Corporate officers who do not become proficient in English in two years’ time will be fired. That was the mandate set forward by Hiroshi Mikitani, president and CEO of Rakuten, which operates the largest Internet shopping site in Japan. We previously covered that move, as well as similar ones by Lawson and Uniqlo.
To recap; the move is part of the web company’s efforts to go global. Rakuten intends to conduct all executive meetings in English and eventually have all internal documents written in the language. All menus in its staff canteen are already available in English for example.
Mikitani passed the edict saying that with English widely used in cyberspace, making the language the company’s official language is expected to improve its employees’ abilities and broaden their perspectives.
However, the decision is genereated strong reactions elsewhere in Japan business world. While some people believe the initiative could change the way Japan does business, others wonder if such a lofty goal is really possible.
The implication is that high-ranking employees would be fired if they failed to fulfill the new requirement.
Japanese business people are wondering not only if it can really be done, but if their company will be the next to implement a similar policy. Some workers are feeling uneasy and apprehensive about the situation, wondering why a company with Japanese employees and Japanese end users would issue such a decree. Others expressed concern that the positive aspects of employees with subpar English ability could be overlooked, and that inter-company communication could suffer.
Some in the business world are also wondering just to what standard of English employees will be held to. Following an English-only speech that Mikitani gave on NHK news, folks in the Japanese press were pointing out Mikitani’s own shortcomings in the language.
There is also growing speculation that Mikitani’s true intent is to clear space in the upper echelons of the company for non-Japanese to take over.
So far however, little sign of that and folks inside Rakuten do not seem to be complaining – other than the occasional flush of embarrassment.
Rakuten says the reason for the new rule is to become a major player in the world online shopping market, and to expand its reach from its current six countries to 27 major countries or more. What do you think? Does a company need English if it is to “go global”?
Comments
Someone at NASSCOM got to him and threatened his life if he did not issue such a decree. This is how the Indian Takeover Mafia operates. They want to siphon out Japan the way they have siphoned out USA and in order to do that they need to jam millions of their job robbers into Japanese jobs. In order to do that they need companies to speak English. THAT’S the real reason for this. Once J companies are converted over to speaking English, NASSCOM companies like Wipro, Tata, IndoSys can flood Japan with millions of cheap foreign workers from India, take over, and siphon everything out. They will move in and start crying to Japanese gov’t that japanese are too stupid, they can’t find enough qualified locals and so have to flood in more JRs, lie lie lie, bribe the J pols, move in take over, exclude anyone who is not Japanese. This is exactly what they are doing in America. They rip off everything they can from companies and then leave, leaving a devastated and destroyed economy with empty buildings and an unemployment rate of 20%+. Trust me, I watched it happen in USA, next they are targetting Japan. This is how India operates. Their ahem “companies” are all conshops producing nothing while stealing everything! Watch out!
Indian language is a group of 29 languages each with a different writing system or script.
India has no national language as such all 29 languages including English and Hindi are authorized as
official languages by the constitution.
Half of India cannot even speak or understand hindi.
Indian is not a language.
I sure hope you don’t teach English in Japan, your grammar could use a little work. At least use paragraphs.
A primary reason why Japan is one of the lowest level English proficiency nations in Asia is because it has failed to establish a legitimate teaching program for its children during the critical age range of 1 – 7. Other reasons include substandard teaching programs in K-12, using inadequate text books such as Eigo Note, contracting with costly agencies such as JET and Interac and receiving under qualified and inadequately trained ALT’s, focusing primarily on written tests rather than a balance of conversation and listening, and keeping educators in positions of authority who do not understand the importance of English to the welfare of Japan’s future.
Though Norway and Sweden are good English models, I feel the best models for Japan are Asian, such as the Philippines and India. The Japanese concern of losing their identity to a foreign language is unfounded based on these models, as Tagalog and Indian are still languages of choice in those respective countries. Moreover, I challenge anyone to find a group of people from the Philippines who prefer to speak English among themselves.
Japan’s government should establish a committee comprised of native English speaking and Japanese English language teachers with the ability to benchmark these countries’ English programs. A language plan should then be drafted. Upon review and approval the government should mandate all school boards of education to implement the new language program within a reasonable amount of time. Until Japanese teachers are leveled up to teach English properly, native English speaking teachers qualified to teach ESL should be directly employed.
Qualifications such as age and bachelor degree are arbitrary. Qualifications should be based on the individual having successful language teaching experience at a legitimate English language school, language teaching certification, professional references, having passed an English grammar test, and being a native speaker from a primary English speaking country to ensure excellent intonation, phonetics, and proper use of common expressions, phrasal verbs and conversational grammar.
