READERS’ FORUM
Cram Schools in Japan: The Needfor Research
Robert J. Lowe
Rikkyo University
The private juku (cram school) industry is an enormously profitable and influential area of education in Japan, including inthe specific field of English language teaching (ELT). However,while much research has been carried out in other areas of ELT
in Japan, juku have largely escaped the attention of researchers. This paper attempts to argue the need for more research
into English language education as it is practiced in juku. The
article first situates juku within the Japanese education system, and then illustrates the extent to which juku have been
under-researched when compared to other ELT contexts inJapan. The author advocates the need for more research into
ELT to be carried out in juku, and finally suggests some areas
into which this research could be conducted.
学習塾産業は大きなビジネスであり、日本の英語教育に大きな影響を与えている。ところが、高校や大学などでの英語教育に関する研究は多くなされているが、学習塾での英語教育の研究はされていない。本論では、初めに、学習塾の現状を説明し、次に、どれだけ学習塾の英語教育の研究が不足しているか説明する。最後に、学習塾の英語教育の研究の必要性を訴え、より多くの研究がこの分野で行われるべきであると論じる。

E

nglish language teaching in Japan is carried out
in many different contexts. Mandatory English
education takes place for all children from elementary school to the end of high school, and in addition, students who continue to study at the tertiarylevel are often expected to complete courses of foreign language education. Alongside the state school
and tertiary educational systems, there is also a large
private market for English language education, which
manifests in many different types of institutions; twoof the most common being eikaiwa (English conversation schools) and juku (cram schools). English is
not the only subject taught in juku, as they are cramschools designed to help students cram for exams
and get into universities, and so they teach manydifferent subjects (maths, Japanese, etc.) However, asI shall demonstrate below, English is a very commonly taught subject.
English education in Japanese elementary schools,
high schools, junior colleges, and universities has
26

been the subject of considerable amounts of research. Studies have been carried out in these contexts regarding educational policy (see Hashimoto,2009; Yonezawa, Akiba, & Hiouchi, 2009), teaching
methodologies (see Gorsuch, 2001; Nishino & Watanabe, 2008), classroom policies on language use(see Hashimoto, 2013; Yphantides, 2013), teachingmaterials (see Yamanaka, 2006; Mineshima, 2008;
Sano, Iida, & Harvey, 2009), teacher and student
perspectives (see O’Donnell, 2008; McKenzie, 2008;
Rudolph and Igarashi, 2012), teacher identities (seeButler, 2007; Nagatomo, 2012) and many otherareas. As a result, much is known about English
education in these settings, providing views on eachcontext at different magnifications, from the overall
structure of the institution to the details of classroom teaching and interaction. The eikaiwa sector
has not drawn as much academic interest, but stilla substantial body of research exists concerning
the motivations of eikaiwa students (Seargeant,2009; Kubota, 2011), the professionalism of schools(Bossaer, 2003), the professional lives of teachers(Nagatomo, 2013) and the ideologies surrounding
the industry (Seargeant, 2009).
Despite the intense interest in English language
education in Japan, however, the private juku sector
has not been subject to nearly the same level ofscrutiny as either the state school, tertiary sector,
or the private eikaiwa industry. In this article, I
will attempt to make the case that more researchneeds to be carried out into ELT in juku schools. I
will discuss the prevalence and importance of juku
schools, analyse the amount of research carried out
when compared to other sectors of ELT in Japan,
and discuss some of the possible reasons for juku
being under-researched. Finally, I will suggest someareas in which research could be conducted.

Juku: Context, Prevalence, and Importance
Bray (2007) uses the term shadow education todescribe the unregulated global industry of private

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Lowe: Cram Schools in Japan: The Need for Research

the language (O’Donnell, 2003). It is therefore surprising that, as I shall demonstrate in the following
section, juku are generally under-researched.

