Is English listening necessary for the National Center Test?

The aim of the National Center for University Entrance Examinations

(NCUEE) is to improve the selection of candidates for admission to
Japanese universities. The main objective of the examination is to assess
the level of fundamental academic achievement attained by the applicant
at the high school stage. When individual universities select students to
admit, they apply their own criteria to the results and take a multifaceted
approach to determining the ability and aptitude of each person. Reform
of university entrance examinations is a key component of the Japanese
governments initiatives to strengthen the connections between high
school and university education. Since 2006, an English listening exam
has been part of the National Center Test for University Admissions
(hereafter National Center Test) for candidates who select English as their
foreign language. Each candidate is given an IC player (an audio device
which plays back audio but does not record) in order to take the test, and
30 minutes of test time is devoted to explaining how to use this device.
The following article is an opinion piece written by Siratori Kazuhisa (a
former University of Tokyo professor) immediately after the National
Center Test.

An English listening exam was included in the National Center Test for the
first time in 2006. However, due to repeat malfunctions of the IC player
during the English listening exam portion of the National Center Test,
approximately 500 candidates had been left with no choice but to re-take
the exam. Many will probably say that for such an important exam,
measures should have been taken to ensure that the IC players were
functioning correctly. However, my view is simply that we should do away
with the English listening exam altogether.

Japanese people are particularly good at reading English, but not so good
at conversation. Thus, it seems that an English listening test was included
in in the National Center Test with the aim to improve communicative
English skills. This may sound somewhat reasonable, but the fact is that
the English exam for university admissions is not a mere test of practical
English skills, such as being able to give directions when asked in English.

The primary aim of the university test is to sort candidates who are
applying for university. The National Center Test also includes Japanese
and Chinese classical literature, which have little relevance to most
students studies once they have entered university. Whenever the
question has been raised of getting rid of these, inevitably it is concluded
that those who applied themselves in studying these subjects have a
better general ability than those who did not.
Second, after entering university, English is a foreign language which is
essential in order to read a vast number of articles and books. Even
though English conversation skills may not be necessary in the daily life of
students, English reading and comprehensions skills are essential for
serious study in a wide range of fields. For these reasons, an English test
which places emphasis on reading comprehension and grammar should be
implemented.

There are people who long ago took English lessons which ignored
conversational ability even more than those of today, but still gained
strong English reading abilities by studying abroad, or somehow or other
managed to acquire English conversation skills. As a matter of fact, people
who, after entering university, become able to speak a foreign language
other than English, did so by building upon their solid foundation of
English grammar and reading. I believe that although those who read
English well are able to quickly improve their conversation skills, this does
not apply the other way around.

Generally, there are any number of learning materials available for

learning communicative English, and ways to measure yourself such as
the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). If you were
to sum up communicative English in a word, this should fall well within
the category of being able to write a letter or email as part of the
university test.

I am concerned with recent English conversation books and dictionaries,

which rely on the use of katakana to show how to correctly pronounce
English words. Katakana is a Japanese writing system consisting of a
limited number of phonetic syllables. In the past, students may have had
poor listening skills, but they at least had the resilience to learn the
International Phonetic Alphabet a syllabic alphabet which allows sounds
to be described in great detail. Now, learning materials for many other
languages such as German or Korean all use katakana to help you learn
pronunciation. It appears to me that there is a fatal flaw in teaching
Japanese people to learn foreign languages using katakana.

The listening section of the TOEIC exam is conducted using one device in
the exam room. Of course, before the test begins, they confirm that all
candidates can hear the audio cassette. It does not appear that there
have been any complaints about this, and it is therefore unclear why it is
necessary for the National Center Test to buy as many as 500,000
individual-use IC players to conduct their listening exam.