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Formal English Education In Japan: What Causes ‘Unsuccessful’ English Language Learning?, Masanori Matsumoto

Masanori Matsumoto

Formal English education in Japanese high schools was examined on the basis of its unsuccessful outcome in the acquisition of communication skills in English despite the government's strong initiative to implement communication-oriented teaching and learning in its 2003 Action Plan. The primary cause of this is assumed to be the discrepancy between the official goal advocated in the Action Plan and the realistic goal that both teachers and students are forced to confront the entrance examinations to universities. Due to the severe gap between the dual objectives in the teaching/learning of English, high school teachers and students face pedagogical and …