What People Done Think

So I'm often criticising the level of English within the population (more often the population of Japan, but often of america too).  People consistently counter with a tepid argument about the English being terrible with foreign languages, something about pots and kettles.  It's a very dull counter, but one that leaves the counter-er open to a counter counter, in that English is a primary constituent of Panglish (which has two definitions as I've heard it so far) and as a result we know two languages before we even start.  Couple that with the inevitable creep of English into other languages and soon we'll be able to understand tons of extra languages, without having to lift a textbook.

Of course, this is all a precursor to the inevitable future where English is the only language spoken in the world.  A lot of people say this is a bad thing, but think about all the professorly man-hours of research into dead languages like French and German.  You could create entirely new fields of study,  presumably named not-quite-as-old-as-Latin-but-still-extinct language study.  Append romance or east-asian to that, and you'd have a title worthy of any tenured academic.

You might well ask why I raise this point now.  Well; I accidentally crushed a very kind little old lady today.  She was an English teacher, and today was her last day on the job.  She was hired as a kind of mentor, her years of experience were a method for her to earn a pittance (I may well have written about her before) while conveying some of that knowledge to the youth of today (the teacherly youth, not the rioting, out of control youth).  The problem is that things have changed since she retired.  Kids don't listen to teachers any more, so it's entirely a case of classroom management instead of teaching.  Unfortunately her ideas were simply swamped by the terrible behaviour within the class - but at least she tried and was valiant in her efforts.  I suppose she thought her ideals were somehow reaching the kids.

How I crushed her was entirely accidental.  I was talking to her about improving English within Japan, one of those airy-fairy conversation where I lay down hard and fast rules for improving English, while the teacherate (a conglomerate of uncooperative teachers) tell me the pithy reasons why they are unfeasible.  These include, but are not limited to, the 26 characters of English are difficult to learn.  This is of course opposed to the two thousand kanji (kanji being chinese characters) and 80 something alphabet letters they have to learn.  Those extra 26 are the straw, proverbially speaking.  People also tell me that the English sounds are too difficult for Japanese people to say, therefore learning the alphabet is a fruitless endeavor until they're older and can compute, as it were, the various sounds.

Of course it's already too late at this point.  By the time they're 12 or so, their brains have been solidified, accepting only the limited sounds of Japanese.  V and B are impossible to distinguish, as are R and L.  Of course I can say V, and I can say B, which means those sounds exist; just not if your skin is yellow and you eat a preponderance of fish.  The way to negate this stupidity is to teach the kids English.  It really is a simple thing, it would take about three weeks of actual study to teach them V and B, L and R.  It would take no time whatsoever to learn the alphabet, you can even teach them in primary school!  (Perish the thought).  I know that you can teach children the alphabet when they're five years old, because I learned when I was five years old.

Again, people will say something along the lines of: 'well yes that's all jolly well and good, but you're immersed in the language and it's therefore easier for you to pick it up.'

Well yes that's all jolly well and good indeed, but writing is a skill that must be learned through practice, it's not an innate ability (as spoken language seems to be to me - I find it impossible to describe how people can learn to speak a language when they're children.  I don't even think learn is the correct word, because that implies some kind of conscious effort on the part of the learner, whereas the brain magically soaks that information up.) and must therefore be trained.  How about training kids when they have the magical sponging ability?  We're not talking perfection, ten minutes spent learning fundamental pronunciation or basic writing at the age of six saves hours - and I mean literally hours, later in life.

No no, of course that would take away time from learning how Japan didn't commit atrocities in Nanjing, or how Japan didn't attack pearl harbour.

Well yes, indoctrinating pupils is an important part of any school curriculum; but think about this.  At middle school, right now, the kids are studying four periods of English a week.  Forty-five minute classes combine to make this a full three hours a week.  Three hours a week is a lot of indoctrinating.  I only found this out today.  Prior to this, I thought they studied English once a week for forty-five minutes, and then they were done with it.  In my mind, that was the only way the utter lack of improvement could be justified.  Stupid old government, not allotting enough resources... again.  Except they give ample time to learn.  How can they mess things up so badly? Seriously, I have to ask how someone can study English for three hours a week, for three years, and not even be able to understand the words 'hot,' or 'cold.'  Or be able to respond to questions such as 'how old are you?' or 'what's your name?'  I am seriously baffled.

But that naysayer will yell, 'that's all good and well actually speaking to the children, but all we do is write, mainly grammar.'

If I wrote those sentences down, the kids would mouth the words, possibly say them out loud to themselves, then look up confused without a lick of understanding.

What it basically boils down to is extremely simple.  No government, not Robert Mugabes, not Benito Mussolinis, not even Tony Blairs could be so criminally inept as to sideline three hours a week for language study, and have no perceptible improvement within a three year time frame.

