Japan’s English language deficit : why does Japan fail at teaching English ?

Most Japanese fare poorly in English, as acknowledged by both foreigners and the Japanese themselves. Indeed, the average score of Japanese candidates sitting for the Test of English as a Foreign language (TOEFL) ranks lowest among all Asian nations except North Korea. The average Japanese has undergone six years of English-language instruction, taught in middle school and high school, by the time he or she becomes an adult (eight years if foreign-language curricula at the university level are included). Yet a great majority of Japanese people can barely speak English when trying to talk with foreigners. Why is it so ? What can account for this matter ? Why does Japan fail at teaching English and how could the government address this issue ?

Questionnaire : identifying the issue

First of all, since I couldn’t conduct my survey in the Yokohama campus, I went to a big party in Yokohama and used this opportunity to ask a few Japanese students basic questions about what they thought concerning English classes in Japan. I gave them a questionnaire with 7 questions. 30 students answered the small questionnaire, and most of them came from public schools. Although there were some very different backgrounds (for exemple one of the students went to an International school, another one spent one year abroad…-of course these students showed a real interest for English and spoke really good-) it’s very interesting to see that most of the answers pointed out the same problems. Here are the first answers I got from my questionnaire :

*When asked about a general thinking concerning English classes in Japan, all the sudents answered that the overall system was a problem and that it needed change.

*20 out of the 30 students pointed out a lack of listening comprehension or oral studies in English classes when they were asked about what would need a change.

*When asked about