English Education In Japan After The World WarⅡ (1945-1960)

There is a long history in Japan since the first contact with English-speaking people in 1600. English education in Japan has always been brought into ups and downs with the altering of politics and some other factors. The emperor of Japan accepted the Potsdam Proclamation and surrendered at discretion in August 15, 1945. The American army garrisoned Japan in the name of Allied Forces, which drove Japan's English education into a critical period. Japanese efforts in English education made it ready for the coming Olympics in Tokyo and stimulated the downturns of English education before the War, which began to revive with the great "English Boom". The paper is trying to illustrate the revival of English education in Japan from 1945 to 1962, which consists of four parts.The first part of the paper is trying to help the reader get a general image of the English education in Japan for the first five years after the War, concentrating on the description of the people's change of it's attitudes towards English study. Another main task in this part is to tell the reader how the English education was carried out without sufficient preparation because of the haste of operation and lack of educational resources in particular situation. In the second part, the main part of the paper, the write is trying to describe the adjustment made by the government based on the thorough analyses of the defective educational practice during the previous period. The publication of the instructions of English teaching in 1951 helped the English education reach its peak for the first time after the War. In the next period, several educational conferences were held to reflect on the attempts what had been made and to discuss about what kind improvement should be made in future. The scream for serviceable English from the financial circles aroused the debate on whether English education should be more practical, which had speeded up the further meditation on English education. All these efforts helped English education get ready for the coming of next English Boom which would be caused by the Tokyo Olympics. The last chapter is the conclusion of the previous illustration on English education in Japan and trying to get some inspiration for its future developmentThe study on the English education in this period is crucial for understanding the flourish of English education in Japan in modern times.