It is therefore a plain and simple case of active isolationism.  It is this country trying to escape the inevitable tide of English, sweeping across the world in a homogenized wave to victory.  When the whole world speaks a mixture of mandaringlish, Japan will stand alone as the only non-speakers.  They will have even lower test scores than they do now, because they will have perfected the art of willful ignorance.  I've said that the locals took 1984 as some kind of country running pamphlet, what with doublethink being their motto, but it's absolutely true.

So how did I inadvertently crush this poor teacher?

I showed her some stats from a decade ago, showing the test results of Asian countries.

But wait, says the ever-present contra advocate, 'Japanese is entirely dissimilar to English, it's not fair to compare...'

I will hush him before he finishes, because this is a list of Asian countries.  Countries that have as much a dissociation as Japan.  More so in some countries, as they might not use so much bastardised English in their advertisements and in their everyday language.

Without further ado, let's check this old list out:

1	Singapore	1318	603
2	India	33,586	581
3	Philippines	8738	577
4	Brunei Darussalam	45	567
	Bhutan	50	567
6	China, People’s Republic of	79,964	560
7	Pakistan	9,850	538
8	Sri Lanka	2,983	537
9	Malaysia	9,530	530
10	Hong Kong	22,343	523
11	Korea (ROK)	103,674	522
12	Nepal	2,153	521
13	Myanmar (Burma)	1,244	518
14	Indonesia	16,538	517
15	Afghanistan	376	516
16	Cambodia	321	514
17	Macau	1,070	512
18	Vietnam	3,251	511
19	Bangladesh	5,703	510
20	Taiwan	52,826	508
21	Laos	135	506
22	Mongolia	243	502
23	Thailand	31,403	502
24	Korea (DPR)	1,611	498
	Japan	146,439	498

#EDIT#  This list has more information on the right, but for whatever reason it won't display



This chart shows the scores of people taking a TOEFL test from a decade or so ago.  I can't find anything more recent that actually has a founding in reality (I've found two more recent tests, one which puts korea last and Japan third or so, and another which puts Japan middling and china last; neither of which are therefore credible).

The reason I show this chart is because I find the outcomes credible, for the most part.  The Singaporeans I've met speak a bizarre hybrid of English and another language (I don't know which) that suggests English is a massive part of their daily lives.  Non-speakers will therefore be exposed to it regularly, and may be forced to communicate in it often.  India has massive ties with the UK, and of the thousands of languages spoken, English is prevalent.  The same theory applies as above.

As we work our way down the list we see Afghanistan at number 15.  We've all seen Bin Ladens henchmen give out speeches ad nauseum on't tele; so we all know how good their English can be.  Whether it's uniform across the entire population, I would suggest not so much nowadays.

Bangladesh and Vietnam both have reason to despise English, (thanks america) yet I presume they realise the importance of it as a language of trade and commerce.  Their limited resources are well spent on this.

Mongolia is often perceived as being one of the most rural places in the world.  It has a GDP of roughly ten billion dollars.  Sony, the Japanese corporation that sometimes runs the country, has around 85 billion dollars worth of assets.  Japan could buy Mongolia eight times over, if they sold Sony.  A third of Mongolia lives below the poverty line.  I would say it's a safe bet that any Japanese government official looking at this right now, wouldn't cringe.  They would stonewall, mumble some infantile excuse about statistics being wrong, then point me to one of their secondary school history books where they forgot to mention about the second world war or korean occupation.  Then he would probably run away.  They're very good at that, they're like ninja.

Then, the one that absolutely cracks me up.  The statistic that makes my sides hurt, and mortified the pleasant old lady sitting next to me - the DPRK.  The democratic peoples republic of korea.  That isn't the south korean bit.  That isn't the capitalistic haven of crime and debauchery. That is north korea.  That is the part of korea that no one visits because there be dragons and nuclear warheads.  That's the part of korea that hasn't seen metaphorical daylight in fifty years, the part in which millions died during a great famine, and the part in which tens of thousands continue to die because they can't produce enough food.

The last communistical haven of the dear leaders loins, North Korea, scored the same as Japan.

I had to write that several times because I kept missing the keys, I was laughing too hard.

There are absolutely no problems with English language teaching in Japan, if they keep making charts that show Japan in-line with the DPRK with regards to English ability I will carry on teaching here.

Long live our dear leader!

#EDIT#

I just received this letter from one of the third years, they're graduating so they give their teachers letters, and flowers apparently.  I'd prefer socks like last year, but I'm not complaining.

Anyway, the letter talks about (I had one of the native teachers tell me what it said in Japanese (I can't read the thousands of chinese characters)) me speaking English in an understandable way, about having fun (this is a lie) and asking me to continue teaching.  Or I missed a negation and it actually asks me to stop teaching; it's difficult to tell.  Here it is for all to see, but for far fewer to understand.

Feel free to translate it and tell me I got it all wrong, and it's actually telling me to die in a fire.