2003, Japanese
average scores are well below the average of all countries in each section except for thegrammar section. In addition, total average score ranking of Japanese is 248 out of 259
all countries.
How could such a thing happen? There are three reasons. The first reason is the
popularization of the TOEFL test in Japan (Goto & Ino 2003). In other words, a wide
range of people take the TOEFL test in Japan, while in some countries, only a limited
number of elite-track people can take this test. For example, the number of Japaneseapplicants for the TOEFL CBT in 2003 was 81,749 while that of China was 24,075(Refer to the table1).
Table1. TEFL CBT Total Score of Asian Countr ies in 2003
Country

The number of applicants

Score

Japan

81,749188

Singapore

387

254

India

62,151

246

Pakistan

3,272

233

Philippines

16,920229

Malaysia

2,626

226

Kyrgyzstan

178

222

China

24,075213

South Korea

86,188209

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The second reason is the lack of similarity between Japanese language andEnglish language. Because Japanese language has different linguistic roots from English,
it is more difficult for Japanese-speaking people to learn English than people who speaka language of Indo-European language family. In fact, the TOEFL scores in European
countries are far higher than those of Asian countries.
The third reason is the English education system in Japan. Many schools inJapan put an emphasis only on English grammar. On the other hand, most countries
throughout the world focus not only on grammatical skills but also on communicativeskills. It is because English has played a central role as the common international
language in linking people who have different mother tongues.

3. English textbooks in J apan
In such a situation, the enthusiasm for English language education focused oncommunicative skills has grown, and six versions of English textbooks for secondary
school education were published in Japan in 2006. All six versions were revised in 2006
in response to a series of innovation of English language education as previously noted.
Each school has sole discretion on which textbook to use for instruction. In this paper,
all the textbooks are investigated, but the objects of the main analysis are newly revised
versions.
Table2. Previous versions (2003)
THE TITLE OF TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERCIRCULATION SCHOOLS

IN JAPAN

USING (%)

New Horizon

Tokyo-shoseki

SunShine English

Kairyudo-shuppan 828,463

22,4

New Crown

Sanseido

826,363

22,3

Total English

Gakkou-tosho

297,1948,0

41,510,517

40,8

One World

Kyouiku-shuppan

142,8123,9Columbus 21

Mitsumura-tosho

78,044

2,1

Total active.comm

Shubunkan

17,9430,5

Table3. New edited versions (2006)
THE TITLE OF TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERCIRCYLATION SCHOOLS

IN JAPAN

USING (%)

New Horizon

Tokyo-shoseki

SunShine English

Kairyudo-shuppan 802,856

21,0

New Crown

Sanseido

761,139

20,5

Total English

Gakkou-tosho

323,054

8,7

One World

Kyouiku-shuppan

177,664

4,8

Columbus 21

Mitsumura-tosho

69,0401,9Total active.comm

Shubunkan

00

1,575,372

42,5

4. Methodology
4.1. Corpus-based analysis
Corpus, a large body of naturally occurring computer-readable texts or
text-extracts (Leech 1992) will be used in this research. The corpus (plural: corpora) canbe defined as a body or collection of linguistic data for use in scholarship and research(Leech 1992). Many linguists have used corpora in their linguistic research, and havedefined what a corpus is of their own accord. According to Francis (1982), the founderof corpus linguistics, a corpus is a collection of texts assumed to be representative of agiven language, dialect, or other subset of a language to be used for linguistic analysis.
Other linguists, Johansson (1991) also said that a corpus is a body of texts put together
in principled way, often for the purposes of linguistic research. In this analysis, the mostoft-quoted Leech and Fligelstone’s following definition is adopted.

5Computer corpora are, especially, bodies of natural language material (wholetexts, samples of texts, or sometimes unconnected sentences) which are stored inmachine readable form. … It should be added that computer corpora are rarely
haphazard collections of textual material: they are generally assembled withparticular purposes in mind, and are often assumed to be (informally speaking)representative of some language or that type.

