Ministry findings beat up on teachers...again

More English teacher bashing. Give a look at the Japanese or English version at the Yomiuri on Line. The English headline reads, "Ministry survey finds schools' English teaching falling short." The Japanese article reads, "Public junior high schools, Classroom English 4% only." (my translation)

Again, we have English teachers being evaluated on criteria that teachers of no other discipline have to live up to, have no proven relationship with their roles, and which are not listed as real standards in any official documents that I can find.

These articles list two measures of teacher quality, use of English in the classroom and TOEIC scores. Is the science teacher ever expected to use English in the classroom? Why not? They were both fished out of the same pond. They have the same certification upon employment. They are both qualified teachers. Why should one be expected to use English and not the other? Is English only a language for English class? That wouldn't make for very impressive progress. In actuality, the science teacher is not expected to use English, nor would he or she be expected to use any specific language in the classroom, including scientific language, no matter how much one may imagine that they do. The science teacher is also not held to any specific testing criteria that I can find in the press or anywhere else.

Only 8.3 percent of middle school teachers and 16.3 percent of high school teachers scored more than 730 points in the TOEIC test, a figure indicating thorough comprehension of ordinary English conversation and an ability to provide quick responses.

Only 8.3 percent? What in the world does that mean? Should more have taken it? Says who? How many would be enough? Why would anyone reasonably expect any teacher at all to take the test?

730 points... Who says that is a is a significant figure? Fujitsu set target scores for engineers, researchers, planners and salespeople at 600. Matsushita decided that employees would need score of at least 450 to be a shunin. I don't know what they based their numbers on, probably some random judgment, but you have to wonder where 730 came from.

Why is the Education Ministry advertising this test for ETS anyway? Is it an especially good measure of teaching ability? As I have pointed out before, I don't think ETS would even suggest that. Is there some financial hocus-pocus going on behind the scenes? That sounds far more likely.

"...comprehension of ordinary English conversation and an ability to provide quick responses." Huh? Where does this generalization come from? Some ETS-sponsored study that shows a relationship between a certain score and English language ability? Of course they would show the highest possible correlation between test scores and skills that the test doesn't directly measure. It does measure listening and reading comprehension, and it probably does that very well. But where is the quick response section on the test? Did I miss that part?

This TOEIC fever is totally out of control. Institutions imbue it with powers that it does not have. ETS bathes in the attention and keeps its mouth shut. Teachers, not just in Japan but in Korea too, get bludgeoned by the press and their own Education Ministry for poor performance when it is really the bureaucrats who lack the ability to plan a proper curriculum, to set realistic goals for their teachers, and then back that up with real teacher development opportunities.

New TOEIC test in Japan and Korea next year

It looks like there will be a new TOEIC test on offer in Japan and Korea next year. ETS has decided to change both the listening and reading sections.

Looks like the listening section will include accents other than American. Test takers will hear Australian, Canadian and British accents in addition to American ones.

The reading section will include, among other things, tasks for finding errors in a written passage. The reading passages will be longer, but the time and scoring rubric will not change.

It will be nice for the I in TOEIC to actually stand for International now.

New TOEIC to Debut Next Year, The Korea Times

Japan's Education Minister needs to be reeducated

It appears that Japan's Minister of Education, Nakayama Nariaki, has shown his true right-wing colors again by reading from an email he had received which suggested that "comfort women" had a job that, "one should be able to take pride in if it eased the unsettled minds of men at war and provided them with rest and order."

Why do people, of any nation, put up with this kind of hateful nonsence. Please, people of Japan, Korea and China, peacefully protest this kind of rhetoric. This isn't just some guy off the street. He has arguably the most powerful cabinet post in government.

Japan's Education Minister Does it Again

US opposes enlarged Security Council

The US stated that there should be no vote now on enlarging the Security Council. Shirin Tahir-Kheli, a top U.S. State Department adviser on U.N. reform said:

Let me be as clear as possible: The U.S. does not think any proposal to expand the Security Council - including one based on our own ideas - should be voted upon at this stage.

You can see an article in the Guardian on the topic here.

I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the discrimination issue that I posted about previously, but it must rankle here in the halls of power. It doesn't look like Japan is going to get the nod it wanted from the US in the near future.

Japan failing to address racism says a UN investigator

Guess what! Japan is a racist country. Surprised?

