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Paper short abstract

The implementation of Japan’s internationalization policies are hampered by shortcomings in the area of English language education policy. This paper investigates the ideological and practical aspects of government policy that are responsible for this situation.

Paper long abstract

Since the 1980s, improving foreign language teaching and promoting educational internationalization have been cornerstones of Japan’s education policy. Although these two areas of policy-making seem to be complementary, this paper will show how in actuality the former has been holding back advances in the latter. This paper explains this paradox by exploring both the ideological and practical aspects of government policy in these areas.

The successful implementation of Japan’s internationalization agenda is hampered by the inability of most Japanese university students to converse in English at a level required for advanced study in that language. Various shortcomings of the English language curriculum at the secondary school level account for this problem. There have been serious and well thought through efforts at reform since the 1980s, but to date the practical results have been frustratingly inadequate. Practical difficulties are compounded by an ideological disposition to see language as a marker of national identity.

A policy of linguistic homogeneity inhibits many kinds of intellectual and economic growth, but it also protects Japan from the dangers of an uncertain and potentially hostile world. The nationalism of Japan’s ruling elites caused the dominant response to the challenges of globalization to be one of defending Japanese national identity rather than embracing cosmopolitanism. The challenge for those members of the elite who recognize that Japan’s security and prosperity depend on having more people who can communicate better in English, a prerequisite for the nurturing of transnational human capital, remains how to achieve this without diluting or undermining the cultural identity of those who become very proficient in the language of the “other.”