But how about performance in an internationally recognised assessment, I wonder.
“I’m doing my part!”
All the ALTs in this sub must feel validated
Could’ve fooled me!
This should read ‘Test scores are improving’, not ‘proficiency’.
Miyagi is the lowest. Damn, haha.
They’re basing this on how many people pass EIKEN.
There is a speaking portion for that test, but at least as far as EIKEN pre-2 it’s all about being able to pick out correct information from a passage and memorize some verbs to explain actions in a picture, so it’s possible to pass without completely understanding what you’re saying as long as you can identify patterns.
As an English Teacher, I honestly agree. The stereotype that younger generations are better at English still hold true.
Of course not all students speak English, but those that do, often speak it well. However, i am unsure if the gap in skill between students who study english va those who don’t has changed.
I know people will wanna make a joke but at least at my school this is very true. I’m an English teacher, not an ALT, at a Japanese high school and over the last 3-ish years the incoming 1st year students have been significantly better at speaking and listening than the previous year’s incoming students. My first year students this year on average are better than the third year students. The change to add more English in early education about 5 years ago, while not being implemented very well, is still showing a big effect I think.
If they can figure out a way to get more Japanese English teachers to actually use English, things would move a lot quicker. If these year on year improvements I’m seeing continue, eventually those students will become teachers and there will be more teachers using English. It shouldn’t need to take that long though. The teachers now should be making more efforts.
Back in 2017, elementary students only had English in 5th and 6th grade, and it wasn’t a formal subject. Now they have it at every grade, tests in the higher grades and it’s a real subject.
I wonder how much of a part the Olympics played in all of this. The government was clearly trying to ramp up the English level in anticipation of a large number of foreign tourists. That never happened, but the English level has clearly gone up a bit, so there’s that.
I have definitely seen it get better in the time I’ve lived here
Yeah, I think people are a little overly-pessimistic about English education here. It’s still not great, but the 1st year JHS students this year are much further along than the JHS students a few years ago. This has been snowballing a bit, I think. The kids who dislike English class are still by and large terrible at it, but the kids who pay attention and are interested are doing better than ever, at least on my little anecdotal basis
The ubiquity of Youtube among generation alpha is probably the reason why. English is the default language of Youtube and many videos, even if they are made by non-English speakers, are in English nonetheless. While kids do mostly watch Japanese videos, they can’t help but be exposed to English content. Nobody even complains about learning English these days, they just acknowledge it’s the lingua franca.
In time it will get better. I just feel it could be more efficient. most ALTs I know share this sentiment. I don’t know what specific things must be done but high schoolers shouldn’t be still stuck with basic sentences. I guess more exposure to the english language? Is the government doing something about that?
Measured how, exactly?
On some benchmark test, or some qualification that is recognized only in Japan?
Statistics have shown a particularly high proficiency score with the words pen, pineapple, and apple.
ALT training since covid has put more focus on reading and phonetics than before. The training tends to be ways to get in 5-15 minutes of sneaky phonetics practice through an aisatsu without the JTE objecting to it.
Students who start to read instead of memorize do much better and keep up with classwork better.
There’s skepticism round here but just my personal observation feels that it is true
You mean that they don’t suck at a language they spend several years of their lives studying? No way! That *can’t* be true! It’s… impossible!
No it’s not
That’s good, they need to catch up with the rest of the world even if they live mostly in their social bubble on an island.
One thing is for sure, Japanese kids are better at English than I am at French lol Studied it from around grade 3 – 12, took the French public exam (a like 3 hour test that determines 50% of your final grade in grade 12) and got above a 80%, but I know like 5 phrases these days…
It’s amazing how fast I forgot everything. My public exam even included a 10 minute interview in which I scored really well on. The fact that random people who studied English like 10+ years ago will try to speak Eglish with me and get more than a few sentences out is impressive, and the kids I meet these days can basically have a (simple) conversation.with me.
Define proficiency.
Define proficiency.
Did they update the curriculum any time in the last 25 years or was it something else that caused it?
Did some researching. The full results can be found here (Japanese):
Motion-detecting cameras near Japan’s Mount Fuji capture laser beams from NASA satellite, streaming from orbit to Earth https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/thats-no-meteor-nasa-satellites-elusive-green-lasers-spotted-at-work
27 comments
But how about performance in an internationally recognised assessment, I wonder.
“I’m doing my part!”
All the ALTs in this sub must feel validated
Could’ve fooled me!
This should read ‘Test scores are improving’, not ‘proficiency’.
Miyagi is the lowest. Damn, haha.
They’re basing this on how many people pass EIKEN.
