How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

11 Chapter 1: The conundrum of teaching English in Japan

for many years. At one time it was called the Classical Method since it was first used in the teaching of classical languages, Lat in and Greek. Earlier in this century, the method was used for the purpose of helping students read and appreciate foreign language literature. It was also hoped that, through the study of the grammar of the target language, students would be come more familiar with the grammar of their native language… Finally, it was thought that foreign language learning would help students grow intellectually; it was recognized that stu dents would probably never use the target language, but the mental exercise of learning it would be beneficial anyway . As a result of this approach, Japanese English classes actually contain precious little spoken English This is, after all, not the main goal Students spend their time listening to their teachers explain compli cated grammar rules and vocabulary in order to translate from one language to another successfully Textbooks are packed with color fully convoluted charts, diagrams, and explanations The learning process is largely deductive, meaning that students are given rules and examples, told to memorize them, and then are asked to apply these rules to other examples (Larsen-Freeman, 1986) Listening and speaking activities, when conducted, are usually done in support of the grammar point of the day Instruction on how to conduct nat ural, pragmatically correct conversations is largely absent, and as a result, most learners are not confident enough to place themselves in authentic cross-cultural communicative situations (Harumi, 2001) Compounding this situation are the arduous entrance exams that students must pass in order to enter the high school or univer sity of their choice The English portion reflects the ways in which the language is taught Typical tasks include filling in blanks on long reading passages or short dialogs, putting words of a sentence into grammatically correct order, listening comprehension questions, and writing out short opinion statements on various topics Here is