(Leech and Fligelstone 1992)

Moreover, according to Leech (1992), the corpus-based analysis has following fourcharacteristics.
(1) Focus on linguistic performance, rather than competence(2) Focus on linguistic description, rather than linguistic universals(3) Focus on quantitative, as well as qualitative models of language(4) Focus on a more empiricist, rather than rationalist view of scientific inquiry
In this research, we will use two corpora and compare them in terms of theoccurrence frequency of auxiliary modals, for modality is one of the most difficult
concepts for Japanese-speaking English leaner (Murcia & Freeman 2004).

4.2. British National Corpus
One of the corpora used in this research is the British National Corpus (BNC).
It is a 100-million-word text corpus containing samples of written and spoken English
from a wide range of sources. It can be divided into two parts: one is the BNC-spoken
and the other is the BNC-written. In this case study, the former corpus will be usedbecause the target of this research is spoken English. The BNC-spoken contains
transcriptions of spontaneous natural conversations made by members of the public.

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4.3. English textbook corpus
On the other hand, in order to compare two types of English, English which is
spoken by native speakers and English taught in a classroom for instruction, corpora ofEnglish textbooks are also needed. These English textbook corpora are scanned fromeach textbook and stored in machine-readable form. At this time, the following
textbooks used by 80% of all schools in Japan will be used for research.

New Horizon 1-3 2006 Tokyo: Tokyo-shoseki
Sunshine English 1-3. 2006 Tokyo: Kairyudo-shuppan
New Crown 1-3 2006 Tokyo: Sanseido

4.4. Comparison of occur rence frequency of modal auxiliaries
In this research, the above-referenced corpora will be compared in terms of theoccurrence frequency of modal auxiliaries (*1). This is because modal auxiliaries are said
to be one of the most difficult grammatical concepts for Japanese to learn. According to
Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (2003), the reason why Japanese are not good at using
modal auxiliaries is that Japanese language does not have modal auxiliaries.
Modal auxiliaries are among the more difficult structures ESL/EFL teachers todeal with. Some of your students, who have been told time and time again that
present-tense verbs with third person singular subjects require an –s ending,overgeneralize this rule to modals… Another source of difficulty with the form ofmodals, of course, may be your students’ native language(s). Not all languages havemodal auxiliaries.

(*1)(Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman 2003)

The statistical software used in this research is Oxford WordSmith Tools 4.0.
7Modal auxiliaries (will, would, can, could, should, must, may, shall, and others)
in four following corpora were compared.
1. BNC(as a corpus of English spoken by native speakers)

2. Textbook Corpus (a) New Horizon (as a corpus of English taught in a classroom)
3. Textbook Corpus (b) Sunshine(as a corpus of English taught in a classroom)

4. Textbook Corpus (c) New Crown (as a corpus of English taught in a classroom)

5. Results & Discussion
As a result, there are wide differences between the four corpora in terms of themodal auxiliaries “would” and “can” (See accompanying table). The occurrence
frequency of “would” in BNC is predominantly the highest of all corpora. The
supposable cause is that British people prefer to use “would” in sentences (Chambers
1995). On the other hand, the occurrence frequency of “can” in the three textbooks’
corpora is higher than that in BNC. It is because the auxiliary verb “can” is taught over
and over again in Japanese junior high schools.

Table4. The Occur rence Frequency of Modal Auxiliaries (% )
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

BNC
NH
SS
NC

ll
wi

u
wo

ld

ca

n

t
d
d
ul
ul
us
o
o
m
c
sh

m

8

ay

a
sh

ll

rs
he
t
o

In addition, it is notable that “can” is taught in a classroom almost as a meaningof “ability”. According to Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman’s grammar book (2003), thefunctions of “can” can be divided into four parts.
1) Ability for animate subjects

e.g. I can speak Indonesian.

2) Potentiality for inanimate subjects

e.g. This business can be reorganized.

3) Making general requests

e.g. Can you help me with this math problem?

4) Making requests for permissione.g.

Can I leave the room now?

