Why should I waste my time doing this?

This is what I hear most of my students saying. Why should I waste my time learning English? I'll never use it! How many times did we lament the same way in our classes? Why do I have to dissect a frog, we would cry, when we're never going to become scientists? We would moan about the iambic pentameter, the algebra, and the mandatory vocabulary tests. Why do we have to do this? We're never going to use it! It's the rule of school. Unfortunately there's a lot more out working against learning English in Japan than just academic ennui.

There's pressure on a lot of kids not to do well at English. If you do well at English you'll leave. You'll go to a university far away. You'll get a job in a big city. You won't stay in this little town, on this little island, in this little prefecture. There's also a belief that many of my kids subscribe to that getting better at English will take away part of their Japanese-ness, and this is something that I have real difficulty with. I don't want to make any kid have to choose between his culture and his grade point average. I don't want any kid to feel like if I encourage them to study or use English it's because I want to take away part of their personal self. In the West we don't have a parallel. We don't lose anything by learning another language. We've got the opposite image where we add to ourselves by learning another language.

I saw a poster advertising a kendo tournament at the conbini the other day. It said in Japanese 剣道をすると、日本の心も育てて, or "nourish your Japanese spirit by doing kendo." Studying English takes away from the Japanese spirit, and kendo nourishes it. I have a student in the second grade of Westside. He's in the kendo club, but he always greeted me in English. He wasn't the best student, but he was enthusiastic and generally put in a fair amount of effort. In the last few months, though, he's changed. He refuses to greet properly during English class or answer any questions in English. He understands the questions and will answer them perfectly… in Japanese. I was confused. What would cause such a change? He isn't hostile or fishing for attention. He just refuses to speak any word in English. His class is a chorus of "hellos" and one loud "Ohayou!"

Then I saw a picture in the back of their classroom. A huge sports tournament had been held a couple of weeks ago, and Westside had taken many first place ribbons. The kendo team in particular had done very well, because there was a picture of little Mr. No English Even In English Class in his kendo uniform holding a plaque covered with ribbons and smiling so hard it looked like the top of his head was going to fall off. I doubt his kendo coach told him not to speak any English or anything like that, but I wonder if the boy himself decided that in order to take his kendo training to the next level he had to remove all non-Japanese influences. He's a bright kid, so in any case it makes me a little sad. Not that he's deciding to focus on kendo instead of English or anything, but that this is a culture where you have to choose at all.

I wonder if making foreign language study more of an open choice rather than just English would help. Maybe if kids could choose between English, Chinese, Korean, and French (since so many girls get obsessed about learning French so they can open their own patisserie) there would be more openness. Maybe if the kids had more agency in what non-Japanese thing was entering into their minds they'd be less armored against it.

In the end, it's a problem with deep, deep roots. In the West we're encouraged to learn new languages to get better jobs, to widen our minds, and to make it possible to travel to foreign countries and really communicate with people. Even though English is widely spoken we're encouraged to learn other languages because we might someday meet someone who doesn't speak English or live somewhere where people don't speak English. As most ALTs know, it's possible to live in Japan with almost no command of the language, but it's sure a lot easier if you speak Japanese. I don't know what reason the kids are being given for learning English, or if they're even being given a reason. I only teach in elementary and junior high school, so it may very well be addressed in high school. Kids aren't stupid, and if they're given a good reason for doing something as opposed to "because I said so" then they're more likely to apply themselves. Unfortunately, that still doesn't address the problem where applying themselves to a foreign language hurts their cultural identity. It's a vicious circle.