This article was downloaded by: [University of Pennsylvania]

On: 07 May 2014, At: 14:44

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Bilingual

Education and Bilingualism
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20

Learning a foreign language as leisure

and consumption: enjoyment, desire,
and the business of eikaiwa
a
Ryuko Kubota
a
Department of Language and Literacy Education , University of
British Columbia , Vancouver, Canada
Published online: 09 Jun 2011.

To cite this article: Ryuko Kubota (2011) Learning a foreign language as leisure and consumption:
enjoyment, desire, and the business of eikaiwa , International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism, 14:4, 473-488, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2011.573069

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2011.573069

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Vol. 14, No. 4, July 2011, 473
488

Learning a foreign language as leisure and consumption: enjoyment,

desire, and the business of eikaiwa
Ryuko Kubota*

Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,

Canada

Social inclusion typically refers to the integration of the disadvantaged into the
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

mainstream society as a national agenda. However, social inclusion in a broader

sense addresses aspirations to be included in a global imagined community as well
as a local community of like-minded people. Drawing on a qualitative study of
men and women learning eikaiwa [English conversation] in informal settings in
Japan, this paper investigates the aspects of leisure and consumption as
characteristics of foreign language learning, rather than investment for gaining
cultural capital. This perspective highlights the enjoyment of socializing with the
teacher and the peers and forms of akogare [desire/longing] including romantic
desire and the aspiration to be like other Japanese people with fluency in English.
The manifestations of romantic akogare for white English-speaking men related
to learning English were nuanced, diverse, and identified across gender and race.
The dimension of leisure and consumption produces and reflects the business
interest of the eikaiwa industry which commodifies and exploits whiteness and
native speakers. The aspects of leisure and consumption challenge the possibility
of critical engagement in foreign language learning.
Keywords: Japan; English language learning; social inclusion; eikaiwa; leisure;
consumption

Introduction
Social inclusion is typically concerned with a question of how the nation-state can
integrate disadvantaged people into the mainstream economic system by overcoming
obstacles that are related to gender, race, ethnicity, class, and physical ability.
Language proficiency is another barrier, yet because it often serves as a pretext for
racial and ethnic discrimination, it requires a critical scrutiny (Piller, forthcoming).
However, social inclusion in a broader sense can address the question of how each
individual strives to be included in a particular society. This question broadens the
focus of social inclusion from a public policy agenda to personal engagement, from
socioeconomic empowerment to a sense of belonging, and from a nation-state to a
global imagined community. Similar to the conventional interpretation of the term,
this broader understanding of social inclusion with a focus on individual agency in a
global context addresses unequal relations of power that demand and hinder social
inclusion. It also raises issues of romanticizing and commodifying English language
and whiteness, each of which occupies a superior status in the global hierarchy of

*Email: ryuko.kubota@ubc.ca

ISSN 1367-0050 print/ISSN 1747-7522 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2011.573069
http://www.informaworld.com
 474 R. Kubota

power, attracting peoples desire to be included in an English-speaking imagined

community.
This paper focuses on the individual and global dimensions of social inclusion in
the context of learning eikaiwa, i.e. learning English conversation in Japan outside of
formal educational institutions. This context involves ordinary Japanese adults who
strive to belong to an imagined English-speaking community in the world through
learning eikaiwa in small self-organized groups, at large franchised eikaiwa gakko
(schools/institutes), or in programs run by smaller private businesses or non-profit
organizations. Although some adults learn eikaiwa for instrumental purposes to gain
upward socioeconomic mobility, this paper focuses on learning eikaiwa as a leisure
activity, which is perhaps the more prevalent function in Japan. Viewing language
learning as leisure provides a new conceptualization of language learning as
consumption, which contrasts the notion of investment (Norton 2000). The dimension
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

of consumption draws our attention to the eikaiwa industrys business interests,

which takes advantage of the sense of cool attached to speaking English and
socializing with an English-speaking person. Drawing on a qualitative study of the
views and experiences of adult learners of eikaiwa, I will demonstrate how learning
eikaiwa as a way of seeking inclusion in an English-speaking imagined community
can be best understood as a form of leisure and consumption. I argue that the broad
sense of social inclusion in this particular context is inseparable from leisure and
consumption.

