By Shiori Yamamoto
In Japan, all of people study English at least 9 years at junior high school and high school. However, a lot of people still don’t have confidence in their English skill. There are three main reasons why Japanese English learner cannot speak English fluently.
First, Japanese people don’t have enough confidence to express their ideas. As a Japanese Proverb says, “Being silent is golden”, Japanese culture discourage people to show their thought in front of people. They tend to hope other people to read own thought. Also, Japanese are afraid of criticism from others. Most people are not used to be criticized because they don’t have enough chance to experience discussion or debate. As Japanese national character, people prefer harmony with others and dislike to stand out.
Second, there is not enough chance to speak English. It is difficult to use English frequently in Japan unless people work with colleague or get married to the partner who is from anglophone country. In addition, almost things that people see, such as TV shows and advertisements apply Japanese. Even the class of English at school, a teacher mostly uses it to explain to children. In this way, people fall into the lack of opportunity to improve their English ability.
Third, most people learn English for academic achievement. A lot of people study English to get a good score on school exam or TOEIC and so on. At school, a teacher tends to consider that accuracy of grammar is more important than pronunciation or speaking ability. Therefore, many students come to think that the goal of studying English for them is not to be able to speak English fluently but to get great score on exam. That is one of the reasons why English skill of a number of people decrease after they graduate from high school.
Japanese people who study English have several problems in terms of the luck of confidence to express their thought, the luck of occasion to speak English and the way of learning it at school. To develop English ability of Japanese learner, both of individual person and government must improve the environment on social and educational field.
