Special

Article 5Japanese Language
Boom in India
By Mukesh Williams & Ui Teramoto

Indian education from the primary to university level needs toreturn to its ethical roots, instill discipline and globalize byintroducing languages and values from other cultures. Apart from
Indian interest in the French and German languages, the new global
power alignments call for a renewed interest in the Japanese,
Chinese and Korean languages. Of these three, interest in thelearning of Japanese is on the rise. Japanese primary education lays
great emphasis on moral and social commitment in a systematic
fashion. Bringing the teaching of Japanese language into themainstream Indian curricula, especially at the primary level, would
strengthen its ethical and social base, creating a new India with
global citizens of the future. However, this simple scenario is noteasy to implement. As Dr. Ui Teramoto points out later in the section
headed “The JLPT & MISJ Methods”, there is not only a “shortage”
of qualified teachers but also a lack of effective teaching methods.
Despite these problems, India’s growing connection with Japan andestrangement from China in the last decade has encouraged
educational agencies like the Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE) and some central Indian universities and colleges to initiate
the integration of Japanese courses in their overall curricula.

The Japanese Boom in South Asia
The Japanese language boom in India seems a decade old but
Indian interest in the Japanese language began in the early 1950s
when the Indian Ministry of Defense and Vishwa Bharti University
began offering Japanese classes to Indian students. In subsequent
decades other Indian universities like Delhi, Pune and Jawaharlal
Nehru University followed suit. Nearly four decades went by before aresurgence of interest in the Japanese language was felt again. Wheneconomic liberalization in India was initiated in 1991, Japan began tosee the emergence of a market-oriented economy with chances ofprivate capital influx and foreign investment in India. The Japanese
government stepped in by opening the Japan Foundation office in
New Delhi in 1993. Some top leaders within the Indian government
also felt the need of Japanese proficiency for Indians. In 1997
Manmohan Singh, who later became prime minister from 2004 to
2014, suggested that India needed 10,000 Indians fluent in theJapanese language. Nearly two decades later the current prime
minister, Narendra Modi, wants Indian primary education tomodernize through the ethical standards and discipline of Japanese
schools.
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

Author Mukesh Williams

Author Ui Teramoto

Digital Technology & the Teaching of JapaneseWith the rise of digital technology, the demand for the learning ofJapanese has also gone online, giving rise to quick acquisition of
linguistic skills at a low price. The Internet has provided both thelearning and testing of Japanese competence through its Sushi Test
which allows learners to test their competence through a simple
exam online. By registering online they can take the test as manytimes as they want. Many Indians anticipate new job opportunities
after developing acceptable proficiency in Japanese, and feel they
can better exchange ideas with Japanese people through Japanese
language-based communication.
The demand for Japanese linguistic skills is undoubtedly on theincrease. Both globalizing Japanese and Indian corporations arelooking for translators, interpreters, instructors and administrators
who can handle the nuances of Japanese culture through theJapanese language. The job profile of those who have a graduate
degree and have also acquired the N1 or N2 levels of the Japanese
Language Proficiency Test are not just qualified to get jobs asinterpreters but also as managers, security experts or liaison
officers. So opportunities multiply as Japanese linguistic skills
increase. After acquiring such skills, young Indians can pursue their
Master’s or Doctoral programs at Japanese universities to procure
lucrative lobs in Japanese companies.
As Japanese companies are increasing their investment in India,
the cities in which they set up their business are also beingtransformed. The language and culture of Japan is slowly
burgeoning in cities like Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, NCR, Ahmedabad,
Rohtak, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Jhajjar, Neemrana and Dahej. Apartfrom established institutions teaching Japanese, private institutes
such as the Hayakawa Japanese Language School Chennai, Vidya
Prasarak Mandel Thane, Kizoku Japanese Language Institute South
Delhi, and Orissa Computer Application Center Bhubaneshwar are
also investing in the teaching of Japanese. An entire Japaneseculture replete with Japanese cuisine, spices, stationary and homedécor is mushrooming to cater to the demands of both Japanese andIndians interested in Japan. In these cities the demand for Indian
professionals speaking Japanese has increased commensurably.
Today over 15,000 Japanese professionals employed in theautomobile, manufacturing and banking industries work in India. In
the coming years over 30,000 Japanese companies are expected toenter India in the fields of automobile industry, information
Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201861

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Article 5technology, biotechnology, water purification,
pharmaceuticals, marketing and finance. Suchexpansion will also require Japanese-trained
professionals and consequently expand theJapanese language teaching-and-learning model.
Japan’s shrinking workforce also requires about
200,000 Indian professionals in the area of life
sciences, agriculture, finance and the service
industry.