Imagined community and language learning as investment

In the globalized economy, learning an internationally dominant language is
increasingly viewed as a key to individual and national economic success (Kubota
2011; Nino-Murcia 2003; Park 2011, this volume; Yates 2011, this volume).
Competency in English is regarded as especially important and it may provide
individuals with income benefits (Grin 2001). A powerful discourse posits that
English connects people globally even though more than three quarters of the world
population are non-English-speaking (Graddol 2006). In this sense, learning eikaiwa
reflects and produces a social imaginary (Rizvi 2007; Taylor 2004), which involves a
hypothetical global space or, to borrow Benedict Andersons (2006) notion, an
imagined community, into which learners of English strive to be included.
Imagined community has become a prominent topic of inquiry in second
language education research (Kanno and Norton 2003; Pavlenko and Norton 2007).
Social inclusion into the imagined English-speaking community is linked to
socioeconomic benefits (e.g. obtaining better education, employment, social net-
works, and overall a better life), leading to the notion of investment. The idea that
language learning is a form of investment has gained currency as an alternative to the
notion of motivation (Norton 2000; Peirce 1995). While research on motivation
tends to focus on psychological aspects of individual learners as autonomous
subjects, investment highlights the ways in which the socially and historically
constructed relations between the learner and the language are intertwined with the
learners desire to use the language. By investing in second language learning,
learners expect a return in the form of symbolic and material resources and an
increase in their cultural capital (Peirce 1995). This view applies especially to second
(rather than foreign) language contexts where cultural and linguistic capital is
deemed essential for survival.
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 475

The concept of investment also applies to foreign language settings where English
competency could mediate a higher socioeconomic status. However, adult foreign
language learners do not necessarily need to be socially and economically integrated
into the global workplace because many have already established their socio-
economic status at home. Furthermore, they do not usually need to acquire foreign
language skills for daily survival (Ryan 2006). Even in second language contexts,
learners who are temporary residents do not necessarily seek better future
opportunities but rather desire to enjoy living abroad as a once-in-a-life-time
experience (Kobayashi 2007). Although learning English as a foreign language in
schools and universities is linked to better educational and employment opportu-
nities, foreign language learning that takes place outside of formal educational
institutions may involve very different profiles. Moreover, learning a foreign language
can be a lifelong hobby driven by intellectual curiosity, whereas a lifelong pursuit of
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

survival skills in a second language would be a failure for immigrants. While some
learners in foreign language contexts do strive to gain cultural capital, others may
engage in language learning for far different reasons.

Language learning as leisure and consumption

The specificity of foreign language learning contexts also questions the premise that
taking foreign language lessons leads to developing linguistic skills and that learning
a language is primarily an intellectual and educational activity. Learning English as a
foreign language can primarily be a leisure activity.
Leisure studies distinguish between serious leisure and casual leisure. Serious
leisure is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer core activity
that people find so substantial, interesting, and fulfilling that, in the typical case, they
launch themselves on a (leisure) career centered on acquiring and expressing a
combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience (Stebbins 2007, 5).
Language learning is a part of liberal arts pursuit which belongs to the hobbyist
activity. Rewards arising from serious leisure include self-actualization through
developing skills, abilities, knowledge, self-gratification, and social interaction with
other participants in leisure activities.
In contrast, casual leisure is hedonic or self-gratifying in nature. Compared to
serious leisure, it is less substantial and offers no career, . . . (and) an immediately,
intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasurable core activity, requiring little
or no special training to enjoy it (Stebbins 2007, 38). It is primarily a pursuit of
pleasure and enjoyment. Language learning may parallel the following types of casual
leisure (Stebbins 2007): passive entertainment (e.g. watching TV, reading books,
listening to music), active entertainment (e.g. games of chance, party games), sociable
conversation (e.g. gossip, idle chatter), and sensory stimulation (e.g. sex, eating,
drinking, sightseeing). As in serious leisure, one benefit of casual leisure is the
development of interpersonal relationships. Learning eikaiwa creates a social space
for enjoyment which can become a primary driving force for engaging in the activity.
If language learning is more about pursuing serious or casual leisure than
developing skills for pragmatic and professional purposes, a primary function of
language learning can be self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and socializing through
an experience in an imagined exotic space removed from daily life. As this paper
shows, learning eikaiwa is indeed connected to the concepts of serious leisure and
casual leisure.
 476 R. Kubota

The notion of leisure evokes an image of freedom and individual choice.

