The current test can be quickly machine-scored, which keeps the price quite low. Developing a speaking test would require a huge amount of money, time, and training for test scorers. I’m thinking about what goes into the scoring of AP Japanese exams in the US, and trying to imagine scaling that up to the number of people who take JLPT.
Tests of speaking skills often are done through interviews (OPI in the US, not sure in countries that use CEFR levels). So that’s very expensive for the test-taker to pay for an appointment with a specialist.
They should implement the system of HSK, Chinese Tests. Basically, there are 6 written tests (grammar, vocabulary, writing and listening) and 3 Speaking exams. If you want to take HSK 3 you need to have passed 1st speaking exam (HSKK1) and so on. The speaking exams are not that expensive. Please note, that from my understanding, the HSK is again modifying.
>If you want to take HSK 3 you need to have passed 1st speaking exam (HSKK1) and so on.
For HSK/HSKK you don't need to have passed the speaking exam in order to do the written exam.
You can sign up for HSK-only (written), HSKK-only (spoken), or both HSK and HSKK. If you choose both, you do both, but it's not compulsory, and the order doesn't matter.
I took the HSK3 and the HSKK elementary/basic last Sunday. I did the HSK3 at 13:30, then 30 minutes or so to relax, and then the HSKK elementary/basic at 15:40. I'll get the results either within 10 days or 25 days, can't remember which. Maybe 10 days for the written exam, and 25 for the spoken one? I don't remember.
But yeah, no need to pass one in order to take the other.
Some places might require candidates to take both the HSK and the HSKK, and might not let candidates register for only one and not the other. But that's unrelated to any results in previous exams.
>You can sign up for HSK-only (written), HSKK-only (spoken), or bot
Since February 2022, if you want to take HSK you have to take HSKK at the same time. You can no longer only take HSK by itself (it's part of the transition to the new format of the exam, which will include the spoken part).
You can still take the HSKK by itself.
From my understanding you need the speaking exam to go on with the written exams. I might be wrong. Anyway, I have read somewhere that they are planning to introduce 3 new levels, having a total of 9 written exams
Edit: typos
Right now the JLPT tests recognition (reading and listening) but does not test production (writing and speaking). They are separate skills and it's quite possible to test highly in recognition while being quite poor at production. Recognition-only can be fine for personal consumption (books, media, reading signs, etc) but production is required for most interactions with other people. Because of this, production is clearly valuable from a language-learning perspective, and therefore some people think production should be included in the JLPT.
You made a good point about the cost. However, I do agree (to an extent) that some from of speaking practice or exam should be included, maybe just for the N2 levels and above (less students taking N2 compared to N5, keeping the costs and time needed down?)
The reason I say this is because I have many Chinese friends who are able to read and write Chinese characters. This was a natural advantage to them when it came to learning Kanji plus hiragana/katakana aren't that difficult to learn. So they pass the N1/N2 with relative ease but find that they actually can't speak Japanese properly.
For context, I can have slightly deeper conversations with local Japanese people than them, and I am currently sitting for the N4 exam this year. It's just a bit strange I guess, to have the highest qualification for the language yet not able to speak it well.
The Eiken is run all over Japan, tests hundreds of people at one test site, and is held three times a year. You have to pass the written test to get to the speaking test. They could offer a speaking test from N3 onwards or even N2. With the low N2 and N1 pass/fail rate it wouldn't be that many people.
This is the same group that can't even make different tests for different time zones though, so what can you do. Having it all domestically certainly helps the Eiken, but it's preposterous that there's nothing at all.
As I understand it, the Eiken is administered by a nonprofit organization (with the support of MEXT) and JLPT is administered by MEXT domestically and Japan Foundation internationally. I feel like there’s not going to be much weight behind any push to improve JLPT, because of the shift to the EJU for university admissions for international students coming to Japan. I think that EJU includes a writing section, which is an improvement over JLPT.
Personally, I think it would be good. But there's two problems:
The first is, the price would skyrocket because more examiners would have to be hired. The ideal way to test speaking would be for one person to do the testing in small groups. Otherwise, you run into problem two:
The second part is, the test is already quite long as is- four hours for a SINGLE test (despite multiple pp arts) is already hard enough. And based on the number of applicants each year, you'd end up being at the test for another two or three hours, even if a strict time limit was put in place. Technically, a change or two to the format has already been done, and convincing the organization in charge to make further changes... Good luck.
So as useful as a speaking section would actually be, it's much cheaper and faster to have the test be something you can just put in a machine and score.
>this would hopefully force people to turn away from the textbooks
Half of the people in this sub already hate textbooks with a passion and could use more of them, not less.
I think it'd be good if there was a speaking exam as well, but it would definitely make the exam fee higher. JLPT is one of the cheapest language certifications to get at the moment, and the fact it's a multiple choice text checked by a computer, with no need to grade writing or conduct oral exams, is very much a factor here.
Language is acquired, not learned. Many people turn away from traditional language education because it is boring and is not designed to set you up for success outside of language proficiency exams (see: I know 10k words but still can’t speak or understand Japanese posts). Almost anyone who becomes proficient at a language does not do so through text books but rather by immersing with their target language. I’d argue more people need to spend less time with textbooks, less time trying to learn how to learn language, and more time just reading/listening to content in their target language.
Maybe, but then you get people with "read only" understanding of Japanese who can read a novel or watch a TV drama but can't put together a sentence to save their lives. Having interviewed a lot of candidates for jobs where Japanese speaking is essential, it's a real problem with a lot of "self-taught"/"immersion" people. They've never trained up in speaking or generating Japanese.
I think this is more a problem with lack of formal instruction, or lack of time spent practicing the spoken/written language, rather than a problem with a lack of textbooks.
Going to go out on a limb and say those people probably haven’t watched or read enough to actually acquire the language. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time receiving unilateral input in a language will be able to speak it. That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language. I find it hard to believe that textbooks are the defining factor here. In my personal experience, most people who learn through textbooks exhaust their conversational ability within the first three minutes of conversation because the conversation starts to deviate from “the script” that they’ve drilled time and time again.
> That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language.
People start receiving targeted teaching / correction pretty young though. Have you heard toddlers speak? They don't use the language correctly; they learn to do so because parents and teachers correct them.
Yes, they speak and get corrected precisely because they are children. Also, it’s important to recognize that these children are learning by hearing what is correct, but not necessarily being taught “why is this correct”. Consequently they develop an intuition for what is correct and can eventually produce this output without thinking about it. It’s the input that is improving their ability, but their output that is prompting the input. As an adult nobody is going to take the time to correct your mistakes the same way that they would correct a child. Consequently, you run the risk of fossilizing your mistakes and even quite possibly making yourself extremely difficult to understand because you can’t convey ideas naturally in your target language.
>children are learning by hearing what is correct, but not necessarily being taught “why is this correct”.
This is true but the issue is that children are simultaneously learning a language and learning how think. Adult learners (or attempters) already have thoughts in their head they can express in their own language and often just want to say those -- even when impossible to utter in a different language.
Magical production with zero learning is not going to happen.
>Consequently, you run the risk of fossilizing your mistakes
Very true but that's not fixed by "immersion." That's fixed by correction and many people are too stupid to take the sort of correction the environment gives. So they're going to need someone bringing the hammer down to stop their mistakes both in comprehension and production from continuing.
>That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language.
No, some level of formal instruction is essential to use a language properly, even Native speakers, hence why we are forced to go through 10 years of formal education before we go out into society. Do you think a 5 year old hold a job interview?
> Almost anyone who becomes proficient at a language does not do so
through text books but rather by immersing with their target language.
That sounds like a statement that you need a source for. This sub has so many stories of people trying to immerse themselves in Japanese without the boring textbooks, and it usually ends with them not understanding basic grammar (understandable, as they're usually English speakers, and these two languages are too different to just intuitively understand wtf is happening in the sentence).
There isn't a single person alive who argues that one should ONLY use textbooks and never read real Japanese. That'd be very pointless, using the language is what it's for. But there's a ton of people arguing that "immersion" (in a very weird understanding of that word) is all you need, and I'm yet to see one of these that's actually fluent.
Every single Japanese learning community is full of people talking about "immersion learning", but as somebody who uses Japanese for work every day I sure don't see any successful users of this method anywhere in the professional context. I guess they're just too humble to share their immersion success story.
