TEFL New Cumberland West Virginia

It has been over a hundred years since the english learning in japan occurred. However most of japanese people still do not have any command of english. This condition is barely comprehensible for a person like me who grow up in a country where english is a Second language. Research and experience help me point out some problems that cause such condition. One reason is that japanese learners have little or no opportunity to practice the language. Formal english education in japan starts in Junior High School until College. Nonetheless they hardly survive in an english conversation with foreigners. It is because english in school focuses on grammar and reading rather than listening and speaking. There is little or no opportunity to produce the language within and outside the learning institution. The focus on accuracy rather than fluency gives them anxiety when confronted of situation to produce the language. They are afraid to embarrass themselves knowing that they haven't acquired mastery on the production of english communication. english is not often heard or used in the circle of japanese friends, in the media and anywhere in japan. Thus anyone who speaks the language is subject to criticism. The Ministry of Education has taken action on this problem by hiring native speaker to be in english classes of Junior High School. The goal is to give students a chance to listen and speak to a native speaker and to give them natural usage and pronunciation. However there is improper use of the native speaker. Most often than not they are utilize as a human tape recorder and the worst thing is that they are left unutilized. english activity in elementary has been started six years ago in some Board of Education. The primary objective of this endeavor is not necessarily to teach listening and speaking but to provide exposure to the students to become interested in different language and culture and to provide interesting activities to nurture positive attitude towards english communication. The government and private institution has been working hand in hand in providing english education to the citizen of japan. Yet despite of all the effort, the challenge is left to the learner on when to practice the language that is rarely used in reality. Second reason is english and japanese are different. The differences include phonetics, phonology, vocabulary, syntax and extend beyond sentence structuring. Most japanese find difficulty in pronouncing / l/,/ r/, /th/ since the japanese language does not contain those letters. They also have difficulty in using particles like a, an, of, the. They tend to force vowels between consonants. They pronounce candle as canduru. They also try to add vowels at the end of the word like post it as posto ito. They also have problem in word stress. They pronounce banana as ba-na-na. Third reason is that they are cautious of the threat of underlying ideologies in learning english. japanese people are very nationalistic. They give their loyalty to their country. They are willing to die for their own country. Thus they rather use their own language rather than others. They take from other's culture and modify it to make it their own. They use loan words and translation for example as form of resistance to colonization. They take pride of being progressive without acquiring the mastery of english communication. They find any means to stand unique around the globe and take pride of who they are. Only three have been enumerated in this article. But there are still thousands of problem the learners are facing today. The challenge for the teachers is to inspire the students to use the difficulty as an opportunity to make their goals and dreams into reality. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_english_in_japan http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2009/04/ten-reaons-why-english-education-in.html