Falsely Making Global Human Resources

As a long strategy of redesigning Japan, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is firmly committing educational reforms. Putting aside of opposition of teachers, Abe administration is enthusiastic on inserting revised views in history textbooks. Contradicting to its nationalistic strategy in education, however, the administration is introducing early English learning in elementary schools, putting aside Japan’s traditional language culture. Inspired by those anachronistic conservative leaders, bureaucrats do not stop reciting a magic spell: Produce global human resources!

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology decided to introduce English class to the third grade from 2016, two years earlier than current educational program. The reason was to raise young men and woman who can communicate to all over the world. In other words, the government wanted “global human resources.” For what? The Minister of Education, Hakubun Shimomura, explained that it was to prepare for Tokyo Olympic in 2020. Give us a break, Minister. Are you going to make all those students volunteer interpreters for the event?

It is a bad joke. The worse adults are in speaking English, the more they want their kids to be good. They do not understand how dangerous it is to force little kids speaking English.

The system of Japanese language is totally different from that of English. While Japanese language is crucially based on meaning, the key to understand English is sound. Japanese language is sometimes understandable without subject or object, because listeners are deeply focused on its context. That is why English teachers in Japan keep on saying “increase vocabulary.”

So, English learners in Japan are not good at listening, because they ignore rhythm and accent. For example, a word “straight” with one syllable is pronounced as “su-to-re-e-to” with five syllables in Japan. This is a language of nowhere in this planet. It is natural that Japanese is not good at communication through English, because Japanese language has been complicated to make an isolated community separated from the continent.

Elementary school is a place to establish the basis for their native language. To force those kids to learn totally different language badly confuses language system in their mind. Early English education may produces students whose Japanese language is broken. All the little kids do not need to learn it. Before introducing uniformed language education, schools should increase immersion classes for the beginning.