Research into Juku

JALT PRAXIS27

JALT FOCUS

THE LANGUAGE TEACHER 39.1 • January / February 2015

RESOURCES

Bray (2007) notes that globally, private education isa huge business, but one “which so far has received
little attention by researchers” (p. 18). Similarly,
despite the prominence of juku, there has been very
little research into them, particularly from ELT
researchers.
It is not the case that no research into juku exists
at all. Indeed, a small number of papers and books
have been published. However, these studies arefrom fields as far apart as psychology (O’Neil and
Fukumura, 1992) and Japanese studies (Rohlen,1980), with many focusing on Japanese educationor general education (Harnisch, 1994; Russel, 1997;
Roesgaard, 2006). These pieces of research havegreat value in terms of putting the juku system incontext, and analyzing its social status and utility.
However, there are very few articles which focus
directly on ELT, which is surprising given: a) theamount of English taught in juku, and b) the level ofresearch carried out in other ELT contexts in Japan.
Of those papers which do focus on ELT, a handfulof studies have been published exploring things
such as methodology, student experiences, andteaching materials. Takigawa (2005) investigatedthe effects of communicative tasks on grammaticalform uptake in juku schools, finding evidence thatthe adoption of communicative methodologies injuku could help improve students’ language skills.
Lieske (2004) looked at attitudes towards English
among university students who had previously
attended juku, concluding that they do not havea detrimental effect on attitudes towards English.
O’Donnell (2003) found that students differ inthe reasons given for attending juku, with someattending purely to pass exams, and some seeking
to improve their overall English proficiency. Lowe(2013) analysed juku teaching materials in termsof gender representations, concluding that they
featured problematic and stereotypical representations of females. It seems from this research that
there are several areas of study into juku schoolsthat could be informative and useful. However, in
the ELT literature juku are very rarely mentioned inany context other than their relationship to university entrance exams. Despite the research potentialof juku, in the next section I will provide some data
to highlight the extent to which juku have been
under-represented in ELT research when comparedto other educational contexts in Japan.

ARTICLES

tutoring, and notes that in the context of Japan juku
are by far the most common and popular form of
this. Juku are private cram schools, in which teaching takes place on many different subjects either
one-to-one or in small classes. Most juku teachingis carried out after school hours for the purposes ofsupplementing the students’ education and providing support for students in preparation for their
university entrance exams. Juku are not licensed
as schools and Iwata (2006) notes that because ofthis “the teaching staffs [sic] in juku schools needno license” (p. 2). This means that juku teachers
are usually not trained or qualified, although somejuku teachers may be postgraduate students withteaching qualifications. Indeed, many juku teachers
are university students themselves, hired part-time
for reasons of cost-saving and because they are familiar with the university entrance exams for which
the students are preparing. Therefore, there is no
official or external oversight of any aspect of juku,
be it in terms of teaching methodology, teachingmaterials, or anything else. This is a particularly
jarring revelation when considering the prevalenceof juku in Japan.
The juku sector is very large, and very influential.
Dierkes (2008; 2010; Cited in Cook, 2013, p. 403.)
has claimed that there are roughly 50,000 juku inJapan, and Pettersen (1993) and Roesgaard (2006)
have both noted that the juku business brings inbillions of yen in profits each year. These highfigures are explained by the large customer base towhich juku cater. Bray and Lykins (2012) state that
15.9% of elementary school children in Japan attend
juku, and the levels of attendance gradually increase
to the point where, in the third year of junior highschool, 62.5% of students are regularly attending
juku for tutoring after school (cited in Cook, 2013,
p.403). Bray (2007) notes that roughly 70% of all
Japanese students will attend juku at some point of
their school life, and that this number has increased
dramatically over the past few decades; morethan doubling between 1976 and 1993 (p. 23). The
increase in student attendance between elementary school and senior high school can largely be
attributed to the wish to perform well on university
entrance exams. While students may be concernedwith studying various subject areas, depending on
the course they wish to enter, Gilfert (1999) notesthat most university faculties include English asa required subject. This makes English one of themost commonly taught subjects in juku.
It is clear that there is a huge amount of students
studying English in juku, largely for the purpose of
improving their university entrance exam scores,
and sometimes just to improve their knowledge ofThe Language Teacher • Readers’ ForumThe Scale of the Problem
In order to illustrate the extent to which research
into English education in juku has been neglected, this section presents some data comparing theamount of published research on juku to the othersectors discussed earlier; elementary school, highschool, university/junior college, and eikaiwa.
This data was collected from the Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT) publications
archive. The purpose of collecting this data was toillustrate the point made in this article - that juku
are comparatively under researched - rather thanto provide solid figures on the total amount of ELT
research carried out in each of these sectors. As
such, I chose to focus on one organisation which I
felt would be most likely to represent the balanceof research in the field. JALT is the largest language
teaching organization in Japan, and therefore datataken from JALT publications is likely to be representative of the major concerns of researchers
in the country. Similarly, I chose to focus on thelargest research publication in the organization, the
JALT Journal, as I felt this would give a representative sample of research that has been produced in
the Japanese context. JALT was chosen over otherlarge language teaching organisations in Japan suchas the Japan Association of College English Teachers(JACET), because these organisations have a specificinstitutional research focus (colleges and universities in the case of JACET).
Papers were analysed from all issues of the JALT
Journal between 1979 and 2014, and were classified
into five categories based on the context in which
the research was carried out: elementary school,
high school, university/junior college, eikaiwa (usually referred to as some variation of private schools
for adults in the literature), and juku. Universities
and junior colleges were combined into one category as they are both post-secondary institutions. A
paper was considered to belong to these categories
if it focused on any of the following areas of thecontext in question: participants (either teachers or
students), materials, methodology, assessment, motivation, policy, or instructional principles. Papers
which discussed two or more contexts (as in a comparative study) were counted in both categories. In
order to avoid ambiguity, studies were not includedin the category if they took place outside of Japan,such as university students studying abroad. The
data is presented in Table 1.
From this it is clear that, when compared to otherareas of research interest, juku have received almost
no attention from researchers in the field of ELT.
Universities, junior colleges, and high schools haveall been significantly researched over the past three28