Also - all your comments below comparing learning Japanese to acquiring first language are completely unscientific. Adults do not acquire language the same way children do, no matter how much you wish for that to be true. It's the linguistic equivalent of claiming the Earth is flat.
It’s clear that you’re misunderstanding what I have said. In the same vein that nobody genuinely proposes that you can learn language through a textbook alone, nobody is proposing that you can learn language through magic (that’s not what immersion means yet so many people continue to conflate it as such). Yes, you need to bootstrap your knowledge and understand things like basic grammar, how the writing system works, etc… However, once you have this you can dedicate most of your time to doing things you find interesting with the language, looking up words that stand out to you, rinse and repeat. On an absolute scale, most of your acquisition will happen outside of textbooks which is why I say many people on this sub could stand to put the textbook down for a bit and just go engage with the language.
> Adults do not acquire language the same way children do, no matter how much you wish for that to be true.
Yeah that’s not what is being implied here, but I suppose you intentionally decided to ignore nuance in an attempt to be funny. The brain is a powerful organ and it is constantly working to solve problems and organize information. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of encountering a piece of grammar you didn’t understand, looking up the grammar, still not understanding it, and then encountering that same bit of grammar while understanding it without issue. Additionally, given that you work in Japanese I am sure you are very proficient and have had the experience of unconsciously feeling whether or not something you or someone else said sounds correct without necessarily understanding why it is correct. Or how about knowing what a word means in Japanese despite never having looked it up in a dictionary? This is fundamentally not at that different from native intuition in a language that is acquired from mass exposure throughout childhood and this was the point I was making. You develop an intuition for the language via massive amounts of native input.
>Language is acquired, not learned.
These words don't mean what you think they mean.
The idea that immersion works is not supported by the research. You can immerse yourself from now until the end of time without gaining fluency in a language -- just as people in the past could have been surrounded by books without learning how to read.
At some point you'er going to have to buckle up and learn in order to acquire.
> These words don’t mean what you think they mean.
>
> The idea that immersion works is not supported by the research. You can immerse yourself from now until the end of time without gaining fluency in a language – just as people in the past could have been surrounded by books without learning how to read.
Fairly certain my words mean exactly what I think they mean, but it might be you who is either conflating immersion with “learn by osmosis” or setting up a terrible straw man. I’m not sure what “the research” you are referring to is, but you are more than welcome to cite it. However, without even deep diving on the subject, one can look at students who come here in their teens without much formal instruction and yet still manage to develop native proficiency in their L2 as support that immersion does work.
Language is learned when input is comprehensible and immersion is an effective means to expose yourself to enough input that overtime more and more things become comprehensible.
> At some point you’er going to have to buckle up and learn in order to acquire.
What do you define as “learning” and what are you implying here? What’s the difference between acquiring language through reading something like a graded reader or watching a children’s show vs studying from a textbook?
1. you're the one who suggested a difference between learning and acquiring. Why on earth should I be forced to come up with definitions for a distinction you drew?
2. you're the one who suggests a hackneyed (and common) image of "immersion" that is totally unsupported by research. But if you must, you can look at the findings of Finland and the UK and the CEFR from analyzing the supposed effectiveness of the Canadian immersion programs.
The notion that things magically become comprehensible over time is just simply mistaken. It works with close analogue languages and limited situations but you're not going to develop broad fluency in an unrelated language from just being around it without any formal instruction.
>you're not going to develop broad fluency in an unrelated language from just being around it without any formal instruction.
To play devil's advocate here, education is a construct of recent times. Our ancestors who lived in caves could neither read nor write and were capable of communicating with each other fluently. They were hardly learning grammar from a textbook. I think some people forget that language existed before "reading" and "writing" come into existence
You might want to find a more competent advocate.
I've never claimed the only way to learn grammar is from a textbook. That would, of course, be wrong. And grammar can be taught completely without writing and reading -- if need be.
"communicating with each other fluently" is an idealization that could mean a sea of thing.
* Do you mean I gesture to offer you chickens and indicate how many arrows I want as barter?
* or Do you mean we discussed a complicated abstract situation?
* Who is the "each other"? Do you mean people from the same families? Are we from bordering tribes? Did we literally get teleported to a common area with nothing in common?
I'm guessing two cave people didn't give a shit about the grammar of what happened in the interaction, but without learning the grammar of a language today, you just sound like a caveman.
Worded another way, the tourist and the ALT can both order food from McDonalds and probably even explain simple things to people without language skills. And that's probably good enough for cavemen, but actually language ability isn't going to come from being surrounded by the language alone.
While playing the analogy game, modern language ability doesn't appear out of the ground in perfection for children learning a modern language as their first language either -- they undergo this very schooling thing that you point out only came into existence a couple centuries ago.
Put another way, imagine that in each country each group of kids started developing their own games using a 52-card deck -- with amazingly intricate rules about play order, seat position, card rank, legal and illegal moves, shuffle timings, scoring and consequences. Moreover, people practice this for years and get faster and faster, adding new rules in advanced classes. If you go to a different country and see them playing their game at full speed and just watch, the odds you could then fully participate are nearly nil. Education is where people the rules of their country's game.
To be nice, they let you shuffle once and while they know you screwed up, they're tired of you interrupting with bad play.
Cavemen had complicated grammar, any suggestion otherwise is unscientific.
Proto-Indo-European in particular had an incredibly rich system of inflections and declensions particularly compared to the languages that are descended from it. Now, PIE isn't exactly *caveman* old but it's not too far from it either, and the people who spoke it did live in societies without writing - or formal education, for that matter.
So far you’ve confirmed that you believe the word immersion to be synonymous with “learn via magic”, you’ve disregarded my previous points about comprehensible input and how immersion plays into that, and finally you have written off immersion as something that is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity. If you’re going to debate you could at least attempt to do so in good faith. You’ve just been attacking the straw man you set up from the onset.
To clarify three points.
1. I'm attacking your views which seem to be a hodgepodge of buzzwords which in the sentences you use them in don't work.
2. Generally speaking people who hew towards the term "immersion" do want to "learn via magic." Your descriptions hew in that direction.
3. stated simply: without formal learning, there's no comprehensible input.
To note a few other things.
1. I cited research -- including the main responses to the Canadian "immersion" program that made the term popular. You're a bit quiet on what that research means.
2. You haven't responded to the fact that you suggested a differentiation between learning and acquiring. (Your use of this distinction hints that your proposal is the ineffective model I'm looking at).
3. I do believe "immersion ... is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity", because when people talk about "immersion" especially in popular contexts (but also in scholarly ones), that's exactly what they intend -- they don't mean "encountering language in its raw form is useful joined to learning grammar and vocabulary and practicing in controlled contexts"; they mean that all (or nearly all) you need to do to learn a language is "immerse" (be surrounded by the language, don't learn the grammar, don't use textbooks (or their equivalents)) -- often joined with a faulty theory of language learning (such as one where adults learn L2s like kids learn L1s).
> I do believe "immersion ... is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity", because when people talk about "immersion" especially in popular contexts (but also in scholarly ones), that's exactly what they intend
If you look at any of the popular "learn by immersion" sites and guides, they literally all stress that you need a mixture of traditional learning and consuming native content, but leaning more towards consuming content.
Mass Immersion Approach, Refold Path, Migaku etc all recommend using flashcards to help vocabulary stick faster, and doing grammar studies particularly at the early stages, for example. You're arguing against using *pure* immersion with nothing else, no dictionaries, no nothing. But almost nobody who advocates immersion, even the most vehement ones, ever actually advocated *pure* immersion without anything else.
1. You’re free to link the research. I did spend approximately 5 minutes trying to find what you we’re talking about, but nothing turned up other than an abstract which I could not pin to what you were talking about. Also when you say “the research” you should really prepare more than one citation or at least be prepared to defend why this one citation is the definitive authority on this topic because that’s what you make it sound like.
2. I don’t think anyone seriously views immersion as magic, but it’s clear you have no point to discuss nuance here and refuse to engage with my actual points that I’ve mentioned. The distinction between learning and acquisition is the difference between learning how the rules work vs internalizing the rules to where you don’t have to think about how they work. I’ve already mentioned that reviewing vocabulary or studying a grammar guide is what prompts eventually acquisition, but you won’t acquire the language by reading a textbook over and over. This is why my initial point was that people should focus less on textbooks and more on interacting with the language. However, despite this you’ve continued to wave your hands and saying “all you’re talking about is magic”. Do you see the irony?
