English Language Teaching in Japan: Academic Performance and Active Learning

Abstract

This chapter outlines developments in the reform of English language teaching (ELT) in Japan. It outlines how Japan has an implicit deeply entrenched educational system based on Confucianism and how this system is undergoing change. The chapter is organised with reference to a dynamic interplay of global economic realities, ELT policy reforms and how these reforms affect the way in which academic performance is measured. Reforms in the national curriculum in secondary education, national university entrance exams and institutional policies have brought about the need for teachers at secondary- and tertiary level to broker a new approach to teaching and learning. Specific reference is made to lessons involving an active learning approach at Tokyo University of Science, Japan.

1. Introduction

This chapter not only provides insight into what role the English language has in Japanese society but also how economic globalisation (henceforth ‘globalisation’) has led to societal change as it relates to the teaching of English at the tertiary level. Namely, globalisation has provided the circumstances for a shift away from a traditional teacher-centred transmission method of teaching and learning to that of a student-centred approach. Subsequent curriculum reform, introduced to aid the transition to a student-centred approach, intersects with an implicit expectation on behalf of students that a traditional method of teaching and learning will continue in the same manner in university as that of secondary school. As a consequence, there will be a period of time when neither the teacher-centred nor student-centred approach will have ascendency. In this state of flux, between one approach and the other, there will be a mismatch between expectations of both teachers and students and the reality of how teaching and learning are carried out in the classroom.

For there to be a more student-centred approach to learning, this chapter focusses on the introduction of a greater amount of lesson activities that use ‘active learning’. In terms of English language teaching (ELT) it is apparent that lesson activities based on student-centred, non-linear, and dynamic communication activities are becoming more prevalent. For academic performance to be measured in this changed landscape, teachers are required to use a new framework, which, arguably, will have profound ramifications not only for English education but also for the Japanese education system as a whole.

2. The role of English in Japanese society

Japan is a particularly interesting site for the investigation of academic performance in English language competency, owing to the tension between the important function that English plays within its society [1, 2] and the differences between the educational philosophy in Japan and that typically found in the West [3].

As a consequence, in this chapter, I investigate how sociocultural factors combine with external, institutional and classroom-level factors in a dynamic and non-linear way [4, 5, 6]. Practically speaking, this ‘systems perspective’ means that while teachers have beliefs about and attitudes towards what is considered the most appropriate way to improve the academic performance of students in their context [7, 8, 9]; they must also be mindful about ongoing changes in sociocultural factors and, thereby, create appropriate curriculum reform.

Below, I describe the way in which four concepts are particularly relevant for understanding how curriculum reform that aims to improve academic performance may be better understood in this context.

2.1 Confucian-based values

Policymakers in East Asia have viewed higher education through the lens of Confucian-based values which prize obligation, duty, and social cohesion [10, 11]. Such values are prevalent in Confucian-based societies such as Japan, where there is an inherent feeling of responsibility for self- and societal betterment through scholarly success and perseverance [12].

2.2 Nihonjinron

The nihonjinron ethos is used to express and give credibility to a worldview that Japan is comprised of a unique and homogenously linguistic cultural group [13, 14, 15]. As a consequence, there is a paradoxical attempt to achieve a greater level of internationalisation, through ELT reform, while simultaneously preserving the notion of being separate and distinct [16, 17, 18, 19]. This inconsistency might influence the success or failure with which curriculum reform can be implemented by deterring students from learning English and result in an implicit ‘othering’, or essentialising of outside groups [20].

2.3 Juken-benkyo and yakudoku

The third concept is juken-benkyo (the study for entrance examinations) and the associated means by which it is usually studied, yakudoku (a teacher-centred approach to learning in which English sentences are translated to Japanese word-by-word and reordered so they fit Japanese sentence grammar) are deemed as essential for the study of university entrance examinations [21, 22]. This mutual reliance tends to lend itself to a teaching approach that aims to help students become successful exam takers rather than successful communicators [23, 24].

