The learning of English at academic high schools in Japan: students caught between exams and internationalisation

Abstract

Focusing on Japanese high school students studying English as a main school subject at university-preparatory high schools in Japan, this study employed a context-based perspective to examine those students' perceptions about English study embedded in the Japanese social and educational context. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 66 Japanese university-bound high school students. The study found that the pervasive association of English with internationalisation in Japanese society helps Japanese academic students to develop an orientation to communicate with native speakers of English and ‘foreigners’ in general. This study argues that students' integrative and outward orientation is complicated by exam-oriented English classes nearly devoid of communicative activities and by Japanese society outside school, which, on the one hand, favours ‘English for international communication,’ yet on the other hand, lacks any practical need for such English. It was found from students' responses to the questionnaire that complex attitudes to EFL in Japan are matched by a distinction in Japanese students' perceptions between learning English at school specifically for university entrance examinations and their broader notions of ‘English for international communication.’ For example, some students saw no linkage between what they were currently learning and English for communication. It was also revealed that some students believed that novice-level, broken English would do for communication in English overseas and had already decided to discontinue English study after graduation from high school. Pedagogical implications for non-native EFL teachers are also discussed.