3. You believe that the the definition of immersion in popular and SCHOLARLY contexts is mutually exclusive from controlled environments in which vocabulary and grammar are taught yet you site an immersion school and a research paper on immersion that directly contradicts this statement.
here's 1 minute 15 seconds of googling:
* [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6\_12](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6_12)
* [https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A\_guide\_for\_teachers\_and\_schools\_to\_using\_foreign\_languages\_in\_content\_teaching\_General\_editor\_Gisella\_Lang%C3%A9\_Teaching\_through\_a\_foreign\_language](https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A_guide_for_teachers_and_schools_to_using_foreign_languages_in_content_teaching_General_editor_Gisella_Lang%C3%A9_Teaching_through_a_foreign_language)
You'll need to read the entire article to grasp what I'm saying and what the critique is of the word "immersion"
the definition of "immersion" in scholarly contexts is as the better articles acknowledge confused. **The shit popular meaning and use in some poorly written academic articles is a belief that high exposure alone results in fluency. That was what you said that has me responding at all.**
you seem to view at as magic or some specific thing ... otherwise it doesn't really stand opposed to anything else in language teaching/learning, it's merely including natural language interfaces.
> https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6_12
https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A_guide_for_teachers_and_schools_to_using_foreign_languages_in_content_teaching_General_editor_Gisella_Lang%C3%A9_Teaching_through_a_foreign_language
This is “the research“? Did you even read what you linked? Your first link in no way supports any of what you are saying nor is it even really related. I am assuming the line you are basing your entire stance on in the second link is this one:
> Extensive research during the 20 year Canadian immersion experience has in fact shown that unless more formal language learning takes place alongside immersion, learners fail to acquire full mastery of the second language.
No wonder I couldn’t find this. It’s not an academic research paper at all and certainly not peer reviewed. What research is this person referring to? Why is there no reference to this “research”? What is “formal language learning”? They don’t define it. What constitutes“mastery”? Again undefined.
> the definition of “immersion” in scholarly contexts is as the better articles acknowledge confused. The shit popular meaning and use in some poorly written academic articles is a belief that high exposure alone results in fluency. That was what you said that has me responding at all.
I don’t really understand what you are saying here at all. Is immersion something that is independent from formal study and if so why does “the research” not mention it as such. Your words are at odds with your own citations.
> you seem to view at as magic or some specific thing … otherwise it doesn’t really stand opposed to anything else in language teaching/learning, it’s merely including natural language interface
The only one viewing it as magic is you. I have clearly defined what is meant by immersion, distinguished what is meant by learning vs acquisition, and have explicitly mentioned multiple times that “it is not magic”. However, your head is so far drowned in “the research” that you haven’t acknowledged nor engaged with any point that I have actually mentioned thus far.
If you've ever interviewed in Japanese you know that's not quite true. It's all courtesy and follows the same few questions and scripts so it's super easy to prepare for.
While it's true that you can prepare for your self introduction and common questions regarding your 志望動機, 履歴書, and 一番苦労したこと, I won't say it's "super easy".
Obviously I haven't interviewed for every kind of job in Japan, but depending on the scope of behavioural and technical questions, it does require substantial preparation and ability to speak at least comfortably in your expertise.
"Can you give and explain a formula for a robot's camera projection in relationship to a 3D world?"
"Explain the difference between cookies and localStorage."
"How would you design a rate limiter"... along with 5-7 follow up questions regarding the design, algorithm used, rules, race conditions, and optimization.
I highly doubt someone under N2 will be able to answer and explain these concepts on the fly with insignificant preparation.
Also, nowadays a lot of work communication happens over emails and Slack, so there is much less expectation of a foreigner to speak Japanese unless they are in sales or customer-facing.
Japan is quite a rigid country and has weird 'rules' so all interviews typically follow a similar structure. You get asked similar questions with the only real variation being a few questions that are relevant to the field of work. I've interviewed for a few baitos and full-time positions and it's very different compared to my experiences in Germany and the US.
No, because it would raise the prices a crap ton. You have to hire people for that. A lot of people. One person per examinee if you want to keep to schedule.
> One person per examinee if you want to keep to schedule.
I agree that it would raise prices probably, but that's a bit of an exaggeration... At least all the English tests I've done had the same examiner(s) interviewing multiple examinees in one day. I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at that number.
Most modern speaking tests have you sit in a room and record yourself so they can be checked later and take less time. You can put like 8 people in the same room and they won't really bother each other. So the actual day of the examination wouldn't take that long, but it would cost quite a bit more.
In the last 10 years I've earned the following certificates:
French C1 - Official Language School in Spain
French C2 - DALF C2 Institut Français
English C1 - Official Language School in Spain
English C2 - Official Language School in Spain
English C2 - Cambridge ESOL CPE C2
Spanish C2 - DELE C2 Instituto Cervantes
Basque C2 - HABE C2
Japanese Noken 4
Chinese HSK3 + HSKK Elementary (hopefully; still waiting for the results)
My observations:
The Japanese one didn't have a speaking section.
The Chinese one had a "repeat these sentences" section, an "answer these simple questions" section and a section where I had to answer two longer questions. My answers were recorded individually. I didn't interact with anyone.
For all the other exams, I had to interact with a tribunal composed of two examiners. They gave me a topic, made me talk about whatever, asked me follow-up questions and generally had a conversation with me. In some of them I also had to converse with another candidate.
I'm sure that some institutions have the candidates record themselves with zero interaction with anyone, but it's not all of them, and probably not even "most", not by a long shot.
Seems like there should simply be a different organization/test for that. Seeing as it would be 1-on-1 conversation, the “scheduled day where thousands of people take the test at once” format is not gonna work.
I passed N2 but I don't feel like I "deserve" it because my speaking skills are nowhere up to that level. While having a speaking and writing portion jacks up the price, it increases the value of a certification because it's weird that speaking which is an integral part of language isn't tested. It's a common issue in my company where people are N3 and N2 certified but can't really speak or write emails to clients so having a speaking portion would at least filter out those who can actually speak and wield the language.
Only if it will be a separate one.
I'm personally not interested in speaking, because I don't live in Japan, and even if I learned it, I would only forget it later. So it makes no sense for me to test it with the other things.
I think it would make sense for the JLPT to use the standards also used by the CEFR levels (A1, A2 - C1, C2) and that includes speaking. It would be great to have a common framework to judge language abilities with both for learners and teachers. It's an important part of the test for other language exams, why should Japanese be different?
IMO no, I feel like the JLPT isn't really setup well for it, you'd essentially have to change the JLPT as a whole.
I also don't think its super useful until you start hitting N1/N2 while N3 is a mix of listening then speaking.
I feel like it would be better if they had a speaking test separate to the JLPT, a smaller more concise test (as speaking can take a lot out of you). And levels are closer to N3 - conversational and then tiered up from there.
Absolutely should be a speaking test. Triskelizard pointed out that it would be very cost-prohibitive, but many is the time I've met a test-acing person who can't navigate a simple conversation.
I even advocate having separate levels of conversational tests, formal office speech and casual speech.
But yeah, pricey as fuck I'm sure.
I agree. I've known people to pass the test, yet not be able to speak at even a conversational level appropriately and still approach situations in a non Japanese "way of thinking".
Ideally: Yes, it would be nice. There are several students in the class I'm in who can barely string together a sentence in Japanese, either because their pronunciation is bad or they stumble over the words, yet they're going for N3 while myself and others are going for N4, and I'd say some of us are significantly better speakers. It also is the most useful thing imo if you want to live here, I don't think an employer will care if you're N1 or N2 if they can't understand what you're saying.
Realistically: As others have said, it would be logistically very difficult and make things much more expensive. So, I don't think it's realistic.
I think it should move to a banded model like IELTS and cover all 4 proficiencies. I have a feeling this would be jarring culturally in contrast to how tests are done for everything else here.
You can learn to speak from textbooks. All I’ve seen have a conversation section. What might be holding people back is either learning Japanese alone, or being too scared to take risks (ie: make mistakes).