2.4 World Englishes

Lastly, within the discourse of World Englishes, a variety of systems have developed in separate regions regarding the way English is taught and learned in primary, secondary and higher education [9]. In Japan, in some cases, English words and phrases may be used to catch attention on packaging and more generally in popular culture through clever punning [25] or as ‘decorative’ motifs [26]. In this regard, the context in which Kachru [27] places Japan is in the outermost of three concentric circles. These circles are comprised of an inner circle, where English is spoken as a native language, an outer circle, where English is spoken as a second language and an expanding circle, where English is engaged with as a foreign language (EFL).

2.5 Sociocultural factors and university entrance exams

With reference to the aforementioned ‘systems perspective’, these four factors have combined, over time, to create a stable educational system. This stable system can be deemed to be in a ‘strong attractor’ state [28]. As a consequence, Confucian-based sensibilities and nihonjinron notions of distinct difference — combined with how English is viewed in popular culture and a pre-existing system of tacitly prizing the high academic performance gained from achieving the ability to correctly answer exam questions that test grammar and vocabulary knowledge — [29, 30, 31] self-assemble into a system in which, it follows, students become successful test-takers rather than successful communicators [32, 33].

3. The Japanese education system with reference to ELT

3.1 General overview of English education

The Japanese education system is comprised of primary, lower- and upper secondary and tertiary instruction, arranged in a 6–3–3-4 construct. Regarding the stages in development of ELT in Japan, Stewart [34] explains that in 2003, as a response to globalisation, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (henceforth MEXT) introduced a policy directive requiring state secondary school teachers of English to move away from English teaching based on translation and towards those activities that emphasise oral communication [35].

For government educational policy to achieve the stated goal of responding to globalisation, in a Central Council for Education (CCE) report in 2008, the notion of a common standard for learning outcomes was formally proposed. As a consequence, the existing National Centre Test for University Admissions was deemed to be in need of revision in order to realise this aim [31, 36]. The term common standard for learning outcomes clearly suggests the objective of delivering a greater standardisation in teaching across universities, ostensibly to provide a basis for measuring the extent to which the stated goals have been achieved. Generally known as quality assurance, this concept ensures an educational policy that moves away from diversification and flexibility, towards one that is underpinned by an acceptance that standards are international in nature [36]. In this way, it is evident that MEXT uses quality assurance to standardise activities that emphasise oral communication for English lessons in secondary schools.

The next section describes the centrality of the university entrance examination in educational assessment and how, over the last few decades, there have been a large number of reforms to make it better fit for purpose.

3.2 ELT reforms

National Standards for School Curricula are generally updated once every 10 years. These curriculum reforms are planned and implemented to bring about improvements in standards and a subsequent higher quality of education [37]. How often and to what degree reforms take place depends highly on the sociocultural context. As seen in Section 2.5, it is generally recognised that what is learned in school is directly related to exams taken at 16 and 17 years old.

As mentioned in Section 2.1, attending university is widely considered to be an obligation in Japan. For this reason, achieving a high score on the national university entrance examination is of enormous importance. Due to the intense societal focus on this exam, society has seen it beneficial for primary and secondary schoolchildren to adopt rote learning as the most efficient way to achieve a high score:

English was the crucial means to pass entrance examinations, so students were trained to read and write in English, relying on grammatical analyses and translations to and from Japanese as the primary methods. In class, students practiced a lot of drills and repetitions, and there were almost no opportunities for students to engage in discussions, express opinions or engage in group problem-solving. Teacher-centred and lecture-style instruction worked very effectively to achieve these entrance examination-oriented goals in large classrooms. ([21], p. 209)

Because of the insight in the need to counter the concentration on teacher-centred rote learning, as described by Hosoki, the concept of Yutori, or ‘low pressure/no cramming’ education was implemented in 2002 [38]. With Yutori-style education, there was a shift towards giving students 15% less classroom study time in core subjects such as mathematics, science and Japanese. In addition to that, students no longer had to study in school on Saturday mornings, resulting in a concurrent 30% drop in the amount of classroom study [31].

