This article considers the ELT profession in the context of the current pressures upon Japanese public and private institutions. Professions exist to provide identity, security, self-regulation, and to insulate members from the vagaries of the outside world. Historically, academics have benefited from this while the tax and private tuition paying public accepted a definition of education on the ivory tower model.
Every nation must periodically consider to what degree educational institutions are mere holding stations on a life development path and to what degree do they have vital social utility. Does anyone believe that Japanﾕs educational institutions are immune to the need for renewal? With great deference to our Japanese colleagues, official ELT in Japan is uniquely positioned and defines learning efficiency rather oddly. The entrance examinations may be educationally suspect but their social value as a legacy of the mandarin-bureaucratic social model cannot be ignored.
If ELT in Japan has not developed in isolation from the social processes that nourished its growth, neither can it hide from the forces that are reshaping that growth. Pop quiz time. Name three post-war client states which have failed to undergo fundamental reform and are also economically deeply mired in their outdated paradigms. The answer: Cuba, North Korea, and Japan. Rich winners are as prone to denial of reality as impoverished losers.
In a recent article on the Asian economic mess, Lester Thurow of MIT wrote, "From the perspective of demonstrated abilities to deal with the aftermath of a collapse, Japan is the sickest country on the Pacific Rim" (1998). Indeed, Japan, a purported democracy, has suffered eight years of stagnation and recession, perpetrated without doubt by the elite's malfeasance and incompetence. I use the phrase "purported democracy" with caution since in a true democracy, alternative eliteﾕs are available via periodic public choice. Many Japanese now expect a darker future, according to a Yomiuri poll. A paradigm shift is deeply needed.
Japan's fate, in my view, is governed by three trends: the demographics over the next 50 years, the continuing democratization process, and the full modernization of China. First, not only has Japan's population begun shrinking, but that decreasing population will have an increasing proportion of marginally productive oldsters requiring high consumption of expensive resources. To exaggerate only slightly, in another fifteen years there will be little objective reason to build anything in Japan other than community homes for the elderly and replacement infrastructure. Is this not an unprecedented condition for a modern society? The psychological impact of a national senescence is well worth considering. Secondly, these trends occur at the moment when a power shift from the decrepit pre-war mandarin-bureaucratic model to a more openly democratic model is emerging. Finally, Japanﾕs self-image as Asian leader confronts a substantially invigorated and powerful China now expecting that role. A challenging situation, indeed. The implications of these trends must profoundly shake those responsible for projecting policy. Indeed, the elites have been altogether paralyzed for years, making room thereby for even more corrupt, inefficient, and wasteful practices.
Having strayed from ELT for two paragraphs, is anyone in any disagreement that at least the first of these trends is having a profound effect upon education here? The ELT teacher training profession has been successful. There is now a large, qualified cadre of native Japanese fully capable of taking positions teaching English at all levels. To dispute this must serve as an indictment of the many TESOL training programs that have eagerly recruited Japanese participation. Where are these qualified Japanese English teachers to find jobs if not in Japan? Is there any university in the U.S., let us say in Kansas, where the French Department, for example, is staffed with large numbers of native French?
Current economic malaise further intensifies the demographic impact. There already is excess educational capacity in relation to the currently-defined projected demand for education. A shrinking student population is forcing administrative reform to achieve efficiency and relevance in the financially stressed institutions themselves. Will Japan follow U.S. trends, distance education by Internet, and continuing education programs for those seeking retraining or enhanced professional training in their careers? Traditional institutions are being shaped by the market. Academics may recoil at the so-called commodification of education, but reactive postures only increase institutional sclerosis.
And there is plenty of that already. How many universities in Japan, for example, have comprehensive, integrated programs that are not a superficial collection of course titles? The lack of integration is deliberate and is intended to protect schools from governmental interference such as occurred during the military dictatorship. Two generations later the system has ossified. Is not the great success of TOEIC, Eiken, the private language school industry, the home study market, and the overseas study market due at least in part to consumers' desire for objective and demonstrable success in language education that is denied them in traditional institutional programs? The ivory tower? Wake up and smell the coffee. ELT teachers at all levels are but a small part of a service industry called education.
If the "traditional" ELT profession has not mustered an adequate expression of its values, why not? At one time, the Euro-American academy existed to train members of the elite in Latin, Greek, selected great works, and a few of the better sorts of field games. Has ELT here now reached an analogous crossroads? One local ELT elder recently mused upon the current low voltage of the ELT "meanings and methods" debate compared to a mere decade ago. Is the profession so settled intellectually that innovation is no longer needed? Some have argued that publishers are responsible for homogenizing materials development and thereby dampening debate. This thought needs consideration, but publishers are largely responding to and exploiting professional currents and trends. Creativity, if there is any to be had, comes from teachers.
The way that the demographic and administrative reform trends are being undertaken in Japan are less than gentle. Administrators responsible for making adjustments at their schools do so in conformance with and reflecting local standards of governance, usually the opaque bureaucratic-mandarin model. Those with power exercise it as they see fit. Many people in education, and not only foreigners, have and will find that growing scarcity and increasing competition creates a failure of administrative grace under pressure. The worst of human nature may govern many of these cases. Conflicting parties ignore the objective interests by manipulating emotive/symbolic or legalistic/adversarial language.
Struggling with power requires a familiarity with the rules of the game to which few ELT teachers can pretend. JALT maintains an officially objective stance, but this in effect offers little professional assistance to member professionals. National reform spasmodically advances, but most often as repetitive labor-relations conflicts replayed locally. And in every such case power has as one goal the severe localization of the conflict so that "outsiders" do not take a view. The context needs to be much better understood and addressed.
Solutions
If reform is needed, taking a positive, proactive approach may prove constructive. The shared interest ELT teachers have with administrators is to produce decent results and to then demonstrate them. Action plans will vary. For example, if a school does not have a true program but conducts itself assuming each teacher is an intellectual monad, a program reform may align itself with administrative trend. The key will be to understand how the workplace needs to adjust. To develop mutual interests, confirm that the understanding of interests is indeed mutual. I do not know what the answer is regarding my hypothetical French department in Kansas. But if those hypothetical French instructors at the Kansas school could not read, write, or converse in Kansan, and were therefore unable to participate even in the minimal level of administrative governance of their own departments, should they be logically entrusted to carry out such reforms or even entitled to think their jobs secure? Ultimately, there may not be satisfactory general solutions that securitize all members of the profession here. Those disadvantaged by the execution of reforms by stressed, self-protective administrators may have little recourse. Appeal to law is of little apparent value. Part-time teachers are completely vulnerable as is anyone with no or poorly drafted contracts.
If the writing is on the wall, one may find it further discomforting to bang one's head against it. Of course, one may emulate Camus, who vowed to tear his sheets even upon his death bed. But Camus perished in a car wreck, sadly missing the chance to vent existential rage upon the linen. How many foreign and Japanese ELT professionals have decided to forgo participation in professional organizations for personal reasons or often no reasons at all? We all have a vested interest in a healthy ELT profession in Japan. With JALT membership shrinking, every member has an obligation to review their commitment to the renewal of the profession.
Reference
Thurow, L. (1998, February 5). The New York review of books [Online]. <http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/>