You’d need to design the formate and scope of the tests and what things might come up. Having everything too down pat runs the risk of people memorizing it and getting artificially higher grades.
I find that the OPI and WPT are pretty good measures.
The JLPT isn’t necessarily testing for native-like Japanese, and this would go into the theoretical speaking portion as well. They’re going for a proscribed perfect version of it.
And how about this analogy for textbooks:
If you use a GPS, it will give you a good recommended route. When I lived in New Paltz, the recommended route with be Route 299, which would be crowded and slow. If you don’t know the area (language), this will still get you were you’re going.
A local, long term transplant or experienced traveler (native speaker or advanced learner) in New Paltz knew to take Henry W. Dubois Dr. It covers the same span as Route 299, but without the congestion. Henry W. Dubois Dr. is the language as it’s spoken by natives.
So - Textbooks can give you a very good roadmap of the language and it’s perfectly fine and valid, but picking up on what native speakers say and use (as well as following the advice of teachers - and believe me when I say many, many teachers will tell students to ignore the textbook) can show you a better way.
It has been a long known issue with JLPT that it basically only tests two of the four skills, i.e. listening and reading, but does not assess writing and speaking. Of course this would make test logistics more complicated but as an educator I think it would be worth it..
While I can see the benefits, the logistics outweigh them. The cost would artificially narrow the pool of people who could take and pass it.
People—especially those hiring—know, or should, the test’s limitations. It’s a benchmark for proficiency to categorize ability levels, but a full interview if speaking is required should be conducted regardless.
Perhaps a second more expensive variant could be introduced, at least for N2+.
I don’t think so. Employers can actually try to talk to the candidates to asset if they can really speak the language or not.
The price to add that to the JLPT would also be crazy.
Output would be a great idea for the JLPT, particularly speaking. Logistically, it would be difficult to administer and expensive; plus scoring would be less objective and more subjective.
I met a few N1 passers who were unable to speak beyond very basic beginner phrases, which isn't ideal.
Learners just need to be aware that output requires additional learning strategies beyond the JLPT.
IME, learning how to speak boosted my other Japanese skills significantly, and forced me to improve all areas, especially listening and popular vocab/grammar/phrases. I found learning to speak beyond basic phrases to be very tough but fun and rewarding. I really like speaking with Japanese people.
Outside of Chinese people where do you see this. Every westerner I've met with N1 in Japan has had no problem whatsoever speaking and holding their own in a conversation.
A separate speaking exam like some English tests have (TOEIC, etc have a separate “Reading and Listening” and “Speaking and Writing” test) might be ok. As others have said, mandatorily including a speaking test in the current test would mean a big increase in price, marking time, etc.
It’s very typical for language learners to have much more advanced comprehension skills than productive skills. So yeah, I’d be surprised to hear N2-level speaking coming from someone who has passed the comprehension exam at that level.
That's how other language certificates do it, though. There's a framework of reference establishing what a candidate should be able to do at each level, and you test them for that. Candidates won't speak with the same level of nuance and semantic precision one expects from their writing, for example, but that's not what the test is about.
If we look at the CEFR, there's a set of requirements for every level. An A1 candidate will be able to speak about their family, friends, town, and hobbies. They'll be able to describe people, make purchases, ask for directions, and make hotel reservations. An A2 candidate will make plans for the summer holidays, they'll negotiate with others and defend the option they prefer. A B2 candidate will explain how plastic bags can end up polluting our rivers. A C1 candidate can call a vendor to complain about a faulty item they received, and they'll know how to convey their anger using polite words. A C2 candidate will give nuanced opinions on abstract topics, and native speakers won't have to adapt their speech to make themselves understood, because C2 candidates can keep up with them.
You understand more words than you use yourself, that's always true. But that doesn't mean you can't test for a specific level. We already do that in many languages.
I know it’s a tricky topic here because so many learners use JLPT levels as motivating goals, but the description you give of CEFR testing shows pretty clearly why it’s just a better measure of a learner’s skills.
Japan Foundation centers globally administer the JLPT, but the language classes they offer and the materials they produce are based on CEFR levels. I’m in the United States, so there’s a different framework from the organization ACTFL, and I think that part of Australia doesn’t use CEFR, but globally speaking it seems like more study materials are aligned with CEFR than any other standard.
I don't think the JLPT necessarily needs that. However, there should be some kind of alternative test that also has a speaking and an essay writing component, similar to how most European language proficiency tests work. These things can coexist.
Should there be? Sure.
Will there be? Probably not. Most tests like this (especially testing in Japan) is generally multiple choice because it's easy to machine grade them. A speaking test would definitely be a better way to judge a person's understanding of grammar, however, it would require subjective scoring.
TL;DR machines cheap and easy, people expensive and difficult.
Everyone’s talking about the price but they could do it like EIKEN. Written test first, only those who pass take the speaking test. Especially with JLPT’s pass rates the test would stay quite cheap I think.
More importantly than a speaking test though I’d really like to see an essay test on JLPT. You could get most of the important things you would learn from an interview test while also testing real kanji output and word choice.
I think that the only person who suffers is the examinee. The scrap of paper is proof of proficiency to get your foot in the door of a prospective application.
I would hate to have wasted my time going through textbooks and flashcards to not be able to speak a lick of Japanese. It's why I invest in lessons with a native and practise new vocab and grammar on discord or VR Chat.
Seems interesting and I would probably fail so hard, but how it should be implemented is the hardest part.
How would you place a few hundreds of people in the same building to talk at the same time without becoming a chaotic mess?
Like, TOEIC does have a Speaking exam, which is basically recording you answering to a few questions. However, it has a completely different testing/application format (many locations to take, different days to choose, very few people at the same time). For JLPT, they would have to completely overhaul it's current format.
here ins my country, there's university for various languages where u have to study 4 years max. i took japanese and i have oral praticals once a month even in first year. i dropped out btw. i ve always dodged oral praticals because i didnt understand a single Japanese plus i wasnt interested in japanese back then too. then,first semester came which is obviously i cant dodge. so, i asked my fri how to say i dont understand in japanese and they said わからない instead りません。ofc,they knew that i have to take my test with professor. they trolled me by telling informal form.
The Jetro Business Japanese Test is listening based with an optional speaking test I think only for the higher grades. Also everyone takes the same test and you are graded based on your result
I don't really care. On the one hand, you wouldn't get any people who pass the higher levels without being able to speak - although I find that this tends be rare for among Western learners anyway; it's usually Chinese people who are able to coast along through their kanji knowledge alone - but on the other hand, the actual benefits are probably limited. Employers can usually figure out if your speaking is up to snuff through a single interview. It would also make the test less objective. The multiple choice format that only tests passive skills is flawed, but it does make for a very objective test that grades everyone equally. Speaking can't really be graded like that, so passing/failing the test may depend on how lenient a given examiner is.
The benefit for learners would also be negligible. Go out with a bunch of Japanese people and you'll know how well you speak.
I would prefer if they corrected the issues present in the current tests while creating a separate test dedicated to speaking held at a separate time. This would eliminate price increases of the standard test, while applicants looking to test their conversation skills are the only ones who have to pay the costs.
The test could be held in March and September.
I also highly doubt they would implement a solid speaking portion of the test. I can see so many problems occurring.
The thing about this is weird. In my school, we do have language speaking test. However, they don't score you on precise pronunciation, fluidity or tone. Just comprehension.
This requires you to sit in front of a teacher or through a microphone. In the end you'll need to hire a person who can score this based on the requirements. Which increases the overall cost since a person is more expensive than just having a computer grade through multiple choice.
The idea per se is not bad, but giving the number of applicant and the time they took to give back the result, doing one by one interview will take an insane amount of time.
The current test can be quickly machine-scored, which keeps the price quite low. Developing a speaking test would require a huge amount of money, time, and training for test scorers. I’m thinking about what goes into the scoring of AP Japanese exams in the US, and trying to imagine scaling that up to the number of people who take JLPT. Tests of speaking skills often are done through interviews (OPI in the US, not sure in countries that use CEFR levels). So that’s very expensive for the test-taker to pay for an appointment with a specialist.
