Public Lecture at Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia

June 2, 2o14

English, English, Everywhere

…but whose agenda?
Masaki Oda, Ph.D.
Director
Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF)
Tamagawa University
E-mail. [email protected]
Contents

 I. English around us.

 II. Self awareness.
 III. Mistaken beliefs and Public Discourses
 IV. ELT in Japan. What’s wrong?
 V. Whose agenda and what can we do?
I. English around us.

 Exposure to English (and other foreign langua

ge) is rare outside the classrooms, because …

 English is an important language in the era of

globalization, but it would never be a threat f
or the Japanese language.
On a Japanese commuter train
On another commuter train
Advertisement on Train (Shinto shrine)
A vending machine at a train station
Heavy Rotation (AKB48)

 I want you!I need you! I love you! Atama no n

aka (In my head). Gangan natteru (pounding)
Music. Heavy rotation.
So…English is every where.

 Linguistic landscapes. (e.g. Backhaus 2007)

 The communicative functions of English appe
ared in the examples?

 Everyone would agree that we are exposed to

these examples in our daily life.
II. Self awareness

 The question is whether people (learners) are

aware of the impact of English they are const
antly exposed to, particularly to educational p
olicies.
 JSPS Projects

 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Kakenh

i) Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research:
Scientific Research (C) 21520596 (2009-2012) “Public
Discourses and Foreign Language Teaching Policy M
aking”

AND Scientific Research (C) 25370730 (2013-2015)

“The Formation of Learners’ Beliefs on Foreign Lang
uage Learning and Public Discourse”
Components of the project

 Students (Questionnaires/Interviews)
 General Public (Readers’ discussion section on ne
wspapers…Oda, in preparation)
 Experts’ Voice (Mass Media, Academic Discourse)
 Semiotic Landscape (Advertisements: Visual as w
ell as verbal representations)
 Hope to clarify a mechanism of how public discou
rses are formulated and propagated and advise t
he Japanese general public how to deal with it.
Outline of English language teaching i
n Japan (2007)
 Compulsory Education
 Primary: 6-11 (6 years)
 Lower Secondary: 12-14 (3 years)
 Optional
 Upper Secondary: 15-17 (3 years) 97.4%
 Higher Education (4 year universities, 2 year j
unior colleges etc.) 53.7%
From http://www.mext.go.jp/

13
Enrollment (2011)

 Lower Secondary: 3.53 million.

 Upper Secondary: 3.32 million.
 English is a de-facto required subject in secon
dary schools.

14
Changes in educational policy and their i
mpact on teacher education

 Announced in March 2008

 Introduction of English as an ‘activity’ for 5 th a
nd 6th graders at primary schools nationwide
effective 2011 academic year.
 Subject vs. Activity
 Who were going to teach ‘English activities’?

15
Impact on teacher education

 Only three years of preparation.

 New teachers?
 Retraining 418,000 primary school teachers t
o accommodate English activities?

16
How much does the general public kno
w?
 A survey given to 80 students enrolled in intro
ductory course in linguistics at a Tokyo area p
rivate university. (Fall 2012)
 All of them had taken English both at lower a
nd upper secondary schools.
 Less than 10 students had taken any foreign l
anguages besides English at lower and/or upp
er secondary schools.
The questionnaire

 Three open-ended questions including the one as

king the students whether or not they agree with
the government’s plan (at that time) to include “F
oreign Language Activities” in primary school curr
iculum.

 I used the term “Foreign Language Activities” in

my questionnaire. However, a majority of the stud
ents replaced the term by “English classes/lesson
s”.
What the responses tell you.

 Rather than discussing “how many students s

aid what”, I pay more attention to what kinds
of responses have been made to the question
s.
Prevailed Assumption (1)

 “Foreign Language Activities” = “English classes”

 “Classes”: The instructor has to have a national li

cense for primary schools (Class 1 or 2). Grades a
re given.
 “Activities”: Although they have to be placed in s
chool curriculum, the instructor can be anyone w
ho are determined to be “qualified” to conduct a
ctivities, because the grades are not given.
Prevailed Assumption (2-A)

 “YES” to English at primary schools

 Because languages are better acquired before pub
erty.
 Because more people in the world use English than
any other languages.
 Because English is the most important language in
the world.
 Because the earlier the better.
 Because English opens the door to the world.
Prevailed Assumption (2-B)

 “No” to English at primary schools.

 Because 5/6th grades are too early. Children h
as not acquired enough Japanese.
 Because too much English would negatively a
ffect the developments of Japanese (L1).
 Because very few people would actually have
an opportunity to use it in a future.
 Because it would become an additional subje
ct for private lower secondary school.
Prevailed Assumptions (3)

 Native (English) speaker teachers vs. Japanese

(Speaking) teachers distinction.
 Hypothetical Native Speaker = Mostly Caucasian
Teachers from what Kachru (1982 etc.) calls Inne
r Circle.
 Japanese teachers (Non-native English speaker t
eachers) are considered counterparts of NESTs.
 Non-Japanese, Non-native English speaker teac
hers
III. Mistaken beliefs and Public Discour
ses
 Many students do not seem to know what ex
actly they are talking about.
 They are likely to be influenced by flood of inf
ormation they are constantly exposed to.
Public Discourses
 Our life is surrounded by…
The earlier the
better. Start now!

English is a
passport to the
All our teachers are
world!
Native-speakers.
Learn ‘authentic’
English.
In US, even 5 year
old kids speak
Forget about English fluently. Why
grammar. Let’s can’t you…?
communicate!