The rapid decline in 15-year-old Japanese students’ academic ability in the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) score in 2003 and 2006, coupled with a rise in the economic clout of emerging economies such as China, led to politicians coming under pressure from the press and the general public to resolve the issue of perceived worsening of educational standards [32]. Soon after, although Yutori education was hastily abandoned [38], the notion that ‘education should focus on helping children acquire academic knowledge’ became more firmly established in the public sphere ([31], p. 82).

Regarding ELT, from 1998, there had been a greater emphasis placed on oral communication for lower- and upper-secondary schools. In 2001, instead of the previous free-form standards, assessment began to be based on knowledge or skills measured against predetermined criteria [39]. Furthermore, as a direct result of assessment being based on predetermined criteria and classroom activities being carried out in the medium of English, there was a realisation in the White Paper on Science and Technology in 2006 that Japanese society in the twenty-first century would be knowledge-based [40]. In this way, the trend in ELT reform was towards a tightening of standards related to not only what a learner should know but also a measurement of how the knowledge can be applied [37].

Here a tipping point was reached towards a realisation that the outcome of the National Center Test for University Admissions (Center Test) is not only of importance to individuals, but it should also be a benchmark against which, and how graduates perform in the workplace can be measured. Accordingly, it can be argued that the foundations for building greater economic security are improved through the stated aims of the Center Test, that is, better critical thinking, problem-solving and self-management [41].

Hence, the view that rote learning is the most efficient way of achieving a high score on the Center Test has been disrupted by the reforms in the national curriculum, which advocate for lesson activities — based on active learning — to play an operative role [31, 42, 43].

3.3 The advent of active learning

To describe how active learning has come into focus as a means to help meet the English ability required of university graduates joining the workforce [44, 45], it is necessary to consult the MEXT policy statement in 2008 [46] Towards the Construction of Undergraduate Education. In this policy statement, MEXT outlines the ‘attributes’ by which common learning outcomes for graduating students can be measured. As discussed in Jennings and Fenton [47], the measurement of the extent to which graduating students have achieved the stated attributes is difficult to define or quantify because it is dependent on the institutional context. For this reason, the most appropriate of Harvey and Green’s [48] five categories of quality, as it pertains to tertiary-level education, is Fitness for Purpose. Related to fitness for purpose, the MEXT policy English Education Reform Plan Corresponding to Globalisation was proposed in 2013 with specific guidelines for:

1. Successive ELT reforms in consideration of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

2. More English-specific compulsory class management in elementary schools

3. English-medium instruction at the level of secondary education

4. The introduction of a consistent assessment scale based on the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and description of learning targets to all levels of primary and secondary education

5. The extensive use of English proficiency tests organised by individual organisations (TOEFL, Eiken, etc.)

6. Proactive trainer training at the levels of primary and secondary education ([49], p. 216).

With the above list of reforms in place, the 2016 Special Task Force for High School and University Articulation of the Central Council for Education came to the conclusion that fundamentally reforming university entrance exams is a suitable way to counter the effects of ongoing globalisation because ‘university entrance examinations heavily influence [upper-secondary] school education’ ([31], p. 96). The term positive exam washback is applicable here because it is expected that the reformed National Center Test for University Admissions would not only evaluate examinees solely on the amount of knowledge they have acquired but also their ability to reflect on and apply it in the real world [43, 49].

3.4 ELT curriculum reform

As mentioned, as a consequence of changes in the way English is tested at the secondary level [50, 51, 52, 53, 54] focussing on university entrance examinations and the frequent testing of vocabulary and grammar; typical first-year university students at Tokyo University of Science (TUS) tend to have achieved a high level of knowledge about the structure of English, but only a low level of oral communication competence [30, 55]. To gain deeper understanding of the context in which ELT exists, it is important to have thorough knowledge of the factors that have created the current system. The focus of the next section is teacher strategies for dealing with ELT reform in terms of the way in which academic performance is measured using active learning.