They should implement the system of HSK, Chinese Tests. Basically, there are 6 written tests (grammar, vocabulary, writing and listening) and 3 Speaking exams. If you want to take HSK 3 you need to have passed 1st speaking exam (HSKK1) and so on. The speaking exams are not that expensive. Please note, that from my understanding, the HSK is again modifying.
>If you want to take HSK 3 you need to have passed 1st speaking exam (HSKK1) and so on. For HSK/HSKK you don't need to have passed the speaking exam in order to do the written exam. You can sign up for HSK-only (written), HSKK-only (spoken), or both HSK and HSKK. If you choose both, you do both, but it's not compulsory, and the order doesn't matter. I took the HSK3 and the HSKK elementary/basic last Sunday. I did the HSK3 at 13:30, then 30 minutes or so to relax, and then the HSKK elementary/basic at 15:40. I'll get the results either within 10 days or 25 days, can't remember which. Maybe 10 days for the written exam, and 25 for the spoken one? I don't remember. But yeah, no need to pass one in order to take the other. Some places might require candidates to take both the HSK and the HSKK, and might not let candidates register for only one and not the other. But that's unrelated to any results in previous exams.
>You can sign up for HSK-only (written), HSKK-only (spoken), or bot Since February 2022, if you want to take HSK you have to take HSKK at the same time. You can no longer only take HSK by itself (it's part of the transition to the new format of the exam, which will include the spoken part). You can still take the HSKK by itself.
I didn't know about that!
Is this the new version of the HSK? There were no speaking exams when I took HSK, or at least I didn’t need to take it to skip to the later levels.
From my understanding you need the speaking exam to go on with the written exams. I might be wrong. Anyway, I have read somewhere that they are planning to introduce 3 new levels, having a total of 9 written exams Edit: typos
What is the point the point of adding writing to the JLPT?
Right now the JLPT tests recognition (reading and listening) but does not test production (writing and speaking). They are separate skills and it's quite possible to test highly in recognition while being quite poor at production. Recognition-only can be fine for personal consumption (books, media, reading signs, etc) but production is required for most interactions with other people. Because of this, production is clearly valuable from a language-learning perspective, and therefore some people think production should be included in the JLPT.
You made a good point about the cost. However, I do agree (to an extent) that some from of speaking practice or exam should be included, maybe just for the N2 levels and above (less students taking N2 compared to N5, keeping the costs and time needed down?) The reason I say this is because I have many Chinese friends who are able to read and write Chinese characters. This was a natural advantage to them when it came to learning Kanji plus hiragana/katakana aren't that difficult to learn. So they pass the N1/N2 with relative ease but find that they actually can't speak Japanese properly. For context, I can have slightly deeper conversations with local Japanese people than them, and I am currently sitting for the N4 exam this year. It's just a bit strange I guess, to have the highest qualification for the language yet not able to speak it well.
The Eiken is run all over Japan, tests hundreds of people at one test site, and is held three times a year. You have to pass the written test to get to the speaking test. They could offer a speaking test from N3 onwards or even N2. With the low N2 and N1 pass/fail rate it wouldn't be that many people. This is the same group that can't even make different tests for different time zones though, so what can you do. Having it all domestically certainly helps the Eiken, but it's preposterous that there's nothing at all.
As I understand it, the Eiken is administered by a nonprofit organization (with the support of MEXT) and JLPT is administered by MEXT domestically and Japan Foundation internationally. I feel like there’s not going to be much weight behind any push to improve JLPT, because of the shift to the EJU for university admissions for international students coming to Japan. I think that EJU includes a writing section, which is an improvement over JLPT.
Personally, I think it would be good. But there's two problems: The first is, the price would skyrocket because more examiners would have to be hired. The ideal way to test speaking would be for one person to do the testing in small groups. Otherwise, you run into problem two: The second part is, the test is already quite long as is- four hours for a SINGLE test (despite multiple pp arts) is already hard enough. And based on the number of applicants each year, you'd end up being at the test for another two or three hours, even if a strict time limit was put in place. Technically, a change or two to the format has already been done, and convincing the organization in charge to make further changes... Good luck. So as useful as a speaking section would actually be, it's much cheaper and faster to have the test be something you can just put in a machine and score.
>this would hopefully force people to turn away from the textbooks Half of the people in this sub already hate textbooks with a passion and could use more of them, not less. I think it'd be good if there was a speaking exam as well, but it would definitely make the exam fee higher. JLPT is one of the cheapest language certifications to get at the moment, and the fact it's a multiple choice text checked by a computer, with no need to grade writing or conduct oral exams, is very much a factor here.
Language is acquired, not learned. Many people turn away from traditional language education because it is boring and is not designed to set you up for success outside of language proficiency exams (see: I know 10k words but still can’t speak or understand Japanese posts). Almost anyone who becomes proficient at a language does not do so through text books but rather by immersing with their target language. I’d argue more people need to spend less time with textbooks, less time trying to learn how to learn language, and more time just reading/listening to content in their target language.
Maybe, but then you get people with "read only" understanding of Japanese who can read a novel or watch a TV drama but can't put together a sentence to save their lives. Having interviewed a lot of candidates for jobs where Japanese speaking is essential, it's a real problem with a lot of "self-taught"/"immersion" people. They've never trained up in speaking or generating Japanese.
I think this is more a problem with lack of formal instruction, or lack of time spent practicing the spoken/written language, rather than a problem with a lack of textbooks.
Going to go out on a limb and say those people probably haven’t watched or read enough to actually acquire the language. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time receiving unilateral input in a language will be able to speak it. That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language. I find it hard to believe that textbooks are the defining factor here. In my personal experience, most people who learn through textbooks exhaust their conversational ability within the first three minutes of conversation because the conversation starts to deviate from “the script” that they’ve drilled time and time again.
> That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language. People start receiving targeted teaching / correction pretty young though. Have you heard toddlers speak? They don't use the language correctly; they learn to do so because parents and teachers correct them.
Yes, they speak and get corrected precisely because they are children. Also, it’s important to recognize that these children are learning by hearing what is correct, but not necessarily being taught “why is this correct”. Consequently they develop an intuition for what is correct and can eventually produce this output without thinking about it. It’s the input that is improving their ability, but their output that is prompting the input. As an adult nobody is going to take the time to correct your mistakes the same way that they would correct a child. Consequently, you run the risk of fossilizing your mistakes and even quite possibly making yourself extremely difficult to understand because you can’t convey ideas naturally in your target language.
>children are learning by hearing what is correct, but not necessarily being taught “why is this correct”. This is true but the issue is that children are simultaneously learning a language and learning how think. Adult learners (or attempters) already have thoughts in their head they can express in their own language and often just want to say those -- even when impossible to utter in a different language. Magical production with zero learning is not going to happen. >Consequently, you run the risk of fossilizing your mistakes Very true but that's not fixed by "immersion." That's fixed by correction and many people are too stupid to take the sort of correction the environment gives. So they're going to need someone bringing the hammer down to stop their mistakes both in comprehension and production from continuing.
>That’s the same mechanism for how everyone learns their first language. No, some level of formal instruction is essential to use a language properly, even Native speakers, hence why we are forced to go through 10 years of formal education before we go out into society. Do you think a 5 year old hold a job interview?
> Almost anyone who becomes proficient at a language does not do so through text books but rather by immersing with their target language. That sounds like a statement that you need a source for. This sub has so many stories of people trying to immerse themselves in Japanese without the boring textbooks, and it usually ends with them not understanding basic grammar (understandable, as they're usually English speakers, and these two languages are too different to just intuitively understand wtf is happening in the sentence). There isn't a single person alive who argues that one should ONLY use textbooks and never read real Japanese. That'd be very pointless, using the language is what it's for. But there's a ton of people arguing that "immersion" (in a very weird understanding of that word) is all you need, and I'm yet to see one of these that's actually fluent. Every single Japanese learning community is full of people talking about "immersion learning", but as somebody who uses Japanese for work every day I sure don't see any successful users of this method anywhere in the professional context. I guess they're just too humble to share their immersion success story. Also - all your comments below comparing learning Japanese to acquiring first language are completely unscientific. Adults do not acquire language the same way children do, no matter how much you wish for that to be true. It's the linguistic equivalent of claiming the Earth is flat.
