Russian language in Japan: insider's view. Historical and cultural problems сoncerning studying Russian language in Japan

This article describes the real situation of teaching and studying Russian language in modern day Japan. After giving a short introduction to the history of teaching Russian language in Japan in the preamble, the author explains the reasons why Japanese scholars and students should be interested in Russian language in the past as well as in modern times. Based on rich personal experience, the article explores different aspects of teaching Russian in Japan, emphasizing the most popular difficulties of that process as well as some local nuances concerning studying foreign language in the Japanese context. Russian language in Japan has experienced several rises and falls of its popularity under the influence of political and cultural factors, as well as the instability of international situation over the past decades. The rise of popularity was affected by such events as several wars, influence from the world-widely known Russian literature, and space exploration. Meanwhile, the instability of Japanese economy followed by financial crisis in 1990s played a negative role in the recent development of Japanese interest towards Russian language and culture. Japanese experts of Russian language and culture are currently facing difficulties with job placement due to the lack of vacancies for interpreters and translators, as well as the rapid reduction of workplaces in educational institutions that offer Russian language as a subject to study. The learning process in negatively affected by reduction of educational TV and radio programs; the Japanese attitude towards learning foreign languages prioritizing the matter of learning over the quantity and quality of real knowledge. The facultative teaching of Russian language in Japanese institutions has two problems: limited academic hours leading to lack of attention given per student; inconsistency of curriculum due to poor control over teaching methodology. Japanese students tend to choose Russian language, motivated by several reasons: lower passing grade for admission as compared to other languages; expectations for less demanding requirements during the learning process because of the loyalty of teachers; high authority of Russian culture; business interests. The current curriculum for teaching Russian language at Japanese universities have some weak sides, such as limited quantity for total amount of teaching hours; uncontrolled attendance for lectures affected by early job search starting already in the third year of the 4-year bachelor course. One of the main problems obstructing the process of learning Russian language is related to educational corps, with three key aspects for consideration: heavy professional workload; pedagogic unpreparedness of foreign teachers as educators; educational unpreparedness of Japanese teachers of foreign languages. Teachers are barely available outside regular academic hours because of excessive focus on individual research, which deprives the time meant for spending on lingual practice with students. Also, as many native speakers of foreign languages are employed without academic degrees or teaching experience, they can participate only as assistants, but scarcely as main tutors, which restricts their freedom to revise and improve the content of outdated curriculum. Lastly, the conservative approach of Japanese-style method to learn foreign languages mainly focuses on writing and reading, rather than speaking and listening, which is unacceptable in the Information Age. One of the crucial terms for proper establishment of educational process is availability of a wide variety of textbooks with supportive manuals and other additional literature which content is appropriate for modern reality. The manufacture of new study materials on Russian language for Japanese students should consider the cultural difference between mono-ethnic Japan and multicultural West.