However, individuals do not always have autonomous choices in learning eikaiwa;
social, cultural, economic, and political factors influence what is available for them.
Furthermore, leisure activities in general are not always socially innocuous (Rojek
2005). Learning English for leisure would both reflect and promote the global spread
of English, thereby reinforcing the superiority of English, native speakers of English,
and related cultures, while undermining multilingualism (Phillipson 2009). Investi-
gating peoples motivation for and experiences of learning eikaiwa could tap
underlying forces that make English language learning both attractive and culturally
limiting. The perspective of leisure also addresses the economic aspect of pastime
activities
i.e., consumption.
In engaging in a certain leisure activity, some individuals are characterized as
buffs who strive to become experts by systematically accumulating knowledge and
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

skills, while others are consumers who simply consume the activity for pure
entertainment and sensory pleasure (Stebbins 2007). The former is consistent with
serious leisure and the latter with casual leisure. Either way, leisure activities are built
on consuming goods and services offered for fulfillment, enjoyment, and pleasure.
These forms of leisure, especially casual leisure, have enormous economic signifi-
cance, because much of the leisure industry exists to cater to consumers interests
(Stebbins 1997). In fact, the business of teaching foreign languages in Japan (of
which English is by far the most popular) produces huge sales each year
192.8
billion in 2005, which is approximately US$1.71 billion ($1 113), excluding
privately arranged settings (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry 2006; see also
Piller, Takahashi and Watanabe 2010).
Eikaiwa gakko especially lure female customers by taking advantage of images of
white men to provoke akogare [desire/longing] (Bailey 2002; Kelsky 2001; Piller and
Takahashi 2006; Takahashi 2006). Learning eikaiwa is thus a form of leisure
consumption. Learners consume goods and services for self-fulfillment and
enjoyment in pursuit of social inclusion in an imagined community in which
English, whiteness, and native speakerness are commodified.
Language learning as leisure and consumption with expectations to be socially
included in the immediate community of fellow language learners and in the
imagined global community of English speakers is only tangentially related to
language acquisition. Viewing language learning as leisure and consumption
provides second language research with a new conceptual dimension and lens for
understanding what experiences learners have, how broader discourses of English,
whiteness, and native speakerness are circulated, exploited, and influence the activity
of learning, and how these discourses construct and influence the subjectivities of the
learners.

Purpose, research site, and method of data collection

This paper investigates the personal, ideological, and economic facets of learning
English outside of formal educational institutions through a qualitative study of
current and previous adult learners of English in Hasu,1 a mid-sized city in rural
Japan. Drawing on the notions of leisure and consumption that are integral to a
broader sense of social inclusion, this paper explores the significance of learning
eikaiwa in these learners personal lives and the wider social, economic, and
ideological dimensions of teaching and learning eikaiwa.
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 477

In 2007, I spent one year in Hasu, a city with a population of approximately

160,000. I observed eikaiwa lessons, interviewed a number of Japanese adults
engaged in learning eikaiwa (including a few eikaiwa business providers with a dual
role of teacher/manager who were former learners of English), taught upon request
several eikaiwa lessons to a group of women, and engaged in participant observation
in various community events. Through these activities, I investigated what
experiences and subjectivities adult learners have in learning eikaiwa and how
broader discourses are implicated in their experiences and subjectivities.
Learning eikaiwa takes place at various locations in Hasu. In January 2007,
I searched on the internet to see how many venues for learning English were
available. Yahoo Japans regional information showed 16 eigo kyoshitsu (English
classes) in Hasu, some of which cater exclusively to young children while others to
both adults and secondary school students or adults only. The list included three
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

