英語教育・英語学習における目的意識の変遷について

抄録

The discussion on the aims or values of the teaching and learning of English often contrasts two controversial labels : 'cultural' and 'practical'. This dichotomy is commonly said to have its origin in Y. Okakura's monumental work Eigo Kyoiku (English Education) published in 1911. This paper traces the concepts of aims or values of English teaching in Japan focusing upon the conceptual development of cultural aims and practical aims. In contrast with the aims of English studies around the Meiji Restoration, which laid emphasis on the practical values, the aims of English teaching in the school curriculum came to be discussed at the end of the last century, when the effects of English teaching came into question, and resulted in the emphasis on the cultural values. Other points made clear in this paper are that the concept of cultural and practical values had been introduced much earlier by R. Mitsukuri, and that, therefore, Y. Okakura is not the originator of the concept, although he established the dichotomy in the field of English teaching.