3.5 A state of flux in ELT

Up to the present time, a more widespread use of a student-centred active learning approach has had only limited success [24, 56]. That said, although it is as yet difficult to discern wide-scale improvement in the introduction of active learning in universities, perhaps as a result of a plethora of small-scale studies unable to show statistical significance [57], it appears that policy reforms have provided the impetus for ELT curriculum reform to be introduced at various levels. As a consequence, there is now a renewed focus on communication skills as opposed to grammar. Thus, curriculum reform augmented by government policy directives makes way for a new style of English lessons. Where once, previously, passive students in teacher-centred lessons would absorb what the teacher imparts, there is now a greater number of active students conversing with each other and taking part in a ‘negotiation of meaning’ [58, 59, 60].

As outlined, university classroom-based tests and assessments reflect societal values. In this respect, it appears that the shift to more active learning in tertiary-level ELT courses in Japan is indicative of a societal shift in emphasis on the type of abilities a graduating student ought to have mastered by the time they join the workforce. That is, a graduating student should not only possess the ability to think critically, actively interrupt and make suggestions but also to ask either the teacher or classmates for clarification of intended meaning — so that ideas can be exchanged — and new ideas, concepts and hypotheses be formed [61]. For this reason, it is evident that a way to gauge these aptitudes through the measuring of academic performance is needed. In the context of TUS, there has indeed been a shift away from there being one formal final examination at the end of a course of study, to that of a variety of assessments that measure academic performance during the course as a whole [59]. Hitherto, this chapter has reported on the background to ELT in Japan. The next section focusses on measuring academic performance.

4. Measuring academic performance in context

For the purposes of this section, I take the Ngan Bacquet’s definition of academic performance:

Educational assessment is a measurable set of standards used in classrooms to determine a student’s knowledge of concepts, proficiency, skill levels and attitudes, as well as to measure what a student has learnt at the end of a chapter, a unit, or course to ensure that the required standards have been achieved. ([41], p. 28)

ELT reform in Japan is moving forward with the introduction of lesson activities that provide for a greater amount of oral communication during lessons [59]. Such lesson activities, commonly referred to as communicative language teaching (CLT) are core to teaching in the EFL context but are not easy to implement [62]. As a result, it is important to report on any innovations in teaching practice that policy reform — and the dynamic interplay between institutional context and teacher beliefs — has brought about [63, 64].

There remains though the factor of how university teachers measure academic performance in their courses. One obstacle to the adoption of CLT activities in EFL contexts is the extent to which they are considered appropriate for the existing educational culture [65]. In explanation, there exists a tension between what Holliday [66] calls ‘cultural continuity’ on one hand and ‘communicative competence’ on the other [67]. To that point, Ikeda ([68], p. 79) notes that in the context of CLT activities in Japan, students tend to have a culturally appropriate ‘lack of wordiness’ in their first language. So, when there exists a seemingly static low oral communication competence but a teaching approach, which expects a certain level to be achieved, it would be logical for teachers to measure academic performance by focussing on the level at which students are able to communicate competently in English.

4.1 Critical thinking, intercultural communicative competence, CLT and active learning

As indicated, there has been a growing concern on behalf of MEXT about a mismatch between the skill sets of graduates and what industry is looking for [69]. Both stakeholders, MEXT and industry, saw the urgent need to disturb the sociocultural status quo. There was a tangible reason for ELT reform because where there currently exists an educational system suitable for the industrial age; it was now imperative to make way for one better fit for purpose in the information age [70].

Furthermore, as mentioned, during the state of flux between the previous propensity for rote learning in secondary school, students in university do not yet possess the oral skills to be competent communicators in English. That is, in the educational system of Japan, a typical learner is likely to have ‘culture-specific values and beliefs [that] may clash with values and beliefs … threaten[ing] cultural identity and integrity and produc[ing] consequences of which the native culture does not approve’ ([23], p. 37). It is not only university students but also teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and perceptions in this context that need to evolve. During this transition, teachers need to broker policy reforms that affect the greater emphasis given to critical thinking, intercultural communicative competence, communicative language teaching and active learning [59, 70, 71].