nationwide franchised eikaiwa gakko and a less-known franchised daycare program

for young children. The list also included small- to mid-sized independent businesses
and a non-profit Christian organization. Not included in the list were self-organized
lessons. Some groups of people, especially shufu (married women with or without
a part-time job) and retirees, arrange language lessons by hiring a teacher (usually a
white native speaker of English who lives in the area) and renting a room in a
community center (kominkan) or holding lessons at a private home. Members split
the cost for instruction and facilities.
In all settings, some lessons are held during the day and others in the evening.
Daytime lessons typically cater to shufu or retirees and women predominate, while
evening lessons are offered for full-time students or individuals who work during the
day. Weekend classes are available at franchised eikaiwa gakko.
The instructional fees varied. Large eikaiwa gakko tend to charge higher fees than
other arrangements. For instance, one franchised institute charged approximately
10,000 per month for a 50-minute lesson per week plus 30,000 for an admission fee
and between 10,000 and 30,000 per year for instructional materials. Conversely,
the monthly fee for one-hour-a-week English lessons offered at Fitness Hasu by a
non-profit organization was less than 3,000 and that for privately arranged group
lessons held at a community center was around 2,000. Commercially available
textbooks were sometimes used in these contexts.
Teachers at large eikaiwa gakko are predominantly white native speakers of
English, although some institutes hire Japanese bilingual teachers for beginning-level
classes. Teachers at other settings are also predominantly white native speakers of
English
more often male than female.
Although I was originally interested in franchised eikaiwa gakko, gaining access
to these sites was challenging because they are for-profit companies. Only one
eikaiwa gakko, BEONE, permitted me to leave recruiting flyers and observe one
lesson. Realizing the difficulty of identifying learners at these sites, I approached
individuals through personal connections. Consequently, I accessed community-
based lessons that were self-organized or offered by a church organization. The data
come from many informal interviews and participant and non-participant observa-
tions in English lessons that took place in community centers and other public
locations. The data also include interviews with language instruction providers (two
near Hasu and one in Tokyo), which offer insight from a broader perspective.
Table 1 shows the English learners and learning contexts focused on in this paper.
Table 2 shows eikaiwa service providers, of whom Yasuo is also described as a
 478 R. Kubota

Table 1. Eikaiwa learners and learning contexts.

Name of
institute/
group Type Day/Time Location Learner
BEONE Franchised Afternoon, Space in a commercial Misaki (F28)
eikaiwa gakko evening, building near a train
weekend station
Fitness Hasu Christian Wednesday Meeting room in a Akio (M34)
organization evening fitness club Miki (F36)
Yayoi (F46)
The Koalas Self-organized Wednesday Hasu Community Tae (F46)
group morning Center
Note: All names are pseudonyms. F  female, M  male. The number following the gender indicates age.
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

learner. It is important to note that settings and participants involved in learning

eikaiwa are diverse and the descriptions of this paper captures only what was
accessible to me as a researcher.

Profile of eikaiwa lessons

The community-based eikaiwa lessons that I observed are quite different from typical
classrooms in formal education. A brief description of these lessons would help
contextualize my analysis and discussion. The lessons I observed were taught by
American or Australian native speakers of English who were fluent in Japanese. They
consisted of informal free conversations in sharp contrast to the highly structured
text-based lesson at BEONE. A commercially available textbook is sometimes used
to supplement unstructured conversations.
Almost all community-based lessons begin with a report on what each learner did
during the previous week. The class then discusses immediate topics such as
travelling, holidays, celebrities, food, life in English-speaking countries, and other
concrete topics. Learners oral English is typically quite basic: except for answers to
simple questions that require only a single word response, their utterances are mostly
in Japanese with English words sporadically inserted. The classroom discourse often
includes long pauses as learners search for words or as they arrange words into a
sentence. Consequently, the pace is extremely slow. More advanced learners can talk
about familiar topics in simple sentences but the conversation is rarely sustained in
English for extended periods of time. The teacher sometimes uses Japanese to explain
certain words or events, thereby enabling the classroom discourse to flow.
A common characteristic of the eikaiwa lessons that I observed is a sense of
community among learners who spend time together with the teacher and fellow

Table 2. Service providers.

Name Profile
Yasuo (M53) Eikaiwa business owner and teacher
Makoto Former teacher of franchised eikaiwa gakko in Tokyo
(M40)
Yumiko Teacher and manager of a franchised English-medium daycare and English
(F37) program for young children, where Misaki teaches part-time
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 479

learners. With some exceptions, lessons appeared more like sociable conversations
than organized language learning. The following section describes how this
perspective is reflected in learners views.

