著者

寺沢 拓敬

出版者

関東甲信越英語教育学会

雑誌

関東甲信越英語教育学会誌 (ISSN:21858993)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, pp.71-83, 2013

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This paper examines Japanese workers' needs to use English for occupational purposes, employing a statistical analysis of several datasets from social surveys based on a random sample of the entire workforce in the country. Although many policy makers, business leaders, and English language teachers often emphasize the occupational importance of English proficiency, there has been little research which precisely estimates how many workers are required to use English in their workplaces. Therefore, a secondary analysis was conducted using five datasets with a random sample: Japanese General Social Surveys (2002, 2003, 2006, and 2010 versions) and Working Person Survey (2000). The results show that (1) less than 10% of the respondents use English in workplace, (2) about 40% feel the needs to use English, and (3) the responses vary widely according to their demographic and occupational factors such as type of job, educational background, and firm size. Based on these findings, the paper discusses the validity of foreign language education policies of the Japanese government.