The Latest News in ELT

April 2003

Waseda's New Int'l Dept. Popular
Hundreds of applications were received for teaching posts at Waseda University's new International Culture department. Planned to open next year, the new school will have a faculty of 75. Twenty of the posts will be filled from within Waseda and there were 935 applications, more than 400 of which came from abroad, for the remaining positions. The department will cover 35 subjects from marketing to global society. Applications were accepted online until February 2003 and the main requirement was the ability to teach in English. Successful applicants will be announced in June. (April 30, 2003 )

Check the Contents of Your Delivery
A panel of academics, translators and media people has urged the government to stop using dozens of terms borrowed from English in official Japanese documents. The National Institute for Japanese Language (known as Kokken) proposed native-tongue equivalents of 62 words and expressions, such as "second opinion," "agenda," "delivery," and "contents." The list also included some made-up words, such as "idling stop" and "scale merit." They decided not to include "normalization" on their list when they couldn't come up with a suitable translation. The institute, which is affiliated with the education ministry, has another 58 terms it plans to submit in July and will accept suggestions for more between then and October. (April 28, 2003 )

Hitachi Introduces e-Learning
The Nikkei reports that Hitachi Ltd. has started offering e-learning programs to 50,000 of its workers, with plans to expand the coverage to 320,000 employees of 1,200 Hitachi group companies in fiscal 2004. By 2005, e-learning is expected to double the amount of company education and training to an average of around 60 hours per person annually. At first, the e-learning program offers only 50 subjects companywide, including business negotiations, presentations, English-language study, safety control at factories and evaluation of subordinates, as well as job-specific menus such as systems engineering. But the number is expected to rise over 500 by 2005 as the company introduces study materials from educational establishments, in addition to developing its own study menus. (April 25, 2003 )

Bullying English School Raided
An English language school operator was raided by police on Tuesday following allegations of strong-arm tactics being used to sign up students, according to today's Mainichi Daily News. During raids at the Tokyo and Osaka offices of Windthird Consolidated Institute and the Tokyo office of company owner Right Stuff, a temporary employment agency, hundreds of documents were seized, including a manual of sales tactics. A Right Stuff spokesperson said, "It's true that we were raided, but the investigation is continuing into whether there was any forced enrollments." Consumer centers have received more than 200 complaints against the school and its parent company, which operates four schools in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka. Police cited one case of a 21-year old Kyoto college student being confined this week in the Osaka school for seven hours until he agreed to enroll in a course. (April 24, 2003 )

A New Frontier
In a project to improve academic performance, the education ministry this week announced 337 "frontier high schools" across the country. The one-year experiment is based around measures such as setting Eiken exam targets, keeping a record of work done at home, and making lessons easier for students to understand, with the aim of increasing students' incentive to study. A dozen or so schools in each of 39 prefectures and municipalities will receive a share of the ¥200-million budget. The vast majority are public schools, with 13 private and one national school. Based on the results at the end of the academic year, discussions will be held about implementing measures at all of the nation's schools. ()

Smaller is Better
An education ministry survey has clearly shown how class size affects the level of disturbance of lessons. The survey of fifth grade students across the country indicates that problems such as walking around during lessons, being late for and disrupting classes are much more prevalent in classes of 36-40 students (30%) than in those with 20 or fewer (13%). Students in the smaller classes were more than three times more likely to think that their classes went smoothly. A majority of students also said that they felt more tired and irritated recently. (April 23, 2003 )

US Wants Into Education Market
The US has urged Japan to open up its educational market to foreign investors. A leading official dealing with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation issues meeting with Japanese counterparts in Tokyo said that American universities could cooperate with Japanese schools in international education, continuing education and retraining of staff. Strict financial regulations currently make it difficult for US universities to run branch schools in Japan. ()

Kids Happy With 5-day Week
A recent education ministry survey indicates that the majority of students at public schools are happy to have Saturdays off. In the survey of 75,000 students between third and tenth grade, more than 70% thought the 5-day week -- intoduced last spring -- was "good" or "fairly good." The number of students playing outside or taking part in extra-curricular activities showed a marked increase compared to a similar survey in 2001.While more than 60% said they spent more time with their parents, a similar number also said they spent more time watching TV or playing video games.