So as Japan debases itself as a puppet of the US to get a seat on the Security Council, they can't refuse entry to a UN investigator who invites himself. Doudou Diene says that Japanese officials fail to "recognize the seriousness of racism and discrimination."

My guess is that they don't know what it is or what how it works. Seriously. He would have to give them a detailed explanation of what discrimination is and how it works before they could address the problem.

It is in the papers now, but there are tons of books on the subject already. Unless there are connections made between Japan's human rights situation and its precious seat on the Security Council, nothing will be done.

Thank you for your visit, Mr. Diene. Please, come again.

Taipei Times - archives

"Shocking test scores" in Korea

Some commentary in the July 5 edition of The Korea Times carries the title, "shocking Test Scores: Incompetent Teachers, Wrong Methods Ruin English Education." It appears that a group of teachers participating in a program for "excellent teachers" conducted by the Korean education ministry took a TOEIC test. Their scores were surprisingly low according to the writer. The average score for 272 junior high school teachers was 718. The writer compared this to the average score of "new recruits at 40 large companies," which was 778.

The article itself is not a masterfully crafted piece of prose, but my aim is not to criticize that. This post is also not about the understated nationalistic flavor that runs through the piece with concerns that Korean students are going abroad to study language or the statement, "Still, the Korean people’s English proficiency is at the bottom of 12 Asian nations, even behind Japan." (He doesn't need to worry much about being behind Japan today. Give it a few years. The way the county is not supporting its teachers, Korea will be in fine shape.) My aim in this post is to defend the teachers.

First of all the measure. The TOEIC test is, as the writer points out, a measure of English listening and reading skills. The title, "Test Of English for International Communication," promises a test of English. It delivers, but what brand of English? Listening to the CD's and reading the preparation materials that ETS, the company that publishes this test product and a range of test preparation materials, produces, one will soon realize that it is American English with all of the speakers using the same accent. In an informal count of my own, using a product produced by TOEIC, most of the speakers were male. So what we have is a limited test of two skills of a language from a specific country, using speakers, mostly men, who speak in the same way. This is hardly an international cross section of English.

The test itself, according to materials produced by TOEIC, "TOEIC Test of English for International Communication: Report on Test Takers Worldwide: 2002-03," is consumed most often in Japan and Korea, with Japan taking 72% of the tests and Korea with 15%. My point here is that the test, though offered all over the world, is mainly an Asian test. It is test of a limited range of language skills for a limited group of consumers.

Is it significant, then? It is because some companies make it so, not because the test in itself is something that has any great intrisic value as a tool for measuring language skills. For example, Fujitsu has made a requirement that all of its employees will take the TOEIC test. In the article "'The English Boom' andFujitsu's Requirement That All Employees Take The TOEIC" it is suggested that more than 2,000 Japanese companies use the test for in-house purposes. This is a quote by the president of Fujitsu, Sekizawa Tadashi, on the reason for using TOEIC.

You no doubt remember that we had all of you take the Test of English for International Communication [TOEIC] during the hiring process. This is because about 90 percent of global Internet content is written in English.

The logic of this statement is obviously broken. The employees took the test because 90% of the Internet content is in English. What is the connection? TOEIC represents Internet English? Is Internet English represented in the test? Even if it were it would be the language of the English speakers who use the Internet, which is a very small portion of the population of the world.

TOEIC is part of Japanese corporate consciousnesss, but I argue that the links are illogical and not pedagogically sound.

This all said, the question remains, what does TOEIC have to do with teaching? What are teachers' jobs? To produce fluent speakers of English or to prepare young people for poorly constructed college entrance exams? As for the first question, what does TOEIC have to do with teaching? Nothing. I don't think TOEIC company would claim that a high test on the test means that the teacher is competent. Conversely, would a competent teacher score highly? Not necessarily. It is a very narrow test of language ability, and good English teachers must prepare their students for more than just communication (I'm thinking of translation and remembering non-communicative grammar and vocabulary), while at the same time moving in lockstep with the Education Ministry's curriculum.

The next question was about the nature of the aims of English education in schools. Would a teacher, regardless of his or her language skills, be successful if they could not produce students who passed entrance exams? Hardly. Students and parents, whose hopes ride on successful entrance to the school or company of their choise, would be ill served by a teacher who could not help them, regardless of how fluent the teacher was in English. Entrance exams themselves have little to do with the ability to communicate in English. They include translation and a number of other skills that are not covered in the TOEIC test.

