To pass the tests of the few elite universities that have recently added English oral comprehension to their entrance exams. For that reason, Mr. Ogino is pessimistic. ''To be communicative is one thing. There are other barriers to learning English. Classes are set at 40 students and an oral communication class with a native English speaker is held just once a week. You can't get them to speak,'' said JoAnn Briscoe, an American who taught for a year at a Tokyo high school.
Groups are important in Japan.
In other countries, to be against God is bad. In Japan, to be against the group is bad,'' he said. It's an international language. It's an Internet language. You have to be fluent in English and one way to do that is to make both Japanese and English an official language,'' he said in a recent interview with The Washington Post.