Photo: Author

Photo: Author

The JET Program for Indians
Coming to Japan to teach English motivates
many foreign students to learn Japanese. The
Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program whichbegan in the 1980s has been creating opportunities
for college graduates from abroad to find work in
St. Stephen’s College, Delhi
A Japanese classroom in St. Stephen’s College
Japan as Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) or as
Coordinators for International Relations (CIRs) and promote both thenative teachers to go to India and sub-standard salary structures.
internationalization of Japan and imbibe Japanese culture. Those
The shortage of qualified Japanese language teachers is felt not only
who come on the JET program either know Japanese or are
in India but also Japan. Within Japan there is a dearth of Japanesemotivated to learn the language. Envisaging the growing importanceteachers, especially those who would like to teach in India. The
of India for Japan and the world, the Japanese government has
method of teaching Japanese is also an important component inreserved two CIRs for Indian students, one of which will go to a
imparting quick linguistic skills to Indian students and professionals
Kerala-based or Kerala-born Indian who is expected to promotethrough the medium of English in a short time. Both the Indian andfriendly relations between the state of Kerala and Matsue city inJapanese governments have directed their attention to resolving thisShimane Prefecture. However, Indian students applying must have amatter but no concrete plans exist either from the University Grants
reasonable command of English and possess an N1 or N2 level
Commission or universities to expand the teaching of Japanese inJapanese proficiency certification.
Indian schools and colleges. The Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology is keen to expand the teaching ofDearth of Trained Native &Japanese in India. So, on the one hand there is a boom in learning
Foreign Japanese Teachers
Japanese in India and on the other there is a shortage of faculty.
Today many Indian IT and business companies expect their
The increase in Japanese business and industrial collaboration andemployees to know basic Japanese. Many IT and businessacademic partnerships with India in the last decade has generated
professionals who want to enter the Japanese market want to sendinterest in the learning and teaching of Japanese in educational
their representatives to Japan, especially those who are proficient ininstitutes and generated strong demand for trained JapaneseJapanese. Japan is still a monolingual culture and facility with theteachers. Though at present there are many colleges and universities
Japanese language can open doors to many opportunities which are
in India which teach Japanese courses, the increasing demand tootherwise closed.
learn Japanese and find job opportunities both in India and Japan
As instructors and institutions become exercised by the slowness
has caused a shortage of qualified teachers and effective methods ofof traditional teaching methods, change is in the offing. Today
teaching Japanese through the medium of the English language.
instructors, think tanks and governments are finding new methods ofThough there are many Indian teachers teaching Japanese, Indian
imparting quick and thorough Japanese skills to non-Japanese
students prefer native Japanese teachers to learn authentic Japanese
speakers. The traditional Situational Functional Approach used infrom them.
India to teach the Japanese language is often slow in instruction and
The boom in Japanese learning in India has not been
weak in grammar. New methods of teaching can be addressed by thecommensurate with the number of native and foreign teachers
Learning Management System based on Moodle, an educational
qualified to teach Japanese. The reasons range from slow teachinge-learning software package (MSBM) and Mikiko Iwasaki’s
methods and stereotypical cultural knowledge to low motivation of
Systematic Japanese method (MISJ). The MSBM method uses a free
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Photo: Mikiko Iwasaki

Mikiko Iwasaki teaching

open forum online to create a community of Japanese teachers andstudents to learn through interaction. The system has been tested by
the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad since 2016 andintroduces Japanese business ethics, culture, dress and calligraphy.
The MISJ method uses new techniques of learning and memorizing
effectively tested in Africa and Japan. In the coming decades, it isexpected that new policies will be framed both at the governmental
and institutional levels to address this problem.