Language learning as a hobby

Akio
The learners I interviewed directly and indirectly indicated that learning eikaiwa is a
hobby. For instance, Akio mentioned that learning English is one of his hobbies,
including playing tennis, hiking, snowboarding, and traveling abroad. He is a single
34-year-old worker at a warehouse for farm produce and other food products and
takes the intermediate lesson at Fitness Hasu as well as a group lesson held at a
community center. Even though his company deals with imported products, there are
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

no telephone calls from overseas and faxed information in English comes with a
Japanese translation provided by a trading company. Due to long overtime
around
100 hours each month
especially during growing seasons, he feels quite stressed
physically. He is not satisfied with his income either. I asked whether he is learning
English to obtain a better job. He responded:

I think its a stretch. Using English at work is not realistic for me, and my English isnt
that great anyway. . . its like a hobby, like it can be useful when I travel abroad.2
When I asked Akio why he began learning eikaiwa, he was unable to answer right
away. After thinking for a while, he talked about the great sense of admiration he felt
for bilingual Japanese co-workers at his previous temporary job at a TV station in
Tokyo. He was impressed because they were speaking English so naturally and
fluently. Akio expressed explicit akogare [desire/longing] to be like Japanese people,
including celebrities, who are fluent speakers of English, and a desire to be like them.
Yet, his primary motive for learning English is not for getting a better job. For Akio,
the impetus to learn English seems to be linked to his desire to be part of the
imagined circle of English speakers.

The Koalas and Tae

The hobbyist perspective also emerged when I talked with the members of the
Koalas, an eikaiwa group that meets every Wednesday morning. During a brief group
interview after class involving five women and two men, they expressed that they
come to lessons for fun, communicating/socializing with classmates, and staying
mentally active (preventing dementia in one male retirees word). Some students
mentioned that there is almost no opportunity or need to use English once they leave
the classroom and the lessons provide the opportunity to stay in touch with English.
One member, Tae, a 46-year-old married woman who owns her own juku or after-
school cram tutorials for children, commented in an interview individually
conducted a few days later that language learning is fun
its not so much about
learning but about enjoying the group activity. She further commented:

Even if you skip one lesson, its not a burden at all. I like the relaxed aspect. . . . The
teacher says, You may do your homework, and no one does it. Its that casual. We go
out to have lunch after class and its fun. Thats what keeps me going. If you really want
 480 R. Kubota

to learn, you can go abroad or go to eikaiwa gakko. . . . Our previous teacher was strict.
He brought difficult handouts that no one could follow. He even corrected our
pronunciation. As we get older, we feel discouraged if were corrected too much.
For Tae, learning eikaiwa is associated with the enjoyment of participating and
socializing with fellow learners. It is indeed leisure. In this context, the aspect of
language acquisition is downplayed and arduous mental work, such as memorization
and practice, is avoided.
Although some learners whom I interviewed were more serious than others,
with a clearer purpose of learning (e.g., developing mainly listening skills for
traveling abroad or conquering the world as the major hobby), many were unable to
articulate their clear purpose of learning eikaiwa. The way many adults learn eikaiwa
did not seem to involve a great amount of ambition or intellectual effort, making the
act of learning closer to casual, rather than serious, leisure.
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

Empty learning: consuming for enjoyment

Enjoyment as the primary focus of learning eikaiwa creates a particular context
where simply being present and socializing with the teacher and fellow students,
rather than learning language skills, in and of itself provides fulfillment. This seems
to partially explain the minimum use of the target language in the classroom,
especially among beginning-level learners as described earlier. Often times, Japanese
predominates learners utterances which are understood by peers and the bilingual
instructor, creating interaction. These learners choose to pay for lessons, and yet
what seems to take place is sociable conversation rather than language learning or
language development (Spada and Lightbown 2008) leading to dynamic changes in
language competency.
Not having the sense of linguistic development, partly due to low pressure and
low communicative urgency in daily life, leads some learners to feel disillusioned and
eventually stop taking lessons, while others continue to consume eikaiwa services,
seeking enjoyment or out of fear of completely losing touch with English unless they
do. For some learners, learning eikaiwa is transient in nature, just like many casual
leisure activities are.
This short-lived engagement in eikaiwa reflect the imagined nature of social
inclusion in which learners seek to be included in the exotic world of English
speakers, which often turns out to be illusionary. The lack of opportunity to use
English in everyday life further reinforces the exoticism of the space created by
eikaiwa lessons and generates linguistic and cultural fantasies, thereby enhancing
learners desire to enjoy the ambience.
In this context, learners are exposed to unfamiliar information such as culture in
English-speaking countries and personal experiences recounted by the teacher.
However, the topics of discussion are often restricted to concrete superficial
information, which seems to further arouse the learners fantasy without any social
or cultural critiques.3
In sum, for many participants learning eikaiwa is a hobby. This fits the leisure
perspective
leaning more toward casual than serious leisure
in which learners
enjoy the activity through socializing with like-minded people and being exposed to
an exotic English-speaking space removed from daily work or family life. Developing
linguistic skills as an investment to increase cultural capital is not their primary
concern. These learners engagement in the activity can be described as consuming
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 481

the service for enjoyment and pleasure. Some learners at major eikaiwa gakko might
be more serious learners because of a greater monetary commitment. Yet, as
discussed later, this may not be the case. In the next section, I present another aspect
of the exotic fantasy space
romantic desire.