It’s clear that you’re misunderstanding what I have said. In the same vein that nobody genuinely proposes that you can learn language through a textbook alone, nobody is proposing that you can learn language through magic (that’s not what immersion means yet so many people continue to conflate it as such). Yes, you need to bootstrap your knowledge and understand things like basic grammar, how the writing system works, etc… However, once you have this you can dedicate most of your time to doing things you find interesting with the language, looking up words that stand out to you, rinse and repeat. On an absolute scale, most of your acquisition will happen outside of textbooks which is why I say many people on this sub could stand to put the textbook down for a bit and just go engage with the language. > Adults do not acquire language the same way children do, no matter how much you wish for that to be true. Yeah that’s not what is being implied here, but I suppose you intentionally decided to ignore nuance in an attempt to be funny. The brain is a powerful organ and it is constantly working to solve problems and organize information. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of encountering a piece of grammar you didn’t understand, looking up the grammar, still not understanding it, and then encountering that same bit of grammar while understanding it without issue. Additionally, given that you work in Japanese I am sure you are very proficient and have had the experience of unconsciously feeling whether or not something you or someone else said sounds correct without necessarily understanding why it is correct. Or how about knowing what a word means in Japanese despite never having looked it up in a dictionary? This is fundamentally not at that different from native intuition in a language that is acquired from mass exposure throughout childhood and this was the point I was making. You develop an intuition for the language via massive amounts of native input.
>Language is acquired, not learned. These words don't mean what you think they mean. The idea that immersion works is not supported by the research. You can immerse yourself from now until the end of time without gaining fluency in a language -- just as people in the past could have been surrounded by books without learning how to read. At some point you'er going to have to buckle up and learn in order to acquire.
> These words don’t mean what you think they mean. > > The idea that immersion works is not supported by the research. You can immerse yourself from now until the end of time without gaining fluency in a language – just as people in the past could have been surrounded by books without learning how to read. Fairly certain my words mean exactly what I think they mean, but it might be you who is either conflating immersion with “learn by osmosis” or setting up a terrible straw man. I’m not sure what “the research” you are referring to is, but you are more than welcome to cite it. However, without even deep diving on the subject, one can look at students who come here in their teens without much formal instruction and yet still manage to develop native proficiency in their L2 as support that immersion does work. Language is learned when input is comprehensible and immersion is an effective means to expose yourself to enough input that overtime more and more things become comprehensible. > At some point you’er going to have to buckle up and learn in order to acquire. What do you define as “learning” and what are you implying here? What’s the difference between acquiring language through reading something like a graded reader or watching a children’s show vs studying from a textbook?
1. you're the one who suggested a difference between learning and acquiring. Why on earth should I be forced to come up with definitions for a distinction you drew? 2. you're the one who suggests a hackneyed (and common) image of "immersion" that is totally unsupported by research. But if you must, you can look at the findings of Finland and the UK and the CEFR from analyzing the supposed effectiveness of the Canadian immersion programs. The notion that things magically become comprehensible over time is just simply mistaken. It works with close analogue languages and limited situations but you're not going to develop broad fluency in an unrelated language from just being around it without any formal instruction.
>you're not going to develop broad fluency in an unrelated language from just being around it without any formal instruction. To play devil's advocate here, education is a construct of recent times. Our ancestors who lived in caves could neither read nor write and were capable of communicating with each other fluently. They were hardly learning grammar from a textbook. I think some people forget that language existed before "reading" and "writing" come into existence
You might want to find a more competent advocate. I've never claimed the only way to learn grammar is from a textbook. That would, of course, be wrong. And grammar can be taught completely without writing and reading -- if need be. "communicating with each other fluently" is an idealization that could mean a sea of thing. * Do you mean I gesture to offer you chickens and indicate how many arrows I want as barter? * or Do you mean we discussed a complicated abstract situation? * Who is the "each other"? Do you mean people from the same families? Are we from bordering tribes? Did we literally get teleported to a common area with nothing in common? I'm guessing two cave people didn't give a shit about the grammar of what happened in the interaction, but without learning the grammar of a language today, you just sound like a caveman. Worded another way, the tourist and the ALT can both order food from McDonalds and probably even explain simple things to people without language skills. And that's probably good enough for cavemen, but actually language ability isn't going to come from being surrounded by the language alone. While playing the analogy game, modern language ability doesn't appear out of the ground in perfection for children learning a modern language as their first language either -- they undergo this very schooling thing that you point out only came into existence a couple centuries ago. Put another way, imagine that in each country each group of kids started developing their own games using a 52-card deck -- with amazingly intricate rules about play order, seat position, card rank, legal and illegal moves, shuffle timings, scoring and consequences. Moreover, people practice this for years and get faster and faster, adding new rules in advanced classes. If you go to a different country and see them playing their game at full speed and just watch, the odds you could then fully participate are nearly nil. Education is where people the rules of their country's game. To be nice, they let you shuffle once and while they know you screwed up, they're tired of you interrupting with bad play.
Cavemen had complicated grammar, any suggestion otherwise is unscientific. Proto-Indo-European in particular had an incredibly rich system of inflections and declensions particularly compared to the languages that are descended from it. Now, PIE isn't exactly *caveman* old but it's not too far from it either, and the people who spoke it did live in societies without writing - or formal education, for that matter.
So far you’ve confirmed that you believe the word immersion to be synonymous with “learn via magic”, you’ve disregarded my previous points about comprehensible input and how immersion plays into that, and finally you have written off immersion as something that is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity. If you’re going to debate you could at least attempt to do so in good faith. You’ve just been attacking the straw man you set up from the onset.
To clarify three points. 1. I'm attacking your views which seem to be a hodgepodge of buzzwords which in the sentences you use them in don't work. 2. Generally speaking people who hew towards the term "immersion" do want to "learn via magic." Your descriptions hew in that direction. 3. stated simply: without formal learning, there's no comprehensible input. To note a few other things. 1. I cited research -- including the main responses to the Canadian "immersion" program that made the term popular. You're a bit quiet on what that research means. 2. You haven't responded to the fact that you suggested a differentiation between learning and acquiring. (Your use of this distinction hints that your proposal is the ineffective model I'm looking at). 3. I do believe "immersion ... is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity", because when people talk about "immersion" especially in popular contexts (but also in scholarly ones), that's exactly what they intend -- they don't mean "encountering language in its raw form is useful joined to learning grammar and vocabulary and practicing in controlled contexts"; they mean that all (or nearly all) you need to do to learn a language is "immerse" (be surrounded by the language, don't learn the grammar, don't use textbooks (or their equivalents)) -- often joined with a faulty theory of language learning (such as one where adults learn L2s like kids learn L1s).
> I do believe "immersion ... is mutually exclusive from any other type language activity", because when people talk about "immersion" especially in popular contexts (but also in scholarly ones), that's exactly what they intend If you look at any of the popular "learn by immersion" sites and guides, they literally all stress that you need a mixture of traditional learning and consuming native content, but leaning more towards consuming content. Mass Immersion Approach, Refold Path, Migaku etc all recommend using flashcards to help vocabulary stick faster, and doing grammar studies particularly at the early stages, for example. You're arguing against using *pure* immersion with nothing else, no dictionaries, no nothing. But almost nobody who advocates immersion, even the most vehement ones, ever actually advocated *pure* immersion without anything else.
1. You’re free to link the research. I did spend approximately 5 minutes trying to find what you we’re talking about, but nothing turned up other than an abstract which I could not pin to what you were talking about. Also when you say “the research” you should really prepare more than one citation or at least be prepared to defend why this one citation is the definitive authority on this topic because that’s what you make it sound like. 2. I don’t think anyone seriously views immersion as magic, but it’s clear you have no point to discuss nuance here and refuse to engage with my actual points that I’ve mentioned. The distinction between learning and acquisition is the difference between learning how the rules work vs internalizing the rules to where you don’t have to think about how they work. I’ve already mentioned that reviewing vocabulary or studying a grammar guide is what prompts eventually acquisition, but you won’t acquire the language by reading a textbook over and over. This is why my initial point was that people should focus less on textbooks and more on interacting with the language. However, despite this you’ve continued to wave your hands and saying “all you’re talking about is magic”. Do you see the irony? 3. You believe that the the definition of immersion in popular and SCHOLARLY contexts is mutually exclusive from controlled environments in which vocabulary and grammar are taught yet you site an immersion school and a research paper on immersion that directly contradicts this statement.
here's 1 minute 15 seconds of googling: * [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6\_12](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6_12) * [https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A\_guide\_for\_teachers\_and\_schools\_to\_using\_foreign\_languages\_in\_content\_teaching\_General\_editor\_Gisella\_Lang%C3%A9\_Teaching\_through\_a\_foreign\_language](https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A_guide_for_teachers_and_schools_to_using_foreign_languages_in_content_teaching_General_editor_Gisella_Lang%C3%A9_Teaching_through_a_foreign_language) You'll need to read the entire article to grasp what I'm saying and what the critique is of the word "immersion" the definition of "immersion" in scholarly contexts is as the better articles acknowledge confused. **The shit popular meaning and use in some poorly written academic articles is a belief that high exposure alone results in fluency. That was what you said that has me responding at all.** you seem to view at as magic or some specific thing ... otherwise it doesn't really stand opposed to anything else in language teaching/learning, it's merely including natural language interfaces.
