Attitudes towards English Language Learning in Higher Education in Japan, and the Place of English in Japanese Society

Abstract

An advisory committee nominated by the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in 1999 made a proposal for the vision of the 21 st century for Japan. It stressed the importance of enhancing communicative competence in English for the Japanese to survive in international competition and to be a good member of the international community. In the light of the work of the above committee, this study investigates attitudes to English among students in higher education in Japan. Empirical data have been drawn from a survey of over 500 Japanese university students. The results indicate that students in this limited study share some fundamentally similar ideas about English, including their perceptions of their English learning experience, to which they responded negatively, and their opinions about the usefulness of English, a question to which they responded overwhelmingly in the positive. The findings seem to open up some serious pedagogical questions, and the paper thus concludes with a discussion of these and language education and policy in Japan.