Shifting Linguistic Priorities in Asia & Impact
on Japanese Learning
There has been a shift in language learning priorities in the last
decade in Asia resulting in a decline of Japanese learning in majorcountries such as China, Indonesia and South Korea and an increasein India. According to the Japan Foundation, which conducts longterm analysis on gross numbers in Japanese language education
abroad, as of 2015 there were over 3.6 million foreigners in 137
countries and regions studying Japanese, as well as 16,167
institutions and 64,000 teachers. Although nearly 70% of Japaneselearners in the last decade have been Chinese, Indonesians andKoreans, this composition is rapidly undergoing change. The shift
towards English in China and changes in the secondary education
system making a second language optional in Indonesia and South
Korea have led to a decrease of Japanese learners. Instead, othercountries like India are gaining precedence.
Japan and India are keen to promote the teaching and learning ofJapanese in India both at governmental and institutional levels. In
September 2017 The Times of India reported that Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe on a visit to India reiterated the need for Indians to learn
Japanese and take advantage of expanding Japanese-Indianindustrial collaboration. In the same article it was reported that Japanintends to open 100 Japanese language centers across India and acultural convention center in Varanasi.
Supported by Japanese corporations and foundations, Indian
universities are not lagging in the teaching of Japanese. The
Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Delhi teaches
three courses – a Master’s program, a One-Year Post Graduate
Intensive and an Advanced Diploma Courses in Japanese. For Indian
students to pursue language and Master’s programs in Japanese
there are scholarships available for deserving students fromJapanese organizations, such as Mitsubishi Corporation’sInternational Scholarship, the Japan Foundation’s Japanese language
program for outstanding students, and the Japan Foundation’s
training program for university students studying at the Japanese
Language Institute in Kansai. Apart from the Department of East
Asian Studies, five constituent colleges of the University of Delhi –namely St. Stephen’s College, Sri Guru Tej Bahadur Khalsa College,
Laxmi Bai College, Daulat Ram College and Ramjas College – offer
part-time one-year certificate, diploma and advanced diploma
courses in Japanese. The English and Foreign Languages University
at Hyderabad provides undergraduate and graduate programs inJapanese and plans to introduce the teaching of Japanese andChinese in Lucknow.

The JLPT & MISJ Methods
The growing popularity of the new and avant-garde MISJ method
amongst non-Japanese learners is cutting into the well-entrenched
and traditional Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). The
MISJ, developed in the 1990s, is taught through the English
language and focuses on speaking and writing as against thetraditionally-accepted and standardized JLPT which tests four
aspects: vocabulary, listening, reading and grammar. The Japanesemodel of linguistic assessment developed in the 1980s was a
byproduct of American socio-political and discursive practices.
Yukiko Hatasa and Tomoko Watanabe in a 2017 online article,“Japanese as a Second Language Assessment in Japan”, argue thatthe language tests were intrinsically developed as “placement tests”
but now have expanded to include a wide range of learners. The
JLPT established in 1984 by the Japan Foundation to evaluate thelinguistic competence of non-Japanese learners is held annually in
December. It establishes four hurdles in vocabulary, listening,reading and grammar and has three sections in each level. It isadministered worldwide and controls quality through its annual
evaluator report called the Nihongo noryoku shiken bunseki hyoka ni
kansuru hokokusho, and the Nihongo noryoku shiken shutsudai
kijun [Japanese Language Proficiency Test: Test Content
Specifications], meant as a guideline for JLPT question paper setterswhich often determines the rationale for the curriculum andJapan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201863Special

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CHART

Different levels of the MISJ method

CULTUREECONOMY

BUSINESSITEDUCATION

POLITICSSCIENCEART

minimum

3.5 months

minimum

2.5 months

minimum

2.5 weeks

Source: MISJ Tree by Mikiko Iwasaki

designing of courses in Japanese. However, the JLPT test assesses
language-based knowledge and not real-life knowledge, which has
been partially addressed by including task-based exercises.
Iwasaki realized that starting to learn 50 Hiragana and 50 Katakana
words for a non-Japanese by reading only the written text was a“heavy burden”. Furthermore, using English sounds to pronounce
Japanese words was not such a good strategy as the sounds often
do not precisely match, so Iwasaki developed the MISJ Welcome
Program with 12 lessons which introduce five to 10 letters each, andin which Romanization is gradually replaced by actual words. The
question-and-answer technique further helps learners to memorize
words creatively by responding to questions in their own way. This
helps the brain to recognize new linguistic patterns built along thepattern of “OBJECT-o VERB-masu” and becomes a step-by-stepcreative-learning technique. Iwasaki believes that “remembering
grammar” through repetition speeds the learning process andreduces the “burden of self-study”. The MISJ method is methodical
for second-language learners and allows them to speak and write
innovatively. The Chart explains the different levels of difficulties thateach program allows the learner to master.
As can be seen from the Chart, the MISJ method begins with the
Welcome Program and moves up linguistic hurdles to the Advanced
level. The rationale for MISJ was to devise a fast and effective way ofacquiring Japanese language skills. Generally Japanese is said totake 80 weeks (2,400 hours) of study for fluent communication in aworking-place environment, while learning European languages like
64 Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 2018