Less happy are teachers, judging from the number who are quitting. The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education announced that 35 of the 1,588 new teachers hired last spring had already quit by the end of the school year, a sharp increase over the previous year. (April 22, 2003 )

Entrance Exam Waste
¥700 million worth of test papers for this year's preliminary university entrance exams, held in mid-January, were unused. The National Center for University Entrance Examinations prints the same number of test papers each year for various subjects. But even with 550,000 students choosing to taking the English test, the most popular subject, there were 140,000 copies of the test booklet left over. Most test centers throw the booklets away, though some offer them to teachers and students. (April 21, 2003 )

New TOEFL to Have Oral Test
A new version of the Test of English as a Foreign Language to be launched in September 2005 is to include an oral examination. The change is to compensate for the large number of students whose high TOEFL scores allow them to enter universities in the US, but who lack the necessary competence in communication skills. The test is administered in Japan by the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), who announced the news on Tuesday. (April 18, 2003 )

University Reforms Continue
The merger of Saitama and Gunma Universities is to be put back a year to October 2005. The merger, the first across prefectural boundaries, was to have been completed in the autumn of 2004. One reason cited was objections from the Gunma side over the location of the educational faculty in Saitama. A working group is to be set up at the end of this month to look at the issue. In another development, the education ministry announced that as of this October, 20 national universities are to be merged into 10, resulting in a total of 87 nationwide. The majority are medical schools that will be incorporated into their respective prefectural universities. These are just some of the many ongoing reforms of the third-level education system throughout Japan. (April 17, 2003 )

Marc Helgesen Interview
The ESL MiniConference Online Web site recently ran an interview with author and teacher -- and regular ELT News contributor -- Marc Helgesen. He talks about his background, current projects and the important issues facing the ELT profession today. ()

English as an Asian Language
Yesterday's Daily Yomiuri carried an article in its Language Connection section on Nobuyuki Honna, a professor of English and international communication at Aoyama Gakuin University and a "leading scholar on Asian English." The article, entitled "Respect diversity in English," looks at his focus on the language not as it is spoken by native speakers, but rather the forms it has taken when influenced by the mother tongue and culture of the millions of non-native speakers in Asia. The topic is clearly relevant for Japanese students of English or business people, who often have to converse in English with other Asians more than they do with native speakers. (April 16, 2003 )

Go East, Young Man
A US newspaper report indicates that the English teaching gig in Japan may have lost some of the appeal it had in the past. The Battle Creek Enquirer, a local newspaper in Michigan, reported that only two applications were received for the one spot available teaching English in its sister city of Takasaki. The contract is similar to that of the JET Program, based on a one-year contract renewable up to three years. One of the applicants, a recent university graduate said, "I've had an interest in it for a while. I've been involved in programs dealing with Japanese for the past four or five years." (April 15, 2003 )

Site Chosen For Okinawa Grad School
Onnason, in the north of Okinawa Prefecture, has been chosen as the site for a new graduate school to be opened in September 2007. The site is widely known for its natural beauty and as the location of the Manza resort. As ELT News reported on August 21st, 2002 "half of its faculty and student body are to be made up of non-Japanese and lectures are to be given in English. Generous 'ex-pat' packages are expected to be used to attract the best of foreign staff." In an unrelated story, about 1,300 signs in Okinawa written in romaji (the roman alphabet) are to be changed over the next five years. The Okinawa General Bureau of the Cabinet Office is to make the signs easier to read and understand. An example is that for Fukushu-en, a Chinese-style garden in Naha, which will be changed to "Fukushuen Garden." (April 14, 2003 )

TOEFL Mix Up Hits Foreign Students
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported a few days back that some foreign students were not allowed to take university entrance examinations this spring because their TOEFL scores were not received during a specified period. Some 140 universities in Japan require applicants to submit the results of an English proficiency test. The applicants submit the name of their chosen school to the TOEFL headquarters in the US, who send out the documents a couple of weeks later. The problem was caused because the universities had not been informed of a change in the TOEFL mailing procedure and ignored documents received outside of their one-week application "window." Some schools also mistakenly asked applicants to provide their original TOEFL certificates, a problem if the student wants to apply to another school. The education ministry is investigating the complaints. From this spring, the ministry merged the General Examination for Foreign Students, including an English test, and Japanese Language Proficiency Test into a general exam, with the external English test as an separate requirement. (April 11, 2003 )

Green Light For Ota Project
An English-language education project in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture has qualified as one of 52 special structural reform zones announced yesterday as part of the government's deregulation policy. The project will create a single elementry, junior and senior high school that will have a curriculum taught largely in English. The school is set to start runing within two years, with backing from the Ota municipal government and the private sector. Other zones were classified under several headings, such as information technology and industrial and academic cooperation. ()

EFL Teacher Dies of SARS
A 52-year old English teacher in China has become the first American victim of SARS in the Far East. James Salisbury had been teaching English at a college in the city of Sin Gen for the past year. Last Monday, he was hospitalized with pneumonia-like symptoms. His family in Utah were informed of his death by telephone on April 8th. His six-year old son Michael, who was visiting him, was initially thought to also have symptoms and was hospitalized in Hong Kong, but was later found to be clear. Salisbury and his wife also have three daughters. (April 10, 2003 )

