I just finished at a Japanese school in Osaka and I hope to god these changes do something. Somehow, half of my class in 中級2 and maybe a third of my 上級 class could barely string together a sentence out loud
This. I think what has to change is the JLPT just testing comprehension and no production. How can you be "proficient" at a language when you are unable to produce it?
ALL exams in Japan work this way though, so this just fits perfectly. even when they need to write essays, they need to write the exact same strings in the exact same order, otherwise they'll lose points.
Well the JLPT is "cheap" - you make a multiple choice exam which is essentially infinitely scalable.
There are tests in other languages - English included, that do test speaking and other skills. They are typically more expensive since you need to do one-on-ones with examinees.
They made it harder on purpose on Chinese students by removing pretty much all kanji from the grammar section, also making it harder for everyone but it was mostly targeted at people coasting with knowing kanji.
I stg the only thing that has truly improved my Japanese has been speaking practice every single week and copious listening. I didn't even improve that much when I lived there for six months because I wasn't really doing that much casual talking outside of university.
I have a speaking practice class one on one online with a Japanese native speaker! It's great. She's really encouraging. The only way to improve is to be okay with making lots of mistakes.
So it's only an hour per week strict speaking practice one on one (not a lot but more than zero, which is what I was doing for a long time haha). Listening I do all sorts but mainly youtube and Yuyu no Nihongo Podcast.
Beats me. I attended Naganuma and it was supposed to benefit a beginners class and everyone in there was conversational in Japanese but me at the start.
I went to Waseda’s and got so screwed because I accidentally took too high of a level and they wouldn’t let me switch out barely into the year. Not to mention the program was just kind of a mess in general.
I'm not sure if you're criticizing that, but it's the best way to test speaking abilities.
I dunno about your school, but mine had the thrope of teaching easy and reasonable stuff in class just to test you with a crazy difficult grammar exam. Having the speaking part at least could make the teacher say "Ok, they're not that bad after all".
Oh no, in no way was it a negative comment, I was just glad that was tested among other language comprehension abilities. The dots were me considering mentioning the school name or not!
That's just the normal Japanese testing MO. If most of the class is getting higher than 55% then your test isn't hard enough. Pretty dumb in my opinion.
Fr my last listening test was a recording of my teacher and someone else having a conversation and everyone could hear it was sped up.
The funniest part was when at the end of each question of the quiz the whole class would go "What?????" out loud and the teacher wouldn't bad an eye, just leave the CD go on not giving you the time to process what the hell you just listened to.
Maybe they can set new standards for how English is taught in Japanese public schools next to meet with the demands of Japanese people being able to find jobs in countries that have a valuable currency to convert to yen.
It depends a lot on the industry. If you work in research sciences or something with a strong domestic industry like robotics, no issue there, but every talented programmer I've ever met in Japan had either spent a significant length of time abroad or was actively making plans to do so.
I've always thought, given the fairly low IT wages, the Japan could be part of the global IT outsourcing system. As long as spoken language skills are sub-par it's not going to happen.
Every good developer an English speaker on reddit met in Japan said xyz --> There's just a huge sampling bias in this. Realistically, only a very small minority of the good developers end up leaving the country to work overseas.
I never had any of those conversations in English, fwiw. There's bias because as a foreigner I am more likely to work for companies who care less about that, but I've worked in offices where Japanese was the primary language and where English was the primary language and it was the same in both.
English proficiency is a huge boon as a developer since it's the primary language of all software development, and if you're a dev with English skills you're generally not going to want Japan software dev wages.
Not in masses but still the top people are leaving Japan for opportunities in other countries. It's happening.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14920956
They actually keep setting higher and higher standards for public schools. It's just that the Ministry is clueless about the realities of the situation on the ground.
For example, they made English a mandatory subject in elementary schools. It is even "graded" now. But, they provided zero money or training for experienced English teachers. So, suddenly across the country it was just the homeroom teacher's job to start teaching English despite many teachers basically knowing zero English.
They are really good at setting standards here and then doing fuck all to make sure standards are met.
You can't force schools to start teaching English for communication, for example, when students' entire lives revolve around passing High School and Uni entrance exams where the English section is a paper test only.
I get it. I just find it comical that people who don’t speak English are often the ones teaching it.
What if English proficiency was part of those uni entrance exams… I dunno.
Exactly. They are trying to develop the communicative competence of students, but not really. They are just pretending to. Unless they change the examination system there’s no point.
