Another perspective about Japan

What are you thinking about japan?

When someone mention Japan, what is in your mind?

Japan tend to be the country with a powerful image in economy. We know that there are a lot of big company in Japan that is really good and make Japan become a developed county. Japan is a modern country that I admire. But, after 3 months in here, I think I can see Japan from another point of view.

I live in small city, far away from Tokyo, Hiroshima. People said that this is countryside. When I arrived in here, I am surprised to found that many people cannot speak English really well. It is really hard for me to make a conversation with them because of the language barrier. They tend to keep silent, or smile when I try to speak with them. Or if they don't like it, they tend to say, "Sorry, I am not understand", and not doing anything.

My Japanese friend, Yuki, is one of the Japanese in HUE that speak English well. In his opinion, he said that I cannot judge all Japanese is the same. If I am going to Tokyo, I will meet a lot of Japanese that can speak english really well. But since I live in Hiroshima, the number of people that can speak English is small.

I tried to ask some people why Japanese cannot speak English well. They told me that in Japanese education system. English class usually being taught for 4th grade in the Elementary Students. But, recently it change to 3rd grade. Actually I am really surprise. Because in Indonesia, we have to learn English since 1st grade of Elementary school. Even now, there are bilingual language for kindergarten.  We try to learn English from the earlier stage. We realise the importance of English and we learn too much English until we tired of that. So, I think we can said that the start of learning stage in Japan is late.

Another reason that I found that the way that they teach English is unique. Every week I attend English class in Gion Elementary School. We only have 45 minutes to learn English. In Indonesia I usually have 2 hours of English class. And in Japan, on each class we only learn one or two sentences. For example, for 6th grade today they learn "What colour do you like?". And next week they learn "What colour do you want?" For me it's too slow. And on each class they always have a game. It's interesting for the kids but I think it's not enough to improve their English ability.

Furthermore, for HUE students, they are really shy to speak with us. I am sure that they are smart enough to understand the conversation. But, when it was the time for them to speak, they said that they cannot speak English. The main reason is they really afraid to make a mistake when they are speaking. Japanese education speaking teach them not to make a mistake in everything. The way they learn is remember everything in the book or everything that the teacher taught. So, they think for a long time to speak one sentence. They checking the grammar, subject and object, and it's end up with silence. They do not speak at all. 

It was such a pity because in addition to improve your speaking ability is practice as much as possible. We know that English is not our main language, so we will understand if they cannot speak english perfectly as long us we can understand what are they talking about. We will not give them a bad score or doing something bad if they cannot speak English perfectly. Even for me, usually if I speak, I don't speak in a perfect grammar. Sometimes I make a mistake and people correct me. So it's not a problem. The fear to make a mistake is a major obstacle to improve their English ability.

This is my opinion after I experience Hiroshima in 3 month. I still have another opinion about the way young people studying and anything from my point of view. Maybe I will post it later. ^^