Language learning as romantic akogare

Previous studies have identified Japanese womens akogare for English, Western
culture, and white men (Bailey 2002; Kelsky 2001; Piller and Takahashi 2006;
Takahashi 2006). These studies highlight how the oppressive social conditions for
Japanese women in Japan compel them to seek a better life. They particularly
highlight Japanese womens desire to have white male partners, who are constructed
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

as more chivalrous, romantic, and sophisticated than Japanese men. This study,
however, found that English-related romantic akogare as part of social inclusion
fantasy was directly expressed by only a few women, indicating the sensitive and
personal nature of the topic, and that it was also felt by a man in a slightly different
way. In what follows, I will describe how romantic akogare was directly and indirectly
expressed by Yayoi and Miki, women learners at Fitness Hasu. This is contrasted by
the subjectivity of Misaki, a learner at BEONE. The case of Yasuo demonstrates how
romantic akogare attached to learning eikaiwa is held by a man and how he, as an
owner of a small eikaiwa business, struggles to deal with akogare among his female
clients.

Women at Fitness Hasu

Both Yayoi (age 46, separated from her husband) and Miki (age 36, single) learn
eikaiwa at Fitness Hasu. Both have been working full-time at different accounting
offices since they graduated from high school. The following exchange took place
during my first informal interview with them:

Yayoi: Maybe I just wanted to be able to speak [English]. But I used to have akogare
for living abroad. Just an ordinary life. Maybe in Hawaii [laugh].
Author: Why Hawaii?
Yayoi: I think its safe, its got good public safety, and its a resort... I think mainly
the image of being safe.
Author: You just want to go there and live?
Yayoi: Yes, I want to live and work. And I want to have a hafu [half-blood] child.
Author: Huh?
Yayoi: I want to have a hafu child.
Author: Why?
Yayoi: Because foreign kids are cute, dont you think? I want to raise a kid
bilingually.
Miki: Are you serious?
Yayoi: Yes, honestly Ive wanted to marry a gaikokujin [foreigner] for a long time.
Like Miki, I wondered if Yayoi was serious when she mentioned marrying a foreigner
and having a hafu child. On other occasions, Yayoi expressed the same desire and the
image of American men as loving and caring. Here, the visual image attached to
gaikokujin (foreigner) is quite specific. I asked Yayoi what eye and skin colors she
would associate with the word gaijin.
 482 R. Kubota

Yayoi: Well, whos the person on Eigo de shabera night [You must speak English

a popular TV variety show for learning English]? . . .Pakkun [Patrick Harlan

an American-born white male comedian]. That kind of image, I think.
Author: Then a white person?
Yayoi: Yeah. I wonder about Bobby [Bobby Ologun, a Nigerian-born celebrity in
Japan].
Author: Bobby?
Yayoi: Do you know Bobby? A black man. Skin color. . .? . . . Do you like Richard
Gere? Richard Gere is cool. He was in Shall we dance.
The image of gaijin is obviously that of white people. Black imagery was invoked,
when whiteness was hinted. However, Yayois thought quickly reverted to the image
of a white celebrity.
As mentioned, Yayoi often expressed her desire to have a hafu (half-blood, or
mixed race) child. The word hafu invokes an image of Japanese and Caucasian mixed
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

race or Euroasian imagery. Yet, Yayois desire is unrealistic
it is only located in a

fantasy world. Her idea of living in Hawaii is equally unreal. On another occasion,
I asked Yayoi and Miki whether they were learning English to go abroad. They
responded:

Yayoi and Miki: No.

Yayoi: I like being home the best. You can meet a foreigner in Japan and
become friends, and then youd want to visit that person, right? The
problem is I dont make foreign friends in Japan.