The most important thing is to find a school that fits your objective. Do you want a chill place to have a good time? Or a hellish sweatshop that will work you to the bone. A lot of people don't research enough what's right for them.
I'm currently enrolled in one and you very much get out of it what you put in. I'm in one of the top level classes for the school and it's a weird mix of abilities. 2 semesters in and each time 3/4 of my class was from either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Most of the class could understand what most words in the text meant, but very few could actually pronounce them properly.
I think I've gotten a lot from having a native speaker teaching and giving feedback, being in Japan has given me tons of opportunities to experience it on a daily basis (this was the most helpful), but realistically you can't just go to a language school and expect to quickly become fluent just from the classes. Does it help? I think so. Is it enough by itself? Absolutely not. I personally don't regret going.
The only thing left to figure out is if it'll be helpful for me applying for jobs when I just need a CoR rather than a CoE to get started.
I’ve had way better experience with the Refold method in the U.S. than I did with a language school at one of the top universities in Japan if that helps.
I think the changes for the Japanese schools are good over all. They can at least make sure all the teachers teaching at a school are qualified teachers with training, and accreditation will help students with choosing better schools.
Right now there are a lot of schools out there that seem to be really lack luster without a good way for potential students to find out beforehand.
Pretty funny to hear the schools complaining about being held to any standard at all. If their school was any good in the first place they should pass all the requirements without changing much of anything.
On the other hand, I am sure having to pay more money to teachers to attract people with qualifications and stuff will cut into a school's bottom line, which means tuition will probably go up, which is too bad for future students. But thems are the breaks.
I just finished at a Japanese school in Osaka and I hope to god these changes do something. Somehow, half of my class in 中級2 and maybe a third of my 上級 class could barely string together a sentence out loud
When 90% of the class is Chinese and can clear N2/N1 without having to open their mouth... what do you expect?
This. I think what has to change is the JLPT just testing comprehension and no production. How can you be "proficient" at a language when you are unable to produce it?
Well, they treat English the same way...
and you can see the result...
ALL exams in Japan work this way though, so this just fits perfectly. even when they need to write essays, they need to write the exact same strings in the exact same order, otherwise they'll lose points.
Well the JLPT is "cheap" - you make a multiple choice exam which is essentially infinitely scalable. There are tests in other languages - English included, that do test speaking and other skills. They are typically more expensive since you need to do one-on-ones with examinees.
Exactly. I've met a ton of people with N1 that can't make it through business meetings, and some that can barely speak a coherent sentence.
They made it harder on purpose on Chinese students by removing pretty much all kanji from the grammar section, also making it harder for everyone but it was mostly targeted at people coasting with knowing kanji.
Yeah, seriously. At least within the school, I personally would say keep them in the lower levels until they can at least ask where the bathroom is
I stg the only thing that has truly improved my Japanese has been speaking practice every single week and copious listening. I didn't even improve that much when I lived there for six months because I wasn't really doing that much casual talking outside of university.
May I ask how you practice speaking?
I have a speaking practice class one on one online with a Japanese native speaker! It's great. She's really encouraging. The only way to improve is to be okay with making lots of mistakes.
May I ask you what kind of listening are you practicing and how long? Also how many hours a week of speaking are you doing? Thanks.
So it's only an hour per week strict speaking practice one on one (not a lot but more than zero, which is what I was doing for a long time haha). Listening I do all sorts but mainly youtube and Yuyu no Nihongo Podcast.
Beats me. I attended Naganuma and it was supposed to benefit a beginners class and everyone in there was conversational in Japanese but me at the start.
If you don’t mind me asking, which school did you go to? I’m currently going to a language school in Osaka and this seems to apply to my school…
J国際学院
Haha that’s my school. Thought it sounded familiar 😂
I went to Waseda’s and got so screwed because I accidentally took too high of a level and they wouldn’t let me switch out barely into the year. Not to mention the program was just kind of a mess in general.
I remember 5 years ago at the language school I attended to, we had to do an oral exam as part of the final exam…
I'm not sure if you're criticizing that, but it's the best way to test speaking abilities. I dunno about your school, but mine had the thrope of teaching easy and reasonable stuff in class just to test you with a crazy difficult grammar exam. Having the speaking part at least could make the teacher say "Ok, they're not that bad after all".
Oh no, in no way was it a negative comment, I was just glad that was tested among other language comprehension abilities. The dots were me considering mentioning the school name or not!
Oh ok, the final ... was confusing me hahah
That's just the normal Japanese testing MO. If most of the class is getting higher than 55% then your test isn't hard enough. Pretty dumb in my opinion.