I am encouraging a school board to shift its focus from 4th, 5th and 6th grades to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. No different than mathematics, English lessons should be taught daily, not once a week. Lessons should be added for this first group of students throughout their education until all gaps are filled. I would estimate a program such as this would create national fluency approaching India in about 16 years, or a little over one generation later.
Eventually, foreign English teachers would no longer be needed as new generations of Japanese fluent in English take over those roles.
lol Sakura you obviously have no idea of what you are talking about…..sorry to say this but your comments are just plain ignorant. The reason companies tell their employees to learn English is because of two reasons. 1. The company wants to start dealing with overseas clients, and expands to a wider foreign based client (which means the company will grow and profit grow will double and triple) – do you think Japan is the only country in the world lol. and 2. Because there is a lot of foreign people living in Japan, the companies or shops or whatever wants their employees to learn English to be able to deal with English speaking people as there are a lot of people in Japan who cannot speak Japanese well enough to communicate. If you don't want to learn English don't (though I still think you need some practice as I can see your grammar still needs work). No one is twisting your arm telling you to go and learn English. If you work for a company and that's they want you to do then that's what you do. If you don't like it then leave the company and go somewhere else, it's as simple as that. I work for an English based company and I am not in need to learn Japanese but I still do it…why because I want to be able to communicate with other people not just that but also make some new friends and maybe you might not want to do this but I know some Japanese who do want to make friends and meet people from English speaking countries so for this reason they want to learn English. You are just as ignorant as those old Japanese man I see on the streets or trains, they expect to be respected by everyone (be either young, old, man or women or gaijin), but they themselves don't have any respect anyone whatsoever and just do whatever the heck they want.
The thing is…the batchelor is only for Visa purposes, as by law you now have to have a bachelor to be able to get a working visa (or so I hear) but in some cases you don’t (also I have heard) which I am not sure it works. But I myself am an ALT and have a graphic design degree but at the same time I have taugh English and Spanish as a private tutor and have taught Graphic Design programs to University students through a company when i was living in Australia so at least I have some idea and training and experience teaching students. I am not saying all of the foreigners don’t know what they are doing ( I have met some people that are great at teaching and are great with the kids) they just a knack for it I guess (and who have never had any teaching experience also). But like I said before I have also met alot of people who have no idea whatsoever and are there just for the hell of making money and at the same time complain about their company how they are being paid a low wage and this and that (actually I met one this week on monday lol). I say if your job properly, do the job badly and then don’t actually want to help the kids learn English…. Do you really have the cheek to be complaining?!?! The one’s who loose in the end are the kids. I have come to know some students who really want to learn English but because they have not being taught properly (by both the ALT and Japanese English Teacher) are always struggling at school and soon just give up. Having a BS doesn’t make you a teacher which many people don’t realise this and are in the teaching English business for the wrong reasons. I just hope that one day the English Teaching system in Japan will get a kick in the arse and actually make manuals and resources and teach proper, useful english, than the english in those dreadful books they make you teach off. I just wonder sometimes…. American English is only spoken in America, so why in the world is it being taught at schools!?!? British English is more widely used around the world (and it’s funny when Japanese English teachers get angry at you because you don’t use American English)….ummm buddy I am from Australia I don’t speak American lol.
The problem is that incapable Japanese teachers of English get to the kids at school first. They then wheel in an inexperienced foreigner backpacking there for a year to give themselves a thrill.
To be able to become a Japanese English teacher really should be less academically challenging, but should include more development of teacher skills, and include at least a year on exchange in a college in a native English speaking country. Even when they can speak a little English, so many Japanese have nothing of interest to say, little wordly knowledge, and remain locked in conversations about Japanese food for example.
Then, native speakers recruited in Japan should have some kind of English teaching qualification. A degree is currently necessary for the visa, but the best teachers I met, didn't. A degree in Knitting should not be enough to allow you to be a teacher of English.
In a nutshell, the current system has overly teaching-qualified, non-English proficient, Japanese teachers, being supplemented by native-English speaking, non-teaching qualified foreign teachers.
This also means that professional English teachers, with perhaps other skills like fluent Japanese, can't get ahead with higher salaries and promotions.
Newly qualified CELTA teachers should be welcomed, with or without a degree, and put on a career ladder. Degree qualified, experienced, certified teachers would then rise to the top and get the best jobs. This is what happens elsewhere, and in other industries.
Fixing the problem isn't rocket science, but the general attitude in Japan that foreigners and foreign languages are some kind of alien magic done with smoke and mirrors is not helping Japan in a globalised world economy. I totally disagree with the comment by another writer here that Japan should withdraw into its own language and not need English. That is what is happening and it is killing Japan's future and economy. Good for the Koreans in cracking another language. Speaking a foreign language is normal, it isn't weird or freaky. Japan needs to give itself a shake and wise up on this point.
