1 |Advocacy of English Language Education
0. Introduction
As I have received English Language Education from the fourth grade of elementary
school to today, I have felt various doubts about the English Language Education ofJapan during junior-high school period. It is about the difference of purpose to English
study between students and the nation, the method of English Language Education thatshould be performed at school, and the difference of English language skills requested
in entrance exams and requested internationally. The purpose of this paper is to look
more closely into these problems and to seek solutions.

1. The difference of consideration to English
The English Language Education of Japan is done based on the New Curriculum
Guideline of study, where the same target was basically set as for the junior high school.
The following is the target for all junior-high school students:
To develop students’ basic communication abilities such as listening, speaking, reading
and writing, deepening their understanding of language and culture and fostering a
positive attitude toward communication through foreign languages.
[Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan, 2008, p.92]
Here, the answers for the question of “What class of English do you want to attend?”
are shown in a survey conducted with the junior high school students (Figure1).

2 |Class to which understanding tolanguage and culture deepens
Useful class for high school andEnglish study after that
Class to which positive
communications skills are acquired
Class that comes to like English

Useful class for entrance exam

3.6%

6.4%

13.8%

31.3%

38.9%

Figure1, The answer for the question of “What class of English do you want toattend?” [Benesse educational research and development center, 2009]

The students who take the class of English for the entrance exam has reached threetimes the students who take it as a means for communication. In a word, it can be said
that there is a gap between students who see English Education as “Purpose” and thenation which sees it as a “Means”. Then, why are students so concerned with entrance
exams? Here, Advancement rate to the number of students who stay in school until 18
after the compulsory education of the advanced country is shown (Figure2).

3 |Korea(2007)

99.9%

Germany(2006)

96.0%

France(2006)
U.K(2006)

95.4%
89.3%

U.S.A(2005)
JAPAN(2008)

92.1%
98.1%

Figure2, Advancement rate to the number of students who stay in school until 18
after the compulsory education of the advanced country[Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan, 2009]

The level of the advancement rate to the secondary education of Japan is high, andnear almost 100%. In addition, it is high-level though there is basically an entrance
exam in Japan. Incidentally, there is no entrance exam in the United States. It is an
education-conscious society that still remains in the background now. It can be said thatthe number of entrance exam passes for university with a high deviation value isimportant standards in selecting a high school. Summarizing on the basis of these, goingon to high school is indispensable in an education-conscious society, and the idea of theentrance exam of English is only a purpose. It might have a bad effect on education byputting too much emphasis on exam results.

4 |2. The method of English Language Education
It turned out that in association with the entrance exam, the contents of the class thatstudents are requesting is different from the idea of the nation. The English language
skill that the junior high school students are requesting is the ability to solve entrance
exam questions. The contents of the textbook are however, mainly conversation
sentences and story sentences from the first grade of junior high-school basically,
because the government wants them to be able to communicate with someone. Can theEnglish ability to communicate with anyone be acquired by English Language
Education to memorize the conversation sentence only? Even if the expression can beused in the conversation, it will be not versatile, because if I can say “It is a book”, I
cannot understand what “It” means and when I have to use “a”. In addition to that, I
have a doubt whether entrance exam questions can be solved by the use of that textbook.
To look at the entrance exam, the questions are mostly of the long sentencecomprehension, the grammar, and the vocabulary, even if there are listening questions.
According to “New Curriculum Guideline of study” (2008), students had better todevelop students’ basic communication abilities such as listening, speaking, reading andwriting. What we should pay attention is the order of the ability of English. “Writing” isthe last content of all. It is not still so attached importance to “Writing”, that is, thegrammar in the school, but why is English ability in the entrance exam requested to beable to be read and written? There is a contradiction between entrance exams with a lot5 |of grammatical questions and English Language Education to acquire communications
skills.
Here, the education in the cram school is one of the bad effects of this contradiction.
According to “2007 Annual Report on the National Life” (2007), a rate of the expert
cram school in the first grade of junior high-school is 45.1%, the second grade is 50.9%,
and the third grade of junior high-school is 65.1% in Japan. Recently as there is a word
“examination war”, the people who have to go to the cram school to pass an entrance
exam have increased. It can be read as dissatisfaction with the education done at theschool. In English Language Education in most cram schools, the grammar of each unit
is taught, and there is no concept of communications at all. By solving in the past ofvarious entrance exams, they can learn the technique in the long sentencecomprehension.
In a word, we have to solve the contradiction between an entrance exam and English
Language Education to acquire communications skills. I certainly think that it isnecessary to acquire communications skills, but I wonder whether it is a requirement tostudy the grammar before acquiring communications skills. With no knowledge ofgrammar, there is a limit to understanding sentences.
Therefore I move for some ideas. The First idea is to get the grammar to be taught
chiefly in the junior-high school in order to solve an entrance exam and to get thecommunications skills to be entirely taught in the high school. This is my best idea to6 |solve any problems. The second idea is to make the junior-high school the place wherecommunications skills are thoroughly acquired. To achieve it, it is necessary to make theclass the place to which English is studied in English by the foreigner teacher. This is
the method the first English Language Education of me, and I think it is effective if
there is motivation. The third idea is to change entrance exam questions into the one tomeasure communications skills. It is expected to take much time because it needsinterviewing, and it needs to make it to the content to which English Language
Education improves communications skills more.

