It is said that, especially, Japanese are not good at English. One of the reasons is that we seldom talk to foreign people in the community. It was precious to speak with native English speakers in Japan. Therefore, many English schools have been established.
These English schools were a little expensive. However, in recent years online schools with low cost launched. These schools have some characteristics. The training fee is quite low. Most of them set the headquarters at Sebu island, Philippine. The teachers are all Filipinos. And the training lectures are performed with Skype and internet connection. These schemes help them to reduce running cost.
So called "Skype English" is widespreading. A lot of schools are available now. I tried a couple of them. The teachers are quite pleasant. Their pronunciation is clear, compared to native speakers. Some students are afraid of their foreign accents. But I am not concerned about it.
Now I am trying to practice about some English examinations with Skype English.
That's sounds good. I think Japanese students spend too much time for writing, not speaking nor listening. We must do something to increase the learning time of speaking and listening. This is one good solution for this.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Japanese is not so much bad for English, I think. In some Northern Europe countries (Netherland, German, Sweden, Norway) people are very good at English, however, it's because their language are quite similar to English. In southern European countries, people are very bad at English though they have a lot of chance to speak with English native speaker. I think we need not underestimate Japanese English so much.
Peet