and a half decades, with university-based research
being by far the most prominent. Eikaiwa havereceived only a little attention, with three pieces ofresearch being carried out. Elementary schools arealso under-represented; however this is probably
due to the fact that elementary schools only recently began to feature mandatory English education.
While elementary schools and eikaiwa received onlya small percentage of research attention, they stillfeatured more in the literature than juku, whichwere only prominently featured in one piece of
research, and even this research was largely about
the attitudes of university students towards English(O’Donnell, 2003). The point of this analysis was
not to claim that no research into juku exists in thefield of ELT at all—as described earlier, a few papers
have been published on the topic—however it does
show that juku are underrepresented when compared to other contexts in Japan in which English
education is taking place. In the next section I willpropose and discuss some of the reasons why thismay be the case.
Table 1. Papers Published in Different Contexts in
the JALT Journal
Elementary HighSchoolSchool5

42

University/
Juniorcollege
83

Eikaiwa Juku
3

1

Why No Research?
There are several reasons why research may nothave been carried out in juku. I shall provide someof these reasons below and, where necessary, argue
why these objections are not valid.

Researchers Do Not Work in Juku
It is often the case that researchers focus on contexts which are easily accessible to them, and mostresearchers are employed at universities. This seems
like one likely explanation for the fact that the balance of research tilts strongly towards universities.
This is certainly a good explanation for why juku
have largely escaped the attention of researchers;
however this fact does not provide any reason why
research should not be carried out in juku schools.

Juku Are Difficult to Access
Unlike state schools and universities which areoften open to having research carried out in them,juku are private businesses which are not licensed
nor subject to professional oversight. As such, they

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Lowe: Cram Schools in Japan: The Need for Research

THE LANGUAGE TEACHER 39.1 • January / February 2015

29

JALT PRAXISIn the sections above, I have made a case for more
ELT research being carried out in the juku. The
question remains, however, of what form thisresearch may take. When considering this question it would be instructive to look at the kind ofresearch carried out in other contexts in Japan. In
the introduction to this paper, I noted some areas
which research has focused on in other contexts. In
the following section I shall suggest which would be
useful to research in juku, and provide some commentary explaining these choices. I believe that four
key areas for juku research to investigate are:• methodology• teacher education and training• teaching materials• student and teacher perspectives
As research from Takigawa (2005) has hinted,
studies into the methodology used in juku may
be instrumental in increasing the effectiveness ofteaching and retention of information among students. While the learning aims of these schools may
be limited, research into methodology and classroom instruction could help students to achievethese aims more successfully, and thus be a valuablearea of research.
As noted earlier, most teachers working in juku
are not trained or licensed, and so their approaches to teaching may not reflect current trends inclassroom practice. A focus on how teachers areprepared by their schools (if at all) would be interesting, and may help to inform in-service teacher
education.
A study by Lowe (2013) found evidence of problematic gender bias in materials used in a juku.
More research into this area would be needed to
discover if this kind of issue is widespread, but
it would certainly be of interest to researchers if
potentially problematic material was being usedduring English education in juku.
As juku are focused largely (though not solely) on
the teaching of grammar for the purposes of passing
university entrance exams, there is a possibility that
this may contribute to students having negative