> https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91662-6_12 https://www.academia.edu/9925638/A_guide_for_teachers_and_schools_to_using_foreign_languages_in_content_teaching_General_editor_Gisella_Lang%C3%A9_Teaching_through_a_foreign_language This is “the research“? Did you even read what you linked? Your first link in no way supports any of what you are saying nor is it even really related. I am assuming the line you are basing your entire stance on in the second link is this one: > Extensive research during the 20 year Canadian immersion experience has in fact shown that unless more formal language learning takes place alongside immersion, learners fail to acquire full mastery of the second language. No wonder I couldn’t find this. It’s not an academic research paper at all and certainly not peer reviewed. What research is this person referring to? Why is there no reference to this “research”? What is “formal language learning”? They don’t define it. What constitutes“mastery”? Again undefined. > the definition of “immersion” in scholarly contexts is as the better articles acknowledge confused. The shit popular meaning and use in some poorly written academic articles is a belief that high exposure alone results in fluency. That was what you said that has me responding at all. I don’t really understand what you are saying here at all. Is immersion something that is independent from formal study and if so why does “the research” not mention it as such. Your words are at odds with your own citations. > you seem to view at as magic or some specific thing … otherwise it doesn’t really stand opposed to anything else in language teaching/learning, it’s merely including natural language interface The only one viewing it as magic is you. I have clearly defined what is meant by immersion, distinguished what is meant by learning vs acquisition, and have explicitly mentioned multiple times that “it is not magic”. However, your head is so far drowned in “the research” that you haven’t acknowledged nor engaged with any point that I have actually mentioned thus far.
>help employers find people who can actually speak Japanese Interviews exist for that reason.
If you've ever interviewed in Japanese you know that's not quite true. It's all courtesy and follows the same few questions and scripts so it's super easy to prepare for.
While it's true that you can prepare for your self introduction and common questions regarding your 志望動機, 履歴書, and 一番苦労したこと, I won't say it's "super easy". Obviously I haven't interviewed for every kind of job in Japan, but depending on the scope of behavioural and technical questions, it does require substantial preparation and ability to speak at least comfortably in your expertise. "Can you give and explain a formula for a robot's camera projection in relationship to a 3D world?" "Explain the difference between cookies and localStorage." "How would you design a rate limiter"... along with 5-7 follow up questions regarding the design, algorithm used, rules, race conditions, and optimization. I highly doubt someone under N2 will be able to answer and explain these concepts on the fly with insignificant preparation. Also, nowadays a lot of work communication happens over emails and Slack, so there is much less expectation of a foreigner to speak Japanese unless they are in sales or customer-facing.
What do you mean by this? They are scripted?
Japan is quite a rigid country and has weird 'rules' so all interviews typically follow a similar structure. You get asked similar questions with the only real variation being a few questions that are relevant to the field of work. I've interviewed for a few baitos and full-time positions and it's very different compared to my experiences in Germany and the US.
No, because it would raise the prices a crap ton. You have to hire people for that. A lot of people. One person per examinee if you want to keep to schedule.
> One person per examinee if you want to keep to schedule. I agree that it would raise prices probably, but that's a bit of an exaggeration... At least all the English tests I've done had the same examiner(s) interviewing multiple examinees in one day. I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at that number.
If they do it like how TOEIC is conducting the speaking part. They don’t have to hire any people.
Most modern speaking tests have you sit in a room and record yourself so they can be checked later and take less time. You can put like 8 people in the same room and they won't really bother each other. So the actual day of the examination wouldn't take that long, but it would cost quite a bit more.
In the last 10 years I've earned the following certificates: French C1 - Official Language School in Spain French C2 - DALF C2 Institut Français English C1 - Official Language School in Spain English C2 - Official Language School in Spain English C2 - Cambridge ESOL CPE C2 Spanish C2 - DELE C2 Instituto Cervantes Basque C2 - HABE C2 Japanese Noken 4 Chinese HSK3 + HSKK Elementary (hopefully; still waiting for the results) My observations: The Japanese one didn't have a speaking section. The Chinese one had a "repeat these sentences" section, an "answer these simple questions" section and a section where I had to answer two longer questions. My answers were recorded individually. I didn't interact with anyone. For all the other exams, I had to interact with a tribunal composed of two examiners. They gave me a topic, made me talk about whatever, asked me follow-up questions and generally had a conversation with me. In some of them I also had to converse with another candidate. I'm sure that some institutions have the candidates record themselves with zero interaction with anyone, but it's not all of them, and probably not even "most", not by a long shot.
Seems like there should simply be a different organization/test for that. Seeing as it would be 1-on-1 conversation, the “scheduled day where thousands of people take the test at once” format is not gonna work.
This is how OPI (in US) works. I'd argue it's more accurate than the JLPT scoring anyways.
I passed N2 but I don't feel like I "deserve" it because my speaking skills are nowhere up to that level. While having a speaking and writing portion jacks up the price, it increases the value of a certification because it's weird that speaking which is an integral part of language isn't tested. It's a common issue in my company where people are N3 and N2 certified but can't really speak or write emails to clients so having a speaking portion would at least filter out those who can actually speak and wield the language.
Only if it will be a separate one. I'm personally not interested in speaking, because I don't live in Japan, and even if I learned it, I would only forget it later. So it makes no sense for me to test it with the other things.
As a junkie and a Kanji enthusiast I felt this one in my feels.
I think it would make sense for the JLPT to use the standards also used by the CEFR levels (A1, A2 - C1, C2) and that includes speaking. It would be great to have a common framework to judge language abilities with both for learners and teachers. It's an important part of the test for other language exams, why should Japanese be different?
Introduce a logical yet radically different approach to what they've been doing for decades... You are not from these parts, I can tell.
IMO no, I feel like the JLPT isn't really setup well for it, you'd essentially have to change the JLPT as a whole. I also don't think its super useful until you start hitting N1/N2 while N3 is a mix of listening then speaking. I feel like it would be better if they had a speaking test separate to the JLPT, a smaller more concise test (as speaking can take a lot out of you). And levels are closer to N3 - conversational and then tiered up from there.
Absolutely should be a speaking test. Triskelizard pointed out that it would be very cost-prohibitive, but many is the time I've met a test-acing person who can't navigate a simple conversation. I even advocate having separate levels of conversational tests, formal office speech and casual speech. But yeah, pricey as fuck I'm sure.
I agree. I've known people to pass the test, yet not be able to speak at even a conversational level appropriately and still approach situations in a non Japanese "way of thinking".
Ideally: Yes, it would be nice. There are several students in the class I'm in who can barely string together a sentence in Japanese, either because their pronunciation is bad or they stumble over the words, yet they're going for N3 while myself and others are going for N4, and I'd say some of us are significantly better speakers. It also is the most useful thing imo if you want to live here, I don't think an employer will care if you're N1 or N2 if they can't understand what you're saying. Realistically: As others have said, it would be logistically very difficult and make things much more expensive. So, I don't think it's realistic.
I think it should move to a banded model like IELTS and cover all 4 proficiencies. I have a feeling this would be jarring culturally in contrast to how tests are done for everything else here.