For Yayoi, maintaining her work and personal life in Japan is comfortable. Learning
English has little to do with realistic plans to travel, live, or work abroad. Instead, it
creates a fantasy world, in which she imagines a different self with a white partner
and a bilingual hafu child. All in all, Yayois participation in eikaiwa seems to be an
act of consumption for seeking pleasure and fantasy of being part of an imagined
English-speaking community with a white man.
A few months later, Yayoi stopped attending eikaiwa lessons. I saw her a few
times after that. It is not clear exactly why she discontinued, but she was not
apparently satisfied with her progress and did not find any clear purpose for learning.
In the meantime, she enjoys other leisure activities such as playing tennis and golf,
which perhaps provides her with a stronger sense of being socially included.

Misaki
Misaki (age 28) was the only participant learning at a franchised eikaiwa gakko. She
contacted me after seeing a recruitment flyer at the local branch of BEONE. Misaki
struck me as polite, mature, and hardworking; she was described as majime [serious]
by Yumiko, her co-worker (see below). She used to work as a secretary at a major
manufacturing company near Hasu but had resigned to pursue her dream of
becoming an English teacher for children by studying English at BEONE. She aimed
to score 730 on TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) in order
to receive a teaching certificate issued by a nonprofit organization. In her case,
learning English was clearly not for leisure but for career investment. Her case is
ironic because she expressed no akogare for white men and yet she married one, and
because the professional community in which she was eventually included positioned
her as an inferior racialized nonnative-speaking English teacher.
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 483

During my first interview with her, Misaki disclosed that she was going to marry
a white American teacher at BEONE in a few months. However, when I mentioned
to her that some Japanese women have a desire for having hafu children, she looked
irritated and stated that she had never wanted her partner to be from a certain
country. Yet, she said:

Sometimes, I mention about my fiance or update my personal news, and my friends say
Im envious that my partner is American. . . . Thats probably because Japanese men
are clumsy in treating women. But I think it depends. . . . Foreign men with more refined
demeanor probably appeal better. That cant be helped.
In a later interview, Misaki commented that when she hears Im envious, she feels as
though her husband is viewed as a commodity. When I mentioned about some
women yearning for white partners described in previous research, Misaki said,
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

Thats sad. Please report that not everyone is like them.

Misaki admitted that she used to have general akogare for England or America as
advanced places as she was growing up, but her later akogare seems to be more
toward speaking English fluently with English speakers. Like Akio, she was inspired
by a male ex-colleague who was able to talk about politics fluently with an American
client. Native speakers are not privileged in her narrative; instead a great respect is
expressed for Japanese teachers of English at her junior high school and BEONE.
Furthermore, Misakis narratives contain her cosmopolitan interest in and respect
for diverse people and languages.
Learning English for Misaki is an investment into her professional development
rather than consumption and leisure. Romantic akogare exists discursively as
described by previous studies, but its relation to womens lives is certainly not
uniform.
Misaki indeed achieved her goal; she obtained a teaching certificate and a part-
time teaching job at an English-medium daycare for young children. Yet, her new job
was caught up with mothers desire for native-speaking teachers. Furthermore, her
job paid only about 750 per hour (compared to 1,500 for native English-speaking
teachers), which is close to the minimum wage. Her monthly income decreased to one
third of what she used to earn. Although Misaki fulfilled her dream, her investment
into English-related work ironically ended up in an economic disadvantage for her.
In the eikaiwa world, social inclusion even in a pragmatic sense is caught in racial and
linguistic hierarchies, making the inclusion illusive.

Yasuo
Romantic akogare related to learning English is relevant to not only women but also
men. Yasuo is a 53-year-old single man who runs a small English program for
children and adults near Hasu. After graduating from a prestigious university in
Tokyo, he worked for a company in a city near Hasu as an engineer. He began
learning English when he was 25 out of necessity to communicate technical content
with visitors from the United States. However, due to corporate downsizing, he was
laid off after 22 years. He opened his own eikaiwa business five years prior to my
research, seeking more human interaction which was lacking in his previous career.
He employed two native speakers of English part-time and he himself taught English
grammar to teenaged students. At one point, he had as many as 125 students
both
 484 R. Kubota

adults and children
but the number began to decline. He suspected that this was
due to the unpopularity of one of the teachers.
Yasuo talked quite openly about his past companionship with a Filipina hostess
at a pub which he used to visit to seek human interaction. When he met her, he was
30 and she was 27. She was a stunningly beautiful Chinese-Filipina, like a pretty
Japanese girl and spoke English. Wanting to communicate with her added to his
motivation to learn English. Cultural difference (e.g. carrying a booklet with the
words of Jesus Christ) was also fascinating to him. Recounting his experience of
taking her to a church to listen to a French pastors sermon in English, he said:

Thats my sweet memory. . . . I learned English hard. English is not for using only with
Americans and British people but its an international language, isnt it?

