The Present Situation And The Future Of The Middle School Japanese Education In Shanghai

Japan carries out a survey about Japanese education of the whole world every two years. The survey in 2006 shows that 680,000 Chinese people learn Japanese, second only to Korea of the whole world. About 20% learners are middle school and primary school students. The teaching of Japanese in middle school and primary school in China first started in Taiwan, and then spread to Northeast China. The Japanese education in old China was invasive. The Japanese abandoned the Chinese course in the primary and secondary school in order to carry out cultural invasion. After World War II, China abolished this kind of unreasonable education. The Japanese education in primary and secondary school in new China began with the normalization of the Sino-Japanese relationship. In order to develop the Sino-Japanese friendship, and to diverse the foreign languages courses, our country started the Japanese course, which was mainly set up in Yanbian, Northeast China and Dalian District. At that time, two schools in Shanghai, Ganquan Foreign Languages Middle School and the Foreign Languages Middle School attached to the Shanghai Foreign Languages University, started the Japanese course. In 1980s, Owing to the Sino-Japanese friendship, the Japanese education in these 2 schools developed rapidly and overtook the other schools of the same kind soon. Besides, in the university entrance examination and Japanese proficiency tests, these two schools got outstanding results.In the 21st century, the Sino-Japanese relationship changed rapidly, which led to the shrink or even the disappearance of the Japanese education in many cities in China. The japanese education faced a big challenge. Meanwhile, with the internaitonalization of Shanghai, the foreign languages education in high school alone cannot meet the needs for the talent, so multilingual teaching and second foreign languages teaching began in the secondary school in Shanghai. As a result, the Japanese education in Shanghai still developed in such a difficult situation. Not only did the Japanese teaching as the first foreign language developed steadily, but also Japanese teahing as the second foreign language grew quickly. Some school attempted to carry out bilingual teaching both in English and Japanese.However, in China, most middle schools consider English as the first foreign language. In such a situation, Japanese is always the the relatively rare foreign language. In Shanghai, compared with English, its scale is smaller and its strength, investment and gained support are less. The Japanese education in Shanghai is faced with many problems, for example, fewer students choosing Japanese as their first foreign language, the restrictions in the university entrance examination and the lower overall level. On the other hand, more attention should be paid to the students' purpose for choosing Japanese as their first foreign language. Influenced by the rules of university entrance examination, the Japanese education is changed into an examination-oriented education. That the Japnanese examination paper is easier than the English examination paper has been the major cause for most students to choose Japanese as their first foreign language. Some students learn Japanese even only for the purpose of understanding the Japanese cartoon and playing Japanese video games. The Japanese education is losing its original aim to develop the Sino-Japanese friendship.Shanghai, as the important economic center of China and an international metropolis, provides good environment and many opportunities for the people to learn a foreign language. The foreign language education should not only focus on the usage of the language, but it should also be the head of language and culture research. It is a necessary to develop multiligual teaching in middle school. How to develop Japanese education in Shanghai further in the right way is a problem worth discussing.