The article then goes on to suggest that teachers go abroad to learn language and teaching skills, come home and teach students. I can assume that this study abroad would also boost TOEIC scores. Any evidence for that? It also seems like an unlikely senario seeing how funding for teachers is being cut rather than increased.

So either get off the teachers about low test scores and get on the government, your elected officials, to change the system, or resign yourselves, both in Korea and Japan, to the decaying status-quo.

Oxford University Press Representative

Since I am not from the world of business, strictly speaking, I'm totally ignorant of how marketing works in other industries, but the marketing model that English textbook publishing companies use is relaxed and civilized. I hope other industries are so.

Representatives from various publishers in Japan travel around the country meeting teachers and students, talking about the groups' needs. I had the good fortune this evening to share a meal with one such representative. She works for Oxford University Press.

Mostly we talked about teaching and learning, teachers' needs, students' needs, and other professional concerns. We also talked about America and her experiences in Colorado, a place that we had in common. I'm not sure what marketing models other industries employ, but this seems to be a very civilized one. I have met with and had pleasant conversations about personal and professional topics with many representatives. They have all been enjoyable experiences that benefit both parties. I really hope other industries are as pleasant, because I would like to think that lots of people are getting as much out of their client/provider relationship as I have in this industry.

What students want to know

Today in class, in celebration of America's Independence Day, I asked students to write down questions that they have about America. Here is what they asked and a short description of how I answered.

1. (the most frequently asked question) Why are hamburgers so big?
Hamburgers are big because Americans expect large quantities of stuff for low prices.

2. Why are there so many big cars?
See answer to question one.

3. Why are American things so big?
See amswer to question one.

4. Why are Americans so big?
First, not all Americans are big. There are lots of people and too many to generalize , but...it's because they eat too much, and because their genes are the way they are.

5. Why are there so many luxury cars?
Because there are people with money who want to buy showy stuff and 0% fincancing. The students were impressed that one could take out a loan for a car and not pay interest.

6. What is the most popular Japanese car maker in the US?
I said that I thought it is Toyota. (Is it?)

7. Why do American cars have so much horse power?
Partially, see the answer to question one, plus highways and roads are wide, long, and not as crowded as Japan, so one can travel from point A to point B faster.

8. Why do people drive on the right side of the road and have the steering wheel on the left side?
I don't know the history of this decision, but I know others have made different decisions.

9. How much is the dollar in yen?
Today it is about 111 yen to the dollar.

10. How many states are there?
There are 50, not counting Japan and Israel.

11. Does everyone have a gun?
No.

12.Why is everyone allowed to have a gun?
This is always an interesting discussion. I ask the students about the framers of the constitution. Why would they agree that people should have guns? What were they afraid of? This illicits answers like, "robbers," "bears," "the Mafia." When they find out that they were really afraid of big government, they have to stop and think. "Do you trust your government," I ask them. They all agree that they do not. "Then why do you pay with taxes for all the guns that the government soldiers possess while you have nothing?" They can see that the system isn't especially logical. I am not an advocate of gun ownership, but to willingly pay for others to have guns while you cannot is insane.

13. When did major league baseball start?
I don't know, but I will look it up and tell them next time.

14. Do Americans take off their shoes in their homes?
As a rule, no, but there are so many people with so many customs that I cannot say that no one does. I rather like the custom now, and if I return to the US, I would offer to let people take off their shoes and be more comfortable. If they aren't comfortable, then they can leave the things on.

15. How much is an "indies" CD in America?
I don't know. I will check right after I find out what an "indies" CD is.

16.Why are there so many crimes in America?
There are many factors affecting this. Many have to do with a social system that requires such a huge level of poverty in a country that has so much to offer. Why don't kids read? Read Stephen Krashen's "The Power of Reading." Then you'll see why wealthier kids have advantages.

17. Why does America send it's military all over the world? To protect peace?
To protect the priveledge of the rich. If Iraq is an example of a military action started to protect world peace, then it has gone badly awry.

18. What season is the most beautiful in America?
All seasons in America are beautiful. February and March are not the greatest months, but America is a beautiful place.

19. Where is your favorite place in America?
The Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.

Happy Independence Day!