Japan junior high kids average 12% correct answers in English oral test

15 comments

1. American junior high kids average 0% correct answers in Japanese oral test.

2. Maybe they could learn French instead? The language of love.

3. So much information seems to be missing from this article to take away anything meaningful here. It sounds like there was a total rework of curriculum and the test material itself. The test in 2019 they averaged at 30%, but they’re saying this test is even harder? There’s gotta be some disconnect between what’s being taught in class and what’s on these tests.

4. Being quite familiar with the high school English curriculum, this does not surprise me one bit.

5. “60% couldn’t answer a single question correctly” Sounds about right. This is going to be painful for a while as the base level of English in the country and JTE ability is just abysmal.

6. I was just watching some videos where they were reading translations into Japanese over cartoons of Harry potter with English subtitles. Somer of it was pretty funny and makes you realize just how whacky English is sometimes with its word use and meaning variety.

7. Let me assure you, their communicative English ability is bad, however this article is also terribly written.

   What consititutes a correct answer?

   For example

   Q: Tell me about someone you admire?

   A: I admire my father, he love to cook……. and so on and so forth

   Does forgetting that one s constitute the entire answer as wrong?

   ​

   Also, I teach in the public school system in Japan, and I will tell you…. no one, and I mean NO ONE gives a flying fuck about speaking English from an academic point of view. There are some kids who want to learn for their own benefit and just enjoy it, but the vast majority of students are thinking one thing

   ‘I want to pass the test I need to pass to get into the high school/college that I want to get into’

   Those tests do not have a speaking element. They are typically 70% reading, 20% listening, and one free writing question at the end. The problem with the free writing question is that the format is the same every year, so students have a skeleteon ready to go before they even walk into the testing room.

   So yeah, these headlines make it looks like Japanese teachers suck at teaching English, and Japanese students suck at learning it!

   But what is a far more accurate headline is ‘Due to the nature of the current education system, speaking English is an unneccessary skill to have academic success’

8. Is it important for them to learn English?

   I don’t think I know many people that actually learn anything from their second language class in highschool in Western countries.

9. In my prefecture they recently fired an American ALT teacher, and replaced her with a Japanese teacher because money. They keep cutting corners and looking for the cheapest option, then they are shocked when their stupid decisions lead to this.

10. University entrance exams in JP do not have oral test, so there is no problem (also their English education is quite a joke🤣)

11. As a former English teacher at a high school, I’m not surprised 😂😅

12. Don’t worry, American junior high kids average 0% correct answers in Japanese oral test.

13. I mean, why would we expect them to speak English correctly, or even at all, when the teaching programs don’t actually make the kids speak to each other and the teacher frequently in English?

14. Surprise surprise.
    Eiken. The biggest scam in education.

15. Japan’s rightist corporate masters don’t want people learning English properly. It potentially undermines the future prominence of Japanese and also gives the worker serfs options vis a vis moving overseas for better pay. Like the way some religious communities don’t teach their children a proper school syllabus, gimping the education keeps them dependent on the local community.