English adopted for more junior high entrance exams in Japan

February 2, 2018

Tokyo- More and more private junior high schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Kansai western Japan region are introducing English in their general entrance examinations.

Parents are showing great interest in the subject, reflecting progress in globalization and an expected change in the question format for university entrance examinations' English test.

With the start of the entrance exam season, private junior high schools hope to highlight their efforts to beef up English studies through such moves, while aiming to fence in children who are competent in the English language.

According to data compiled by an operator of junior high school mock entrance exams, 101 private junior high schools in Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa have included or will include English in their entrance exams for the 2018 academic year, which starts in April.

Meanwhile, the total number of schools in the western Japan prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Nara and Wakayama that have adopted or will adopt English for their exams stood at 28, up sharply from six schools four years ago, according to Hamagakuen, a major cram school.

In both regions, middle-ranking schools started introducing English in their entrance exams, in hopes of boosting applicant numbers, and such moves then spread to top-ranking schools.

Ichikawa Junior High School in Chiba Prefecture was the first competitive school to introduce English in its 2017 entrance exam. Keio Shonan Fujisawa Junior High School, a highly sought-after school in Kanagawa Prefecture, plans to include English in its 2019 exam.

In the Tokyo metropolitan area, the mandatory subjects in the junior high school entrance exams are Japanese and mathematics. Although many schools allow students to choose between taking either English or social studies and science, some schools offer only English among these in exams.

English will be an official subject for elementary fifth- and sixth-graders as part of the full-scale launch of new elementary school curriculum guidelines scheduled for the 2020 academic year.

The English test in Japan's new unified examination system for university entrance, which will start in the same year, will not only test the examinees' reading and listening skills but also their speaking and writing ability.

In recent years, many households have chosen to have children in elementary school or younger learn English.

"We provided examinees with an English exam choice for advanced elementary school children because we anticipated increases in the households that are interested in English education and in children who have studied English from a young age," an official at Ichikawa Junior High School explained.

The official said that the school also expects introducing the English exam will boost the number of examinees, with good results in university entrance exams by students who are ahead in English and such students acting as a stimulus for other students.

Toru Yamanaka, an official at Eikoh Inc., a major cram school based in Tokyo, said that schools differ on where they stand, from those that tentatively introduce English as an exam subject to those that seriously want children with good English skills as their students.

"In the future, however, there will be a rise in the number of schools that conduct English exams to attract a wider range of examinees," Yamanaka added. Jiji Press