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Exhuming Ghosts : A Critical Consideration of Linguistic Hegemony and Native-Speakerism in Japanese English Education

Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation explores issues of educational policy and hegemony in Japanese English education from a sociohistorical and critical pedagogic perspective.The findings indicate that the key historical event in this context was the occupation of Japan by US forces in the wake of World War II from 1945 until 1952.Within those seven years, the United States government initiated a massive program of social engineering through which "the Americans were presented as the model human beings, and the Japanese were taught and encouraged to become like them" (Kitahara, p. 23), in order to "'effect changes in certain ideologies and ways of thinking of the individual Japanese' by using 'all possible media and channels'" (Tsuchiya, 2002, p. 194), so that ultimately a situation would be created wherein "Japan clearly acts as the junior partner in the US-Japan relationship…and almost always accommodates the United States on issues of central importance" (Nye, 1993, p. 2).Direction emanated from a document prepared by John D. Rockefeller III created specifically for American interests in Japan titled "United States-Japanese Cultural Relations," which emphasized that an extensive English language teaching program was to be included in the effort to achieve "the most elusive of human acts-changing someone else's mind" (Dizard, 2004, pp.1-3, p. 5, p. 22).Playing a key role in this process, as a consequence English education in Japan supports elite interests in a pro-US capitalistic economic system, wherein (1) standardized English testing determines the content of secondary instruction and, (2) white English instructors from western countries receive and exercise privileged status, which has enabled a west-centric teaching approach known as native-speakerism to take hold.Interviews with university instructors and students considered together with results from surveys issued to university students indicate that these two factors are problematic regarding student motivation as well as the overall English classroom learning environment, and need to be addressed if there are to be improvements in Japan's English education system.
DOI: 10.32286/0002000144
Author: Peter, Joun
Institution: Kansai University
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7143914804
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