Education How Saitama's early English education put its junior high students on top

Saitama City has again topped Japan in junior high school English proficiency, with third-year students performing well above the national average in a recent education ministry survey. It was the seventh consecutive time the city ranked first. One factor behind the results may be Saitama's early approach to English education. The city introduced English lessons at all municipal elementary schools in the 2007 academic year, years before such instruction became standard nationwide.

It went further in 2016, making English a formal subject at the elementary school level. Kiyohito Nakada, 53, principal of Saitama Municipal Tokiwakita Elementary School, was involved in introducing the programme. He said the aim was to develop children's ability to think and communicate in English from an early age, rather than waiting until junior high school to begin more serious language study.

Read the interview here:

I asked an AI the following question.

## Could the Rise in English Proficiency among Japanese Ninth Graders Be Partly Due to the Increase in Foreign Children Living in Japan?

It is possible that the increase in foreign children living in Japan has contributed to the improvement in English proficiency among Japanese ninth-grade students. However, there is currently not enough evidence to conclude that this is the main reason for the nationwide improvement.

There are several reasons why this hypothesis is worth considering.

First, Japan has experienced a significant increase in the number of foreign residents and children with international backgrounds. Some of these children have lived abroad, attended international schools, or use English at home. If such students are included in the same English assessments as Japanese students, they could raise the overall average.

However, this effect is probably limited because foreign residents in Japan are not predominantly from English-speaking countries. Many foreign children come from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Nepal, South Korea, Brazil, and other countries. Being a foreign national does not necessarily mean that a student has a high level of English proficiency.

There is another important issue: the Japanese government's English proficiency statistics generally report results for the student population as a whole. They do not necessarily provide enough information to separate students by nationality, home language, or previous exposure to English. Therefore, it is difficult to determine exactly how much foreign students contribute to the national average.

### Saitama provides an interesting case

Saitama Prefecture has one of the largest foreign populations in Japan. However, Saitama's particularly high English performance cannot simply be explained by the number of foreign residents.

For example, Saitama City has achieved exceptionally high English results among ninth-grade students. One major reason is its Global Study program, a nine-year English education program introduced from elementary school through junior high school.

This suggests that educational policy may be a much stronger explanation than the increase in foreign children alone.

### What would be needed to test the hypothesis?

To determine whether foreign children are actually raising Japan's average English score, researchers would need to compare:

1. The English proficiency of Japanese students.
2. The English proficiency of foreign-national students.
3. The proportion of foreign-national students.
4. The proportion of students who have lived in English-speaking countries.
5. The language spoken at home.
6. English proficiency by municipality.
7. Changes in these figures over time.

A particularly useful analysis would be to compare municipalities with high concentrations of foreign residents with municipalities where relatively few foreign residents live.

If municipalities with more foreign children consistently have higher English scores, that would provide some evidence for the hypothesis. If there is little or no correlation, other factors—such as English education policies, socioeconomic conditions, private tutoring, and exposure to English media—would be more likely explanations.

### An important distinction

There is also a difference between foreign children increasing the average English score and foreign children improving English education for Japanese children.

Even if foreign students themselves do not account for much of the increase in the average score, a more international school environment could indirectly improve English education. Japanese students may have more opportunities to communicate with children from other countries, use English in real-life situations, and develop greater motivation to learn English.

Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion at present is:

The increase in foreign children living in Japan may have contributed to the improvement in English proficiency, either directly or indirectly, but there is not sufficient evidence to say that it is the main cause of the nationwide increase.

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To establish this more convincingly, nationality-specific and municipality-level data would be necessary.