4.1.1 Critical thinking

The ability to think critically is a key skill in the modern world because it helps people tackle complex and novel problems [70]. Although activities in EFL textbooks approved by MEXT offer opportunities for learners to enhance their understanding of a given text [71], high school English textbooks have not always been successful in providing exercises that stimulate critical thinking, and students are entering university with an ‘extremely bad’ ability to engage in discussion [70]. This point is furthered in published data from the OECD, which found that the number of lessons containing critical thinking was very low [72]. Nomura [73] found that teachers remedied the lack of critical thinking activities in textbooks by brokering its introduction through activities that focus on the culturally important value of empathy.

4.1.2 Intercultural communicative competence

Allied with the premise that certain factors may hinder the adoption of critical thinking in classroom activities is the notion of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). I define ICC in the context of Japan as knowledge of cultural traits such as positivity, cooperation and flexibility that can not only improve the ability to recognise and respect cultural differences but also reduce misunderstandings through proficient English communication skills [71, 74].

Once the premise is taken that proficient English communication skills are key to improving ICC, one must first consider the sociocultural context in which the activities are introduced, and then which lesson activities encourage proficient communication.

As noted, when Japanese university students learn English as a second or foreign language, there are hindrances to the introduction of communicative lesson activities. It is worth noting that it is well established in scholarly research that cultures, such as Japan and America, are at differing ends of a continuum in terms of low to high communication context [75, 76]. On one end of the spectrum is low-context communication. Generally, in low-context cultures, very little is assumed to be known about the opinions of others due to an implicit expectation of a wish to communicate diverse thoughts and viewpoints. On the other end of the spectrum is high-context communication. In high-context cultures, such as Japan, much is assumed to be known about the opinions of others due to a high level of cultural homogeneity. For this reason, there is an eagerness to avoid confrontation. In the case of Japan, where secondary school students are not used to cooperative learning, there is a tendency to lack the ability to give timely responses, which is a given in sociocultural contexts where non-linear and dynamic communication is expected.

4.1.3 Communicative language teaching

Jennings ([59], p. 12) has defined communicative language teaching (CLT) as:

Classroom activities that enable second or foreign language learners to better control dynamic communication in group activities by using language, which is novel and inventive rather than ‘correct’.

For reasons noted above, it is often a struggle for teachers to create sufficient learning activities for students who feel they have not sufficiently mastered dynamic control over their ability to actively communicate in novel and inventive ways. Typical first-year university students often struggle to take a more active role in their learning and prefer lesson activities that are, to a large degree, supported by the teacher [77].

In this way, teachers broker content found in textbooks that are used in the classroom to affect active communication. Such EFL textbooks contain task-based activities, and activities in which content — such as the discussion of social issues that stimulate discussion — is integrated with EFL learning [78]. Discussion of social issues in an EFL context where students have low intercultural communicative competence calls for teachers to facilitate lessons through CLT aimed at improving the ability to give timely responses in a non-linear, dynamic or proactive way [69].

4.2 Active learning

The aim of ongoing educational policy reforms in Japan is to motivate students to engage in the learning process with lessons based around active learning [79]. Taking the premise that ELT policy reforms usher in more active learning in schools and universities, there follows three definitions of active learning. The first is from a leading university in the US, where active learning is relatively well established, the second is from MEXT and the third is from an ELT scholar based in Japan.

Active learning methods ask students to engage in their learning by thinking, discussing, investigating and creating. In class, students practice skills, solve problems, struggle with complex questions, make decisions, propose solutions and explain ideas in their own words through writing and discussion [80].

For [Active Learning in] undergraduate education, we should promote activities to change the quality of education such as active learning (learning in which students proactively find issues and solutions), interactive lectures, practice and experiments [81].

Active learning includes all kinds of learning beyond the mere one-way transmission of knowledge in lecture-style classes (= passive learning). It requires engagement in activities (writing, discussion and presentation) and externalizing cognitive processes in the activities [82].