The guys at Rakuten are trying to do something about this. Good for them too. I wouldn't be surprised if they were even paying for their staff to get these skills for free either. Hope their staff appreciate it when they are holidaying abroad and benefitting from these skills, or being headhunted for bigger salaries.
I just relocated to the Philippines because it is a much nicer, more open and more internationalised place to live than Japan, in my humble opinion which is formed from 15 years living in Japan. I haven't 'conquered' the Philippines and being here is all dependent on me getting permission to stay by the Philippine Bureau of Immigration. I don't think they would appreciate your comments, which I feel come from a perspective of seeing the Philippines as a beaten dog. Far from it. Their new president was elected on an Obama-style wave of optimism and everyone believes this country has a brighter future. Japan on the other hand is stuck in, what I see, as a new nationalist 'sakoku'. I applaud the drive to get Japan's businessmen and citizens in general to stop playing with English and to learn it properly. They should ask countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden how to do it and not continue with the current blind-leading-the-blind system in schools. In these countries, not being able to speak English is like not being able to add up numbers. Japan seriously needs a reality check and realise that speaking a foreign language is perfectly normal and not 'sugoi'. If they don't want to become the smallest region of the Chinese empire, they had better internationalise, and they had better get more immigration, and immigrant, friendly.
Before I get bashed, I'm just a tourist there and you will notice the influx of too many gaijin like myself. Seems like a lot of gaijin love to conquer Philippines. Poor country has been conquered over and over again.
I couldn't agree more. Most native speakers do not even know their grammar and proper words. It's not like Japanese must learn slang to do their international businesses.
That's because a lot of South Koreans are going to the Philippines to learn proper English and grammar. It's raining Koreans there for quite some time now.
I think Japanese people should stop learning English altogether. It's ruining the language. A lot of the reason english is necessary in japan is because they propagate that need themselves. Companies mandating that their japanese employees speak english, even among themselves, simply increases this “need”. I dont see any reason why, as a society, they couldn't get rid of english if they wanted to. You only even need it in the business world.
Haha. Funny.
I was browsing a head hunter website last month or so and I caught a misspelled word on their homepage. Being a nice person that I am, I emailed them about it. I have never seen so many 'thank you' written on one email before.
If what you are saying is true, than probably half of the foreigners here should back their backs and go home? I have seen most job description requires the applicants to have a BS to become an ALT. Whether the applicants have experience in teaching is a different story; however, having disciplined in school and acquiring a degree is a start in the direction.
Not every Joe Blogs can obtain a BS degree. It requires long term commitment and dedication from the individual.
Well done Mono_locco, what you say is so true. But, there are more than enough qualified people who are completely clueless when it comes to teaching. Luckily, lots of EXPERIENCED (that means they have taught before and are probably fairly proficient) people are here who can teach (if the students have any ability that is) so people like your good self can learn to leave words like 'suck' out of an article when you're trying to make a serious point. Well done for trying though (you have just been patronised – use a dictionary)
South Korea is already ahead in terms of the English proficiency of its students compared to Japan and seems to be as competitive already with the Japanese with regards to doing business overseas (exports). Ironically, Japan had English language learning implemented in their educational system longer than the Koreans did.
I wonder if the “flush of embarrassment”, is just the Japanese way of acting in public to avoid confrontation. It sounds reasonable to be mad about this decision. I would like to know what level of English would be required by the company. For now, as far as I know, it could be a cultural and motivational speech which could possibly not be taken as far as to sack employees for not being able to speak English in 2 years.
It's funny, that behind the scenes the Japs are unhappy about this move (not welcomed), but as far as expressing it in public to do something about it, they are chicken shits (“do not seem to be complaining – other than the occasional flush of embarrassment.”).
lol@the japanese social culture
I'm not sure if this a good move or a bad one….The English system in Japan = FAIL, so even if they get taught English at their work places it will suck. So unless they get proper qualified people to start teaching English and not some Joe Blogs (who has a Bachelor of Science) and is from a native from an English speaking country (which most companies do) then it will always fail. A lot of people think just because they are a native and can speak English they can suddenly teach lol. I've met a lot of people who are teachers and have no idea what they are doing. I feel sorry for the students who have to learn from these teachers 🙁
It's amazing the amount of people that come to GaijinPot blogs just to whine. “Waste of Time” or “Bad English”.
Please, say something constructive or sod off. Darn bitching.
bought = bout
seam = seem
this = poorly edited article