Publisher Ordered to Revise "Stereotyped" Illustration
The education ministry ordered publisher Tokyo Shoseki to revise an illustration of African Americans in its textbook New Horizon English Reading, pointing out that "it is misleading to readers to draw African Americans with exaggerated racial characteristics." The illustration was one of several that accompanied the essay "Getups" by African American poet Maya Angelou. It showed a pair of black youths playing basketball, with caricature-style thick lips and broad noses. The publisher revised the illustration, along with four others, saying "International understanding is an important theme of the textbook. Racial uniqueness is important but if it is stereotyped, it may lead to discrimination or bullying." Howard French, Tokyo bureau chief for the New York Times commented, "I'm an African American but the original pictures don't bother me. It's good that there are efforts to wipe out discrimination but the revisions are silly." (click graphic to see larger version) (April 09, 2003 )

NHK Adds Variety to its English
While NHK-E has long been the TV channel that many Japanese tune into for educational programs, the new show Eigo de Shaberanaito (a pun that means "English Talk Night" or "If You Don't Speak English...") is being broadcast on the NHK-G channel. This is largely due to the fact that it aims to be a mix of education and variety show. The popularity of SMA Station's English corner has proven that this formula can be successful. Other similarities are the late-night time slot, in this case 11:15pm on Mondays, and the presence of a star popular with young people. The new show features actress Yumiko Shaku (photo) alongside NHK presenter Kazuya Matsumoto. The English is provided by comedian Patrick Harlan (photo) of the manzai duo "Packun Mackun," who appears as a computer-generated "teacher," and DJ John Kavira who provides the show's bilingual voiceover. (photo: NHK) (April 08, 2003 )

More SELHi Schools Announced
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) last week announced the latest 35 schools to be designated Super English Language High (SELHi) schools for the next three years. The schools will teach part of their curriculum in English and carry out exchanges with schools abroad. The 35 schools are made up of one national, 26 municipal and eight private schools and were chosen from 109 applicants. The ministry plans to have 100 SELHi schools by the 2005-06 academic year. Details (in Japanese only) can be found here. The ministry has also updated its information (in Japanese only) about the recent forum on creating "Japanese Who Can Use English." (April 07, 2003 )

Laughing it Up at ECC
Popular rakugo performer Kaishi Katsura is to teach a class in the traditional comic storytelling art in English at the ECC conversation school in Osaka. In rakugo, a performer dressed in a kimono sits and tells stories, with a folding fan and towel as the only props. It tends to be popular with the older generation. At 34, Katsura is young for a 'rakugoka' and has been something of a pioneer in his promotion of rakugo in English since 1998 (unfortunately, his Web site is only in Japanese). His 5-month course at the school in Umeda will be divided into five classes for beginners and five for intermediates and cost a total of ¥58,000, including admission and textbook fees. Students are required to have junior high-school level English. (April 04, 2003 )

Meet DAVE E.S.L. bot
You may remember that back in November we introduced you to Alan, an artificial-intelligence based chatbot. Well now there's DAVE E.S.L. bot. According to the A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation site, Dave is an English teacher who "replies in perfect English just like a private English teacher or human chat partner! With tens of thousands of words in its vocabulary, he is the perfect private tutor." There is a charge of US$9.95 per month for the 'private lessons.' (Note: we have not used the service and cannot vouch for its authenticity) (April 03, 2003 )

Tokyo's First Blind English Teacher
26-year old Masako Kishida has been appointed to Tokyo Metropolitan Bunkyo School for the Blind, becoming the first blind English teacher at a public school in the capital. Blind since shortly after birth, Kishida's career goal was inspired by an English teacher in her secondary school, and she has been trying to follow in those footsteps since she graduated from Tsukuba University. A year spent studying English and education for the visually impaired in the US helped her pass the metropolitan government exam for teachers at the third attempt. (photo: Yomiuri Shimbun) (April 02, 2003 )

More Controversy on the Way for Int'l Schools?
Another plan to change regulations governing international schools looks likely to draw charges of discrimination. The change to the tax code proposed by the Finance Ministry is designed to bring more foreign investment into the school system. But following limitations issued by the education ministry, it only applies to schools accredited by four US and European education groups, and thus excludes schools for Asian ethnic groups. The government was recently forced to cancel plans to allow certain international school graduates to bypass the "daiken" university pre-admission exam, amid claims of racism by the bar association as well as Chinese and Korean groups. (April 01, 2003 )

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