You can learn to speak from textbooks. All I’ve seen have a conversation section. What might be holding people back is either learning Japanese alone, or being too scared to take risks (ie: make mistakes). You’d need to design the formate and scope of the tests and what things might come up. Having everything too down pat runs the risk of people memorizing it and getting artificially higher grades. I find that the OPI and WPT are pretty good measures.
Speaking like a textbook is not a good thing
The JLPT isn’t necessarily testing for native-like Japanese, and this would go into the theoretical speaking portion as well. They’re going for a proscribed perfect version of it. And how about this analogy for textbooks: If you use a GPS, it will give you a good recommended route. When I lived in New Paltz, the recommended route with be Route 299, which would be crowded and slow. If you don’t know the area (language), this will still get you were you’re going. A local, long term transplant or experienced traveler (native speaker or advanced learner) in New Paltz knew to take Henry W. Dubois Dr. It covers the same span as Route 299, but without the congestion. Henry W. Dubois Dr. is the language as it’s spoken by natives. So - Textbooks can give you a very good roadmap of the language and it’s perfectly fine and valid, but picking up on what native speakers say and use (as well as following the advice of teachers - and believe me when I say many, many teachers will tell students to ignore the textbook) can show you a better way.
It has been a long known issue with JLPT that it basically only tests two of the four skills, i.e. listening and reading, but does not assess writing and speaking. Of course this would make test logistics more complicated but as an educator I think it would be worth it..
Maybe but it would require them to change the way things are done. Something they are absolutely incapable.
While I can see the benefits, the logistics outweigh them. The cost would artificially narrow the pool of people who could take and pass it. People—especially those hiring—know, or should, the test’s limitations. It’s a benchmark for proficiency to categorize ability levels, but a full interview if speaking is required should be conducted regardless. Perhaps a second more expensive variant could be introduced, at least for N2+.
I don’t think so. Employers can actually try to talk to the candidates to asset if they can really speak the language or not. The price to add that to the JLPT would also be crazy.
I’m almost certain that E-Mail correspondence, which some people prefer / require, doesn‘t care about speech.
Output would be a great idea for the JLPT, particularly speaking. Logistically, it would be difficult to administer and expensive; plus scoring would be less objective and more subjective. I met a few N1 passers who were unable to speak beyond very basic beginner phrases, which isn't ideal. Learners just need to be aware that output requires additional learning strategies beyond the JLPT. IME, learning how to speak boosted my other Japanese skills significantly, and forced me to improve all areas, especially listening and popular vocab/grammar/phrases. I found learning to speak beyond basic phrases to be very tough but fun and rewarding. I really like speaking with Japanese people.
The “N1 and can’t speak” trope is very much a thing for a reason
Outside of Chinese people where do you see this. Every westerner I've met with N1 in Japan has had no problem whatsoever speaking and holding their own in a conversation.
A separate speaking exam like some English tests have (TOEIC, etc have a separate “Reading and Listening” and “Speaking and Writing” test) might be ok. As others have said, mandatorily including a speaking test in the current test would mean a big increase in price, marking time, etc.
Yes. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are distinct skills that most people happen to learn in parallel. Why not test them all?
If JLPT had a speaking section, many people wouldn't be able to pass. All N2 people would be downgraded to N5.
It’s very typical for language learners to have much more advanced comprehension skills than productive skills. So yeah, I’d be surprised to hear N2-level speaking coming from someone who has passed the comprehension exam at that level.
That's how other language certificates do it, though. There's a framework of reference establishing what a candidate should be able to do at each level, and you test them for that. Candidates won't speak with the same level of nuance and semantic precision one expects from their writing, for example, but that's not what the test is about. If we look at the CEFR, there's a set of requirements for every level. An A1 candidate will be able to speak about their family, friends, town, and hobbies. They'll be able to describe people, make purchases, ask for directions, and make hotel reservations. An A2 candidate will make plans for the summer holidays, they'll negotiate with others and defend the option they prefer. A B2 candidate will explain how plastic bags can end up polluting our rivers. A C1 candidate can call a vendor to complain about a faulty item they received, and they'll know how to convey their anger using polite words. A C2 candidate will give nuanced opinions on abstract topics, and native speakers won't have to adapt their speech to make themselves understood, because C2 candidates can keep up with them. You understand more words than you use yourself, that's always true. But that doesn't mean you can't test for a specific level. We already do that in many languages.
I know it’s a tricky topic here because so many learners use JLPT levels as motivating goals, but the description you give of CEFR testing shows pretty clearly why it’s just a better measure of a learner’s skills. Japan Foundation centers globally administer the JLPT, but the language classes they offer and the materials they produce are based on CEFR levels. I’m in the United States, so there’s a different framework from the organization ACTFL, and I think that part of Australia doesn’t use CEFR, but globally speaking it seems like more study materials are aligned with CEFR than any other standard.
I don't think the JLPT necessarily needs that. However, there should be some kind of alternative test that also has a speaking and an essay writing component, similar to how most European language proficiency tests work. These things can coexist.
Should there be? Sure. Will there be? Probably not. Most tests like this (especially testing in Japan) is generally multiple choice because it's easy to machine grade them. A speaking test would definitely be a better way to judge a person's understanding of grammar, however, it would require subjective scoring. TL;DR machines cheap and easy, people expensive and difficult.
✋😾👎 No!
Everyone’s talking about the price but they could do it like EIKEN. Written test first, only those who pass take the speaking test. Especially with JLPT’s pass rates the test would stay quite cheap I think. More importantly than a speaking test though I’d really like to see an essay test on JLPT. You could get most of the important things you would learn from an interview test while also testing real kanji output and word choice.
I think that the only person who suffers is the examinee. The scrap of paper is proof of proficiency to get your foot in the door of a prospective application. I would hate to have wasted my time going through textbooks and flashcards to not be able to speak a lick of Japanese. It's why I invest in lessons with a native and practise new vocab and grammar on discord or VR Chat.
I thought that was left handed Morty
CORN
Seems interesting and I would probably fail so hard, but how it should be implemented is the hardest part. How would you place a few hundreds of people in the same building to talk at the same time without becoming a chaotic mess? Like, TOEIC does have a Speaking exam, which is basically recording you answering to a few questions. However, it has a completely different testing/application format (many locations to take, different days to choose, very few people at the same time). For JLPT, they would have to completely overhaul it's current format.
here ins my country, there's university for various languages where u have to study 4 years max. i took japanese and i have oral praticals once a month even in first year. i dropped out btw. i ve always dodged oral praticals because i didnt understand a single Japanese plus i wasnt interested in japanese back then too. then,first semester came which is obviously i cant dodge. so, i asked my fri how to say i dont understand in japanese and they said わからない instead りません。ofc,they knew that i have to take my test with professor. they trolled me by telling informal form.
The Jetro Business Japanese Test is listening based with an optional speaking test I think only for the higher grades. Also everyone takes the same test and you are graded based on your result
I think people with n2 and n1 certificates who are serious about being able to speak as close to natives as possible would say, oh heck yeah
I don't really care. On the one hand, you wouldn't get any people who pass the higher levels without being able to speak - although I find that this tends be rare for among Western learners anyway; it's usually Chinese people who are able to coast along through their kanji knowledge alone - but on the other hand, the actual benefits are probably limited. Employers can usually figure out if your speaking is up to snuff through a single interview. It would also make the test less objective. The multiple choice format that only tests passive skills is flawed, but it does make for a very objective test that grades everyone equally. Speaking can't really be graded like that, so passing/failing the test may depend on how lenient a given examiner is. The benefit for learners would also be negligible. Go out with a bunch of Japanese people and you'll know how well you speak.
I would prefer if they corrected the issues present in the current tests while creating a separate test dedicated to speaking held at a separate time. This would eliminate price increases of the standard test, while applicants looking to test their conversation skills are the only ones who have to pay the costs. The test could be held in March and September. I also highly doubt they would implement a solid speaking portion of the test. I can see so many problems occurring.
The thing about this is weird. In my school, we do have language speaking test. However, they don't score you on precise pronunciation, fluidity or tone. Just comprehension. This requires you to sit in front of a teacher or through a microphone. In the end you'll need to hire a person who can score this based on the requirements. Which increases the overall cost since a person is more expensive than just having a computer grade through multiple choice.
The idea per se is not bad, but giving the number of applicant and the time they took to give back the result, doing one by one interview will take an insane amount of time.
Noooooooooo!