ODA, M Public Discourse 25

Advertisement on the web

 “…what was the difference between the two geneo

us skaters, Yun-na and Mao. It was English. While Y
un-na always responds to interviews in English, Ma
o does in Japanese most of the time…this is the diff
erence between gold and silver…[as a Japanese] I a
m embarrassed. Excuse me, but I would say that w
e Japanese needs to learn English more seriously
(“The difference between Mao and Yun-na”
 From The Mummy Talk English Village, blog entry F
ebruary 27, 2010, trans. From Japanese by MO)
English Conversation School Ad near th
e train station.
 “4 years old…It is not too late to begin. Let’s s
tart now to make your kids become ‘Kokusaiji
n’ (Cosmopolitan).
The formulation of learner Beliefs

External
Factors
Learner including
beliefs Social
Reflections
Conditions

Action Attitudes
Five fallacies of ELT (Phillipson 1992)

 Robert Phillipson (1992) …argues that there

are five fallacies of ELT (often practiced in th
e profession) = He argues that these are WR
ONG!
 Earlier the better.
 Native speakers being ideal teachers.
 More the better.
 English only.
 The standard of English.

29
ELT policy and the five fallacies.

 “Foreign Language Activities” at elementary

schools. = The earlier, the better,
 “Teaching English in English only at upper sec
ondary schools”. = English only.

ODA, M Public Discourse 30

Public Discourse
Based on Shimizu (2002)

Opinion
Personal Public
of a
Opinion Discourse
group

ODA, M Public Discourse 31

IV. ELT Policies in Japan: What’s wron
g?
 Globalization
 English is ‘the’ international language.
 Native speakers as model.
 Communication
 Authentic Materials
 Eligibility for ALT (1) cited in Oda (2009)
From http://www.jetprogramme.org/

 14. Hold at least a Bachelor’s degree or obtain o

ne by the departure date, or be qualified to teac
h at primary/elementary or secondary schools o
r obtain qualifications by the departure date.
 15. Be qualified as a language teacher or be stro
ngly motivated to take part in the teaching of f
oreign languages.
Eligibility for ALT (2)

 16. Successful applicants are expected to mak

e an effort to study or continue studying the J
apanese language prior to and after arriving i
n Japan.
 17. In addition to the above, applicants from n
on-English speaking countries must have a fu
nctional command of the English or Japanese
language.
 (Emphasis added by MO)
EFL Programs at universities
 Analysis of descriptions on Japanese university web
sites. Popular keywords are;

 * Teaching English in English

 * Native English speaking instructors
 * Smaller classes
 * Use of IT and Audiovisual materials
 * Use of authentic materials.
 * Use of standardized tests: TOEIC/TOEFL/IELTS
 * Rubrics (CEFR)
Native-speakerism in Japanese universi
ties
 Native Speakerism 　（ Holiday 2006)
 Braine, ed. (1999), Houghton & Rivers, eds. (2
013).
Oda (2008)

 TESOL NNEST Interest Section Web. Nov 2008

In ELT…Native vs. Non-Native speaker distinction is u

seless.

It only glorifies language teachers just because they a

re native speakers, at the same time stigmatizes their
non-native counterparts, without looking at other im
portant aspects, such as pedagogical competence, kn
owledge of student cultures, etc.
 EFL is Asia: What do we need?

1) Users of English (in the world): ENL:ESL:EFL -> 1:2:2

cf. Kachru’s concentric circles (1982)
Graddol (2006) English Next

2) Achieving ‘native’ speaker’s English as a goal is

unrealistic.
cf. Honna and Takeshita (1998)

3) ‘Native speaker’ and English as a Lingua Franca

cf. Rampton (1990), Jenkins (2000, 2006), Kirkpatrick (2010)
 English and Multilingualism
 Joseph and Ramani (2006)cited in McKay and Bokh
orst-Heng (2008) p.21
 “the right of people to have access to English – the
language of modernity and globalism” (p.186)
 “The first danger of middle class people worldwide
becoming monolingual in English” (p.187)

 *When a Japanese businessman talks with an Indo

nesian counterpart. Which language do they use?
V. Whose agenda? & What can we do?
(Summary & Conclusion)
The policy makers and responsibility

 They only take a responsibility for what is ov

ert.
 What is ‘covert’ will grow without being noti
ced. It includes .
 By the time people have noticed the ‘covert’
agenda, it is usually too late to avoid its negat
ive consequences.
 Whose agenda?
Voices from Japanese Academics

 Saito (2009) 　 A lack of ‘gakuri’ ( 学理） or a scientific p

rinciple.
　“ FLT professionals need to take an initiative to calm do
wn frenzied discourses created without any scientific prin
ciple”
 Kanatani (2008) The Japanese are at a loss as far as ELT i
s concerned. He suggests that we need to set a goal, calc
ulate the cost involved, and be ready to invest, and execu
te the plan.
 Conclusion (For teachers and learners)
 * Analysis of the situations in which the students are likely to use En
glish (both at present and in the future). It is also important at some
stages, the learners has become able to reflect their learning of Eng
lish and

 * Exposure to the varieties of English: Change in students’ attitude

s.

 * English as a stepping stone for other languages (English should n

ot replace other languages including the learner’s mother tongue.)

 * The importance of the roles of ELT professionals.

Conclusion (For general public)

 The role of general public is important. (Their at

titudes are often cited as legitimate reasons for
setting up a policy)
 Need sufficient information (Quality & Quantity)
 Be trained to critically evaluate the policy and it
s consequence.
 ELT professionals have raised voices within the
profession…However, they must be more access
ible to general public.