In terms of measuring academic performance, it can be seen in the differences between the three quotes above that the way active learning is approached in these contexts is indicative of its sociocultural context. In the US context, active learning is well defined with specific examples of the types of communication that encompass active learning in the classroom. Conversely, in the second quote, the MEXT definition of active learning is vaguely defined with terms that only broadly outline the methodology and generic goals. The third, scholarly definition, contains a description of what active learning does not cover (lecture-style classes); yet while it gives appropriate examples of the types of interactions that are deemed ‘active’, it does so without regard to specific lesson procedures. Another Japan-based scholar, Ichikawa [83] though, introduces active learning in a contextually appropriate way. That is to say, how the active learning approach has been repurposed for the Japanese context. That is, Ichikawa states, although best practice in the Japanese educational system is achieved by meeting the needs of students and society, the term active learning was not adequately, or intuitively understood by teachers. For this reason, the ‘active’ in active learning has taken on the semantically appropriate Japanese language nuance of ‘independent, interactive and deep’ [83]. Where independent and interactive have the more easily understood nuance of students being proactive, and ‘deep’ is best understood by being juxtaposed with ‘shallow’ learning [84]. Wherein, deep active learning focusses on the quality and content of learning, or as Entwistle et al. ([85], p. 117) put it, the ‘intention to seek meaning for yourself’. With the premise that active learning in the tertiary Japan context involves students becoming more self-directed, university teachers will need to measure academic performance with this in mind.

Thus, because university teachers need to measure academic performance with factors that are challenging to quantify, such as the ability to externalise cognitive processes; it follows that by delineating active learning into its constituent parts, teachers can better measure improvements [86]. Hence, in the context outlined in this chapter, active learning can be measured in how well students are able to proactively develop their ability to become self-directed learners [69]. That is, the ability to express their individuality, and in so doing, acquire and apply technical skills [79, 87]. In the next section, there is a description of how academic performance is measured in the sociocultural context of ELT in the EFL context of Tokyo University of Science (TUS).

4.3 Assessing academic performance: Self-direction

In this section, TUS is used as an exemplar of how active learning has been introduced across the curriculum in recent years in Japan [88]. As is customary throughout universities worldwide, the teacher of every course has to fill in a syllabus. A syllabus provides documentation to safeguard quality assurance. In recent years, syllabi are placed online and students are able to see details of the course. In the case of TUS, both English courses and science courses use the same syllabus layout.

Fifty English and fifty science course syllabuses (Physics and Biology) were surveyed. Whereas all 50 English language course syllabuses utilised student-centred, non-linear and dynamic communication activities; about 20% of science course syllabuses used a teacher-centred transmission model of teaching and learning, where no active learning components were chosen. Moreover, where no active learning components were chosen, academic performance was calculated in one or two formal examinations. That is to say, in 20% of science courses, teachers transmit information to students in lecture-style lessons and students are only active in terms of taking notes. Conversely, in English courses, all students will take part in activities that provide chances for them to communicate and share ideas proactively. In this way, students negotiate meaning collaboratively in a non-linear and dynamic fashion.

Jennings [59] shows the evolution of the syllabus at TUS from a vaguely written short description in one short paragraph in 2013, to a more detailed set of components in 2014; and culminating, in 2019, in a format that contains seventeen separate components. Importantly, since 2019, the syllabus has had a set of lesson activities that correspond with active learning. Teachers choose from the list contingent upon their course parameters. An example of a syllabus input screen for active learning can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

List of examples of active learning parameters.

In this case, the syllabus appears to students as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Online syllabus showing active learning.

For this course, the teacher has input four components of active learning into the syllabus. As mentioned, these four components provide quality assurance for the institution and inform students of the types of activities, they will take part in during the course of study. Each syllabus has information on grading policy as well. Teachers who have added active learning components need to ensure that students are assessed on them. English course syllabi typically use three or more components from which to assess academic performance. Figure 3 shows the syllabus grading policy of the course shown above in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 3.

Grading policy.

The grading policy contains more components than that of active learning because grading is not only based on activities carried out during lessons. That said, it is pertinent to note which activities correspond to those in the grading policy. Figure 4 shows the weight given to each active learning component in the course.

Figure 4.

How active learning corresponds to grading policy.

