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Sociolingüística internacional


The Sociolinguistic Situation of English in Japan, by Nobuyuki Tukahara


CONTINUA


Table 4. EIKEN Results 2001

Level*

Number of candidates

Number of passes

Corresponding
TOEFL grade

Corresponding
TOEIC grade

1

30,423

2,147

610

908

Pre-1

126,387

12,960

542

751

2

419,126

88,644

456

519

Pre-2

592,962

212,965

N/A

N/A

3

819,520

411,541

N/A

N/A

4

604,773

432,430

N/A

N/A

5

375,370

303,488

N/A

N/A

TOTAL

2,968,561

1,464,135

   

Source: Own work based on data taken from the official website of The Society for Testing Englisch Proficiency (5)
(*) As the table indicates, Level 1 is the highest.

These three sets of results are lacking in statistical basis and cannot therefore be used to find out directly the proficiency of the Japanese in English. Here, we will limit ourselves to confirming the high number of candidates sitting the tests and to pointing out that the English skills of the Japanese in general cannot be very high.

2.2. Learning

In the main, English is learned in three environments: at school, in private language schools and in the home (private tutor and self-teaching).

2.2.1. The school system
At lower secondary level (12 - 15 years), all students must learn a foreign language. The subject is called "foreign language" but, in practice, this is English, because most schools do not offer any other option. The situation repeats itself at upper secondary level (15 -18 years). For example, in 1995, there were 5,501 upper secondary schools
(6) and only 160 offered foreign language subjects other than English (Okado, 1998). In other words, only 3% of schools offered foreign languages other than English as a subject. However, this does not mean that, in these cases, English was incompatible with other language subjects.

In the year 2000, a total of 4,103,717 pupils enrolled in lower secondary education and 4,165,434 in upper secondary school. (7) This adds up to a total of 8,269,151 students, almost all of whom learn English in some form or another. Moreover, the educational guidance norms of the Ministry of Science and Education, allocate 87.5 hours a year to "foreign language" at lower secondary level, and 204 hours a year at upper secondary schools (these hours are standard and may vary).

English is also taught at university. Generally-speaking, students have to learn two foreign languages, regardless of their main subject. One of these is usually English. In 2000, university students totalled 2,471,755. (8)

2.2.2. Private schools
In 1997, 1,333 private foreign language schools were surveyed. Overall, they numbered 6,152 schools and 715,051 students.
(9) It is likely that the vast majority of these offered, at the very least, English as a subject. Revenue from the sector for the same year totalled 992,220,000 euros. (10)

2.2.3. Private (private tutor and self-teaching)
Quantitative data on private tutors cannot be found. For the self-teaching aspect, we can use as a reference the data on the courses broadcast on television and radio. The semi-state channel NHK (Nihon Hôsô Kyôkai) broadcasts language courses. We will now consider the variety of languages and the broadcasting time allocated to each language per week.

Table 5. Televised Course: Languages and Weekly Broadcasting Time (April 2002-March 2003)*

Language

Weekly Language Broadcasting Time (minutes)**

Italian

30

Russian

30

Spanish

30

French

30

Chinese

30

Korean

30

German

30

English

100

Japanese

25

Source: Own work based on data taken from the course textbook "English Conversation".
(*) This table does not include children’s programmes in English.
(* *) The weekly broadcasting time for English is the sum of five different courses.

 

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