There is a speaking portion for that test, but at least as far as EIKEN pre-2 it’s all about being able to pick out correct information from a passage and memorize some verbs to explain actions in a picture, so it’s possible to pass without completely understanding what you’re saying as long as you can identify patterns.
As an English Teacher, I honestly agree. The stereotype that younger generations are better at English still hold true.
Of course not all students speak English, but those that do, often speak it well. However, i am unsure if the gap in skill between students who study english va those who don’t has changed.
I know people will wanna make a joke but at least at my school this is very true. I’m an English teacher, not an ALT, at a Japanese high school and over the last 3-ish years the incoming 1st year students have been significantly better at speaking and listening than the previous year’s incoming students. My first year students this year on average are better than the third year students. The change to add more English in early education about 5 years ago, while not being implemented very well, is still showing a big effect I think.
If they can figure out a way to get more Japanese English teachers to actually use English, things would move a lot quicker. If these year on year improvements I’m seeing continue, eventually those students will become teachers and there will be more teachers using English. It shouldn’t need to take that long though. The teachers now should be making more efforts.
Back in 2017, elementary students only had English in 5th and 6th grade, and it wasn’t a formal subject. Now they have it at every grade, tests in the higher grades and it’s a real subject.
I wonder how much of a part the Olympics played in all of this. The government was clearly trying to ramp up the English level in anticipation of a large number of foreign tourists. That never happened, but the English level has clearly gone up a bit, so there’s that.
I have definitely seen it get better in the time I’ve lived here
Yeah, I think people are a little overly-pessimistic about English education here. It’s still not great, but the 1st year JHS students this year are much further along than the JHS students a few years ago. This has been snowballing a bit, I think. The kids who dislike English class are still by and large terrible at it, but the kids who pay attention and are interested are doing better than ever, at least on my little anecdotal basis
The ubiquity of Youtube among generation alpha is probably the reason why. English is the default language of Youtube and many videos, even if they are made by non-English speakers, are in English nonetheless. While kids do mostly watch Japanese videos, they can’t help but be exposed to English content. Nobody even complains about learning English these days, they just acknowledge it’s the lingua franca.
In time it will get better. I just feel it could be more efficient. most ALTs I know share this sentiment. I don’t know what specific things must be done but high schoolers shouldn’t be still stuck with basic sentences. I guess more exposure to the english language? Is the government doing something about that?
Measured how, exactly?
On some benchmark test, or some qualification that is recognized only in Japan?
Statistics have shown a particularly high proficiency score with the words pen, pineapple, and apple.
ALT training since covid has put more focus on reading and phonetics than before. The training tends to be ways to get in 5-15 minutes of sneaky phonetics practice through an aisatsu without the JTE objecting to it.
Students who start to read instead of memorize do much better and keep up with classwork better.
There’s skepticism round here but just my personal observation feels that it is true
You mean that they don’t suck at a language they spend several years of their lives studying? No way! That *can’t* be true! It’s… impossible!
No it’s not
That’s good, they need to catch up with the rest of the world even if they live mostly in their social bubble on an island.
One thing is for sure, Japanese kids are better at English than I am at French lol Studied it from around grade 3 – 12, took the French public exam (a like 3 hour test that determines 50% of your final grade in grade 12) and got above a 80%, but I know like 5 phrases these days…
It’s amazing how fast I forgot everything. My public exam even included a 10 minute interview in which I scored really well on. The fact that random people who studied English like 10+ years ago will try to speak Eglish with me and get more than a few sentences out is impressive, and the kids I meet these days can basically have a (simple) conversation.with me.
Define proficiency.
Define proficiency.
Did they update the curriculum any time in the last 25 years or was it something else that caused it?
Did some researching. The full results can be found here (Japanese):
令和5年度「英語教育実施状況調査」の結果について
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusai/gaikokugo/1415043_00005.htm
You can also find statistics for elementary, junior high schools, and senior high schools as well as see the amount of ALTs each prefecture has.
—————
The statistics are based on the international CEFR ([Common European Framework of Reference for Languages](https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/table-1-cefr-3.3-common-reference-levels-global-scale)), which has 6 levels from level A1 up to C2 (can understand basic everyday expressions and phrases up to virtually understanding everything read or heard).
The Ministry’s stats are based on passing [CEFR Level A1](https://www.eiken.or.jp/eiken/en/eiken-tests/overview/eiken-cse_admission.html). It’s equivalent to passing the EIKEN 1, Pre-1, 2, Pre-2 tests and comfortably passing the EIKEN 3 test.
By whose metric?