In reference to this classification, usages of “can” of two types of corpora (BNC andthe textbooks’ corpora) are sorted into four different types noted above. Here are theresults.
The Classification of “can” in BNC

10%
15%

42%

1. ablility
2. potentiality
3. general requests
4. requests for permission

33%

The Classification of “can” in the textbooks’ cor pora

5%

5%

8%
1. ablility
2. potentiality
3. general requests
4. requests for permission
82%

The distribution of the usage of “can” in BNC is well-balanced, while that in
textbooks’ corpora places a disproportionate emphasis on the usage of ability foranimate subjects. This fact can be backed by data that English learners in Japan rarely9use “can” for representing the potentiality for inanimate subjects (Huddleston & Pullum2005). This is one of the usages at which Japanese are not as strong.
On the whole, these results tell us that there is a sharp line drawn between
English spoken by native speakers and English taught in the classroom. As long as there
are some differences between the two, it can be speculated that acquisition of proper
communicative skills in English is almost impossible. What is needed now is to bring
English in the classroom closer to English spoken by native speakers.

6. Conclusion
In the 21st century, globalization in various fields has advanced rapidly, andeach individual has more and more opportunities to participate in international activities.
In such a situation, English has played a central role as an international language morethan ever. Unfortunately, however, many Japanese are restricted in their exchanges withforeigners due to their lack of sufficient communicative abilities in English. What isneeded now is improvement of English teaching methods and course materials.
This study revealed that English taught in Japan is quite different from English
spoken by native speakers in terms of modal auxiliaries. In order to enhance Japanesepeople’s communicative skills in English, English in textbooks must be closer topractical English.

10References
Celce-Murcia, Marianne. & Larsen-Freeman, Diane. 1999 .The Grammar Book.
Heinle & Heinle: pp137-155
Chambers,J.K.1995. Sociolinguistic theory. Linguistic variation and its social
significance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Francis, W. N. 1982. “Problems of assembling and computerizing of large corpora”.
In; Johansson (ed.) pp. 7-24.
Goto, Yuko Butler. & Iino, Masakazu. 2005.‘Current Japanese Performs in English
Language Education: The 2003 “Action Plan” ’Language Policy (2005)
4,25-45
Huddleston, Rodney. & Pullum, Geoffrey K.2005. A Student’s Introduction to English
Grammar. Cambridge UP: UK: pp53-58
Johansson, S. 1991. “Computer Corpora in English Language Research.” In: S.
Johansson & A.Stenstrom (eds.), English Computer Corpora, Selected Papers
and Research Guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp.3-6.
Kramsch, Claire. “Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, and the Teachingof Foreign Languages”: The Modern Language Journal,84, 2000. pp311-326
Leech, G. 1992 “Corpus Processing”. In: W. Bright (ed.), International Encyclopedia in
Linguistics, New York: Oxford UP.
Leech, G. & S. Fligelstone. 1992. “Computer and Corpus Analysis”. In: C.S. Butler (ed.),Computers and Written Texts. Oxford: Blackwall. pp. 115-140.
Sinclair,John.McH.2004 How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. John
Benjamins:Amsterdam pp185-199
Smith, L.E. “Some Distinctive Features of EIL vs. ESL in English Language
Education.” In L.E. Smith(Ed.), Reading in International Language.1983.
pp.13-20
British National Corpus. 2007. 22. Nov. ＜http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/＞
Free CLAWS WWW trial service. 2007. 21. Nov. ＜http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws/trial.html＞
MEXT Homepage. 2007. 21. Nov. ＜http://www.mext.go.jp/＞
The Oxford Text Archive. 2007. 22. Nov. ＜http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/＞
TOEFL Test and Score Data Summary. 2007. 28. Nov.
＜http://ftp.ets.org/pub/toefl/0203test_year_data.pdf＞

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Textbooks
Columbus 21. 2. 2003. Tokyo: Mitsumura-tosho
New Crown.1-3. 2003. Tokyo: Sanseido
New Horizon.1-3. 2003. Tokyo: Tokyo-shoseki
One World.1-3. 2003. Tokyo: Kyoiku-shuppan
Sunshine English. 1-3. 2003. Tokyo: Kairyudo-shuppan
Total English. 1-3. 2003. Tokyo: Gakkou-tosho
Columbus 21. 2. 2006. Tokyo: Mitsumura-tosho
New Crown.1-3. 2006. Tokyo: Sanseido
New Horizon.1-3. 2006. Tokyo: Tokyo-shoseki
One World.1-3. 2006. Tokyo: Kyoiku-shuppan
Sunshine English. 1-3. 2006. Tokyo: Kairyudo-shuppan
Total English. 1-3. 2006. Tokyo: Gakkou-tosho

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