JALT FOCUS

With two major practical concerns already discussed, a final reason for the under-researchingof juku may be a lack of motivation on the partof researchers to investigate these institutions.
Researchers may feel that juku have a limited
educational role—to serve as supplementary to
regular education and aid students in passing their
university entrance exams. As such, research into
these schools would be limited and there would beless opportunity for researchers to pursue their own
research interests than in other settings. This seems
to be a good reason as to why these schools have
not have been heavily featured in research.
However, this ignores the possible benefits thatsuch research could have. As discussed earlier inthis paper, research into juku has produced interesting and promising results in the areas of methodology (Takigawa, 2005), student perceptions (Lieske,2004), and materials design (Lowe, 2013). Moreresearch carried out in the context of juku schools
could help to improve the learning environment ofthese schools for students, and help them achieve
their learning goals even if their learning goals arelimited to exam preparation. In addition, research
by O’Donnell (2003) suggested that many students
attend juku in order to improve their English proficiency rather than just to pass exams, and as suchthere may be more opportunity for improvement inteaching and learning than is readily apparent.
It is possible that research into juku would notnecessarily lead to changes in practice or to an
uptake in recommendations by the schools in question. This would not be unusual, as there is rarely aclear and direct path by which research leads to better practice. However, this does not reduce the factthat research into juku has the potential to generatevaluable and important insights and knowledge.

Future Directions for Research

RESOURCES

Juku Are Designed Only for Exam Preparation

While the reasons outlined above help us tounderstand why there is currently a lack of research
into juku, and identify some of the possible challenges of carrying out such research, they do notseem to provide a serious rationale for not carryingout such research in the future. In the next section
I will discuss some of the possible paths future
research may take.

ARTICLES

may be resistant to having research carried out bypeople from outside of the company, as they may
feel there is little benefit to doing so, or that thepresence of researchers may actively disrupt ornegatively represent their business. This problem
may also be echoed in the concerns of parents, who
could object to their children being the subjects ofresearch and raise concerns about privacy and aboutstrangers carrying out research with minors. These
are serious concerns, and could cause difficulties
for researchers trying to access juku for research
purposes. However, these difficulties are similar to
those encountered in much of the social science
research, and making the effort to seek permission
to conduct research in juku may provide rewarding
new knowledge.

The Language Teacher • Readers’ Forum

attitudes towards future language study. Negative
experiences have been shown to influence negative
future attitudes towards language study (Kimura, Nakata, and Okumura, 2001), and therefore
research into whether this was the case would be
extremely helpful.
These are some possible areas that research into
juku could focus on. However, it is possible that
more avenues of research could open in the future.
These preliminary suggestions should at least provide some directions for initial research and pilot
studies to take.

Conclusion
In this paper I have argued the need for more
research into ELT in juku. I have reviewed theliterature showing that juku are extremely prevalentin Japan, with roughly 70% of Japanese children
attending them during their schooling. I have also
argued that many, if not most, of these children
will study English in juku. Despite the prominenceof the the industry, I have demonstrated that juku
are underrepresented in ELT research in Japan,
and discussed some of the possible reasons for this.
Finally, I have laid out some areas that research into
juku could take.
As an industry which is such a prominent partof English education in Japan, it is surprising thatso little research has been carried out into juku,
and I hope this paper has gone some way towarddemonstrating the need for more research into thiscontext to be produced in the future.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Guy D. Middleton andAmanda Chin for their help with early drafts of thisarticle. I would also like to thank Asae Takizawa forher assistance with translations.

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Lowe: Cram Schools in Japan: The Need for Research

JALT FOCUS

Robert J. Lowe is an English
instructor at Rikkyo University. His
research interests include taskbased learning, language andgender, and language ideology.
He holds a diploma in TESOL, an
MA in Applied Linguistics, and iscurrently studying towards a PhD
in Applied Linguistics.

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