A student who is bad at English takes the first oral exam for Japanese high school entrance

On November 27, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education held an English-speaking exam for the first time as part of the capital’s high school entrance exam. About 69,000 college students took the 15-minute test, where they had to answer questions displayed on their tablets out loud.

At Hibiya High School, one of Tokyo’s 197 exam sites, students seemed particularly nervous for the new experience.

The purpose of this review is to strengthen Japan’s competitiveness in human resources. In fact, in this era of globalization, the Japanese unfortunately have a bad reputation when it comes to English proficiency: their situation is very poor. Over the decades, the culprit has remained the same, the way English is taught in Japan, to devote more time to grammar and translation at the expense of spoken English. (Also see our article: Japanese high school students do not like to study English)

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]