Japanese junior high kids average 12% in English oral test

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1. Text:

   “Third-year junior high students in Japan were on average only able to answer 12.4% of questions correctly in an English-speaking test for national assessments conducted in April, the education ministry said Monday, marking an 18.4 percentage points fall from when they were previously assessed in 2019.
   More than 60% of the students evaluated could not answer a single speaking question correctly, the education ministry results showed.

   Although national assessments are conducted annually, it was the first time in four years that third-year high schoolers’ English was evaluated.

   The drop comes after changes were introduced to the English teaching curriculum in the 2021 academic year, which put more focus on students’ ability to convey their thoughts and understand those of others in the language.

   Aside from speaking skills, the junior high school students on average provided correct answers to 46.1% of questions in the reading, listening and writing sections of the test, a fall of 10.4 points from the previous assessment.

   Although the results showed a fall in the proportion of correct answers, an official at the ministry said the test had been “difficult” and explained that it “cannot be concluded that students’ English ability has fallen.”

   With a majority of students unable to correctly answer a single speaking question, some experts say the curriculum is too advanced and that the way the questions are formulated is ill-suited to the task of assessing students’ language skills.

   The English-speaking portion of the test comprised five questions, including one in which students watched a video about environmental issues and then provided answers in English, which included expressing their thoughts. Their responses were recorded on digital devices and sent to the ministry.

   To avoid the recordings being sent all at once from across the country, which risked causing a communications failure, the ministry sampled about 42,000 students at about 500 schools in the nationwide April assessment.

   The ministry says direct comparisons with previous assessments are not appropriate, as the average is calculated from the sample alone.

   While the junior high schoolers’ average correct answer rate in reading and listening stood at over 50%, writing scores were also low, averaging 24.1%.

   Prefectures with major metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Kanagawa and Aichi had the highest results in English reading, listening and writing, according to the ministry.”

2. Well, English teachers, what do you have to say for yourselves?

3. If this is the national test with the headset on a tablet, I think 50% of the problem is half the answers were probably random noises kids were making while trying to figure out if the ipad was recording their response.

   Our school had a lot of IT help coming in to make sure that everything was running smoothly.

   That being said, I don’t know if this is right or wrong. I do know that they are changing our curriculum again next year for textbooks, less than 6 years after the start. Not enough time for teachers to develop the skills needed to teach using the european style (learn English through topics that are not strictly English, like social studies in English with small asides about grammar). The pacing is really odd.

4. > Although the results showed a fall in the proportion of correct answers, an official at the ministry said the test had been “difficult” and explained that it “cannot be concluded that students’ English ability has fallen.”

   > With a majority of students unable to correctly answer a single speaking question, some experts say the curriculum is too advanced and that the way the questions are formulated is ill-suited to the task of assessing students’ language skills.

   Which muppet designs these exams, should they not be constructed to suit the level that the students are supposed to be at?

   Saying that the exams are “difficult” is fucking nonsense.

5. The test topic was about current concerns for the global environment. How many 14 year olds have an opinion about climate change.

6. JHS year 3 student here.
   Since the way English is taught in public schools relies on fixed formats in terms of speaking. E.g. Class presentations need to follow some goofy goober way of answering questions which honestly limits creativity in terms of answering. Like yea I understand the first few times its better to get used to a format to answer but having to use it every time just sucks. And when oral exams comes the questions will be too out of the box for many of my friends cause they are taught in a way to only suit the need for communicating with a literal roblox npc. Really need to change the way its taught before any improvements happens.

7. I’m fine thank you and you?