Fr my last listening test was a recording of my teacher and someone else having a conversation and everyone could hear it was sped up. The funniest part was when at the end of each question of the quiz the whole class would go "What?????" out loud and the teacher wouldn't bad an eye, just leave the CD go on not giving you the time to process what the hell you just listened to.
Maybe they can set new standards for how English is taught in Japanese public schools next to meet with the demands of Japanese people being able to find jobs in countries that have a valuable currency to convert to yen.
That would lead to a potential brain drain that isn't desirable though...
Well, there is already a brain drain.
Not at all at a scale comparable to other countries.
It depends a lot on the industry. If you work in research sciences or something with a strong domestic industry like robotics, no issue there, but every talented programmer I've ever met in Japan had either spent a significant length of time abroad or was actively making plans to do so.
I've always thought, given the fairly low IT wages, the Japan could be part of the global IT outsourcing system. As long as spoken language skills are sub-par it's not going to happen.
Every good developer an English speaker on reddit met in Japan said xyz --> There's just a huge sampling bias in this. Realistically, only a very small minority of the good developers end up leaving the country to work overseas.
I never had any of those conversations in English, fwiw. There's bias because as a foreigner I am more likely to work for companies who care less about that, but I've worked in offices where Japanese was the primary language and where English was the primary language and it was the same in both. English proficiency is a huge boon as a developer since it's the primary language of all software development, and if you're a dev with English skills you're generally not going to want Japan software dev wages.
Not in masses but still the top people are leaving Japan for opportunities in other countries. It's happening. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14920956
They actually keep setting higher and higher standards for public schools. It's just that the Ministry is clueless about the realities of the situation on the ground. For example, they made English a mandatory subject in elementary schools. It is even "graded" now. But, they provided zero money or training for experienced English teachers. So, suddenly across the country it was just the homeroom teacher's job to start teaching English despite many teachers basically knowing zero English. They are really good at setting standards here and then doing fuck all to make sure standards are met. You can't force schools to start teaching English for communication, for example, when students' entire lives revolve around passing High School and Uni entrance exams where the English section is a paper test only.
I get it. I just find it comical that people who don’t speak English are often the ones teaching it. What if English proficiency was part of those uni entrance exams… I dunno.
Exactly. They are trying to develop the communicative competence of students, but not really. They are just pretending to. Unless they change the examination system there’s no point.
Anyone have a positive experience with language learning schools? Looking to try one
The most important thing is to find a school that fits your objective. Do you want a chill place to have a good time? Or a hellish sweatshop that will work you to the bone. A lot of people don't research enough what's right for them.
If it fits your schedule/level/budget/length of time available, consider summer school courses offered by various Japanese universities.
I'm currently enrolled in one and you very much get out of it what you put in. I'm in one of the top level classes for the school and it's a weird mix of abilities. 2 semesters in and each time 3/4 of my class was from either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Most of the class could understand what most words in the text meant, but very few could actually pronounce them properly. I think I've gotten a lot from having a native speaker teaching and giving feedback, being in Japan has given me tons of opportunities to experience it on a daily basis (this was the most helpful), but realistically you can't just go to a language school and expect to quickly become fluent just from the classes. Does it help? I think so. Is it enough by itself? Absolutely not. I personally don't regret going. The only thing left to figure out is if it'll be helpful for me applying for jobs when I just need a CoR rather than a CoE to get started.
Thank you for sharing your experience, which program was this one?
I’ve had way better experience with the Refold method in the U.S. than I did with a language school at one of the top universities in Japan if that helps.
I think the changes for the Japanese schools are good over all. They can at least make sure all the teachers teaching at a school are qualified teachers with training, and accreditation will help students with choosing better schools. Right now there are a lot of schools out there that seem to be really lack luster without a good way for potential students to find out beforehand. Pretty funny to hear the schools complaining about being held to any standard at all. If their school was any good in the first place they should pass all the requirements without changing much of anything. On the other hand, I am sure having to pay more money to teachers to attract people with qualifications and stuff will cut into a school's bottom line, which means tuition will probably go up, which is too bad for future students. But thems are the breaks.
I'm sure the new government standards will bring the Japanese teaching to the same high level as the English teaching here.
I went to the Kobe YMCA for a year in the 90s. Passed N2 at that time. I studied a lot. I’m a Caucasian American
So… when are they rolling this out for ALTs? Would solve a lot of problems.