French and Spanish requires only 24 weeks (720 hours).
Approximately triple the amount of time and effort is required toacquire proficiency in Japanese. To lessen this gap, MISJ offers a
Welcome Program (24 hours study) for basic grammar and a Novice
Program (80 hours study) for basic academic conversation. The
Novice Program also prepares students to take the N4 level
Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. All the four programs from
Welcome to Advanced require in total nine months to complete.
Apart from less time spent in learning Japanese through the MISJ
method, the structure of lessons is unique. Each lesson begins withgrammar, followed by verbal practice, and ends with grammar-based
conversation, while the conventional Situational Functional Approach
begins with reading practice and a short conversation translation,
followed by grammatical explanation and application. In the MISJ
method, lessons aim to build grammar where students learn
inflection of verbs, particles and numbers, essential to a soundunderstanding of the Japanese language. In this way, MISJ focuses
on establishing a mental “processor” or creating grammaticaldevices in the mind which help learners to freely compose sentences
unique to their individual profession.
The benefits of the MISJ method are now displacing some of the
traditional approaches to language learning. The MISJ method has
been effectively tested both in Japan and in African and other Asian
countries. Since 2010 Professor Yoko Hasebe of Keio University-SFC
has successfully tested the MISJ method in her ACADEX Project
Program in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo using

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Photo: Author(L to R) Ui Teramoto, Mikiko Iwasaki, Mukesh William and Yoko Hasebe

both Japanese and Congolese instructors. Many Japanese
universities and companies such as the Nara Institute of Science andTechnology, The Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa
Prefecture, Alliance Software Japan and Nissan Automotive
Technology in Vietnam have also started employing the MISJ method
to train foreign students and employees.
The MISJ method has a global outreach for the Anglophonicworld. As instruction in MISJ is primarily in English, it isadvantageous to English speakers only. Most professionals in the IT
and manufacturing industries would find the fast and repetitive
method quite useful, though graduate students might find it boring.
If a non-Japanese would-be teacher speaks English, the MISJ
method provides speedy training as lessons are meticulously
planned to the last detail and therefore easy to complete. In the lasttwo decades over 250 people, not only Japanese but also Congolese
and Vietnamese, have completed the Welcome Program and Novice
Program for teachers and have started teaching in universities andcompanies as certified MISJ teachers. Programs under the same
name are also meant for students.
As the MISJ method focuses on implanting a new “mental
processor”, students are expected to learn by rote. Through thisprocess they can remember 70% of the lesson, thus drasticallyreducing self-study time. However, since the method is unrecognizedmany teachers who complete the MISJ Welcome Program find it
hard to get a job in educational and non-educational institutions. To
overcome this problem, motivated and trained teachers using
different teaching methods should be brought into the larger
Japanese teaching network, such as the Sakura Networks of theJapan Foundation.

Photo: Author

Japanese teacher with Indian students, St. Stephen’s College

Realistic Understanding of Indian Ethos Needed
The Asian ethos has been both stereotyped and misrepresented by
the media around the world. This creates anxiety among Japanese
professionals about Asian society, work and life, preventing them from
opting for Asia as their destination. Japanese teachers who have adesire to teach in Asian countries like India, the Philippines orSingapore have a stereotypical image of their culture and salary. A
deeper awareness through intercultural exchanges within Asia can help
Japanese youth to understand other Asian countries better and dispel
their fears of a stereotypical Asia filled with disease, poverty andviolence. They can then bring their own culture and enrich the regional
climate of Asia. There are many Japanese companies which now
collaborate with their Indian counterparts to run projects in India
requiring knowledge of the Japanese language. A sound knowledge ofJapanese can help the execution of such projects on time.
Nearly four decades have gone by since linguistic testing methods
like the JLPT were developed, and global realities have changed.
American hegemony is on the wane and Japan has emerged as amajor force in the world. Japanese linguists and scholars, from time
to time, have tried to devise their own unique methods to imparttraining in the fundamentals of the Japanese language to a global
clientele. But old habits die hard and they find it difficult to makemuch headway. In an increasingly multicultural world with English as
the lingua franca, the teaching of Japanese language must be basedon mutual respect for other cultures.
Mukesh Williams is a professor at Soka University, visiting faculty at Keio
University, consultant/news analyst for the BBC World Service, and St.
Stephen’s College Alumni Representative and Academic Exchange Programs
Coordinator in Japan. Dr. Ui Teramoto is a senior researcher at Keio University
SFC.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201865