3. The difference of English language skill requested by the place
English Language Education is performed by the high school, and the vocabulary andthe syntax, etc. get complicated. However, I doubt whether it is able to say that theEnglish language skill acquired by the cram school that can be used to pass the entrance
exam is true English language ability. There is a problem such a word “It is not possible
to speak though it is possible to read and write.” It has been said by the Japanese for along time in international society. It becomes a lot of English conversation cram schools
came to be shown in the town, but they can learn oral communications ability only inthe front, and it cannot be said true English language ability. I think, fundamentally, it isin Japanese that to understand English is a problem. It seems that the Japanese tends totranslate each one of the word into Japanese faithfully when English sentences are7 |translated. The reason is that English is translated into Japanese like the Chinese writing
Japanese read. In other words, the Japanese mechanically processes an English culture
as grammatical knowledge by the habit of studying for exams. In a word, students are
asked to do “Processing” English, how fast to do it, and whether to be able to do it
exactly or not in an entrance exam, but asked to do “Practical English” in internationalsociety. However the idea that it is necessary to perform the grammatical education
chiefly in English Language Education in the junior high school doesn't still have to bechanged even if it says. To want to expect is to come to be able to use “Particle English”
in the high school a lot. For that, the place where the student can remove the stereotypesof English, and can voluntarily work is necessary. It is a place where English can beunderstood from English. Expressing feelings and the desire without the hesitation
within the known English range becomes important. Then, I think that students should
not be compelled to write a written language expression by the teacher, and the systemthat teaches “Comprehensible English” to them is needed. It seems that it naturally
approaches “Practical English” if the “comprehensible English” is found by them,understood and it comes to be expressible.

4. Conclusion
As we have seen, it has been understood that the system of the English Language
Education of present Japan has many difficulties and contradictions. The reason why the8 |English language skill of Japan is low might have been caused by the difference
between the policy of English in the nation and the student's consideration of English
which is based on the background of an entrance exam. It was too early to request
communications skills. It is necessary that the junior-high school students understandthe structure from a grammatical education. Japan where the advancement rate to thehigh school is near 100% will only have to think about the curriculum by assuming thejunior high school and the high school to be one span. If it comes true, the bad effects ofEnglish for the entrance exam can be reduced, and it is likely to people will be lessembarrassed in international society by “Comprehensible English” or “PracticalEnglish”.

5. Bibliography
Benesse Educational research and development center, “The 1st Datum survey
concerning junior high school English”, 2009
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan,“NewCurriculum Guideline of study”, 2008
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan,”2007 Annual
Report on the National Life”, 2007
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan,”2009
International comparison of educational index”, 2009