To illustrate how an essay or writing assignment may be a component of active learning, it is important to lay out the steps taken in the classroom for students to achieve the task. With the writing assignment, students are shown an example essay plan as a lesson activity. Students read through the example essay plan and comment on the content in pairs. For homework, using the example as a guide, they write their own essay plan. The plan is used in an activity the following week, where students discuss in pairs points in the plan they have written. The teacher then shows students the format of the essay. Students write their essays, conforming with the format, for homework. Students also have to add three discussion questions based on the content of their essay. In the following week, students read through a partner’s essay and do a peer review of the content.

A peer review consists of informing the partner of any places in the text that may be improved. The students also engage with the discussion questions. For homework, students rewrite their essay and submit it online the following week. Students sit with a new partner and read and discuss the content of the essay with guidance from the teacher. The guidance emphasises the way in which students should answer a question. Students are reminded of what they have been doing throughout the course when they have been discussing. That is, they should not only answer the question, they should also explain what they mean with an example and then finish up with a concluding statement. The concluding statement may then be the start of a continuing dialogue with the partner, leading to freer communication or further negotiation of meaning.

Turning to how active learning fits into the broader curriculum in TUS, as opposed to some science courses, in which there is teacher-centred transmission model of teaching and learning, with ongoing assessment, students can receive feedback as the course continues. Such commentary not only provides students with formal and informal feedback but also provides teachers with a greater ability to modify their teaching either during the course or after the course has ended with the Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) method of quality assurance. This method of quality assurance confirms teachers are, for example, better able to plan a new activity, do the activity in the classroom and gauge how the activity was received and the extent to which it achieved student self-direction [89]. Following that, action can be taken by the teacher to modify the activity as it is happening or to revise it in future iterations. These ongoing and dynamic modifications ensure best practice by making lesson activities better fit for purpose.

5. Conclusion

This chapter provides insight into how the educational system in Japan has been disrupted by external, institutional- and classroom-level pressures. The external effects of globalisation have been the impetus for institutional reforms that have encouraged a shift away from teacher-centred to a more student-centred approach.

Traditional English teaching approaches gelled around certain implicitly held, deeply entrenched concepts such as the distinctness of Japanese cultural behaviours, what is thought to be proper study habits and the semantic distance people feel between Japanese and English. As implied in the term ‘traditional’, the idea of what MEXT believes is best practice in teaching has been undergoing continual revision.

Reforms in the national curriculum in secondary education, national university entrance exams and institutional policies have brought about the need for teachers at secondary and tertiary level to broker a new approach to teaching and learning. The turn towards a more student-centred approach in classrooms has brought into focus the types of activities that would be socioculturally appropriate. Over time, in scholarly articles, MEXT policy statements and — at the tertiary level —institutional documentation, a more student-centred approach has become synonymous with the term active learning. With this new approach to teaching has come an attendant need to measure academic performance in terms of specific competencies.

However, because active learning itself had until relatively recently only been defined in less than explicit terms, how students’ academic performance was measured was, in TUS, left to the individual teacher. As indicated, from 2019 active learning components were more clearly delineated with checkboxes. This delineation helped provide evidence for the institution to provide quality assurance and, at the same time, gave a set of performance indicators against which students could be measured.

This chapter culminates with four main takeaways (1) It is not the case that there will no longer be any more rote learning and high stakes testing in Japan, but there is an ongoing movement towards the use of classroom activities in which students become proactive (2) A shift to student-centred learning activities will provide students with the opportunity to gain conceptual tools by which they can externalise their learning and form new ideas, concepts and hypotheses (3) This externalisation leads to the need to clarify meaning with classmates. In this way, students may become self-directed people who are ready to apply knowledge in novel ways (4) For academic performance to be measured in this contextually innovative lesson environment, the term ‘deep active learning’ needs to be further unpacked because, in the case of Japan, moving away from the idea of a culturally appropriate ‘lack of wordiness’, towards the less well-tolerated ‘negotiation of meaning’ may have profound ramifications not only for English education but for the Japanese education system as a whole.