His experience demonstrates how romantic desire can become a strong motivation
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

for language learning regardless of the gender or race of the parties involved.
Although Yasuos initial motivation to learn English is described as an investment
for professional development, his desire to communicate in English with the Filipina
woman was much more intimate and personal, located in the pursuit of emotional
fulfillment, human connection, and romantic akogare.
Yet, the romantic aspect of eikaiwa that draws more women than men to his
business surfaced quite often during my conversations with Yasuo. Asked whether
women who take eikaiwa lessons are attracted to white men, Yasuo responded:

Yes, I think so. . . . This is really sad, but I cant attract students unless I have white
teachers. After all, they prefer white teachers.

Yasuo found it difficult to recruit teachers who were intelligent, equipped with good
work ethics, and able to interact with both adults and children. Survival of a small
eikaiwa gakko like his entirely depends on teacher quality: if teachers unattractive,
students quit. Yasuo hired a biracial Japanese-British female teacher, who turned out
to be extremely competent, but he commented:

But the only problem is, if the teacher is a woman and her face looks like Japanese, then
my female students . . . you see? This business is weird. Its like a host club (a nightclub
with male hosts for female customers). There are quite a few women in their late 20s
who continue to take lessons for years. They are single . . . They are not particularly
eager to study, and to be honest, they dont make any progress, but they dont quit.
I think they like to come to see a young foreign man. I cant think of any other reason,
do you?

Yasuo had a couple of serious female students. However, he finds that for most
women learners, language learning is not their primary goal. He commented jokingly:

So I think this business is one third mizushobai [nighttime entertainment business] or a

host club. . . . Perhaps Japanese people have an inferiority complex or akogare for white
people. I dont, though.

Although only a few women in this study explicitly expressed romantic akogare for
white English speakers, Yasuos observations as a business owner demonstrate that
akogare among Japanese women is a key aspect of the consumption of eikaiwa
learning as a leisure activity. Indeed, learning English is, to quote Yasuo, to
experience an atmosphere thats a bit different from everyday life
or to consume
the enjoyment of being included in an English-speaking world. Learning English in
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 485

this context is indeed a casual leisure activity and an act of consumption, in which
learners consume commodified English and whiteness for pleasure and enjoyment,
thereby seeking social inclusion in immediate and fantasy communities.

Commodified eikaiwa, whiteness, and native speakers for consumption

Students come to eikaiwa lessons with varied goals and expectations but many are
attracted to elements that are not directly related to linguistic development (e.g.
romantic desire, socializing with the teacher and classmates, or making English-
speaking friends). Interviews with other service providers shed light on the
commodified nature of eikaiwa in which learning is trivialized for profit and the
cool image of white native speakers is exploited and consumed with a sense of being
included in an English-speaking world.
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

Makoto is a 40-year-old former teacher at a small franchised eikaiwa gakko in

Tokyo. He commented that the primary concern of major eikaiwa businesses is to
make money rather than help learners develop English skills, thereby exploiting the
clients dreams of social inclusion in the eikaiwa wonderland. The structure of the
curriculum and payment system exemplifies this. As in other eikaiwa gakko, his
former employer offered lessons that are independent from each other, allowing
students to take them any time. This provides no continuity of instruction and no
homework is assigned. The institute also adopts an advanced payment system, which
makes customers buy tickets for lessons with a sliding discount for larger quantities.
The tickets expire after a certain period of time. This system is quite profitable,
because many learners, especially men who work long hours, often drop out; they
do not request for a refund because it is only a partial refund, the paperwork is
cumbersome, and they feel embarrassed about failing to continue.
In the eikaiwa world, a white native speaker becomes an attractive commodity to
lure clients and an object of consumption. Although the diversity of eikaiwa teachers
has increased in recent years, the superiority of whiteness and native speakers in
peoples consciousness still remains. Yumiko is a 37-year-old teacher and the
manager of the franchised English-medium daycare and English program for young
children where Misaki obtained her first teaching job. Yumiko observed that mothers
who showed pejorative attitudes toward a former black American male teacher
became coy and gracious with a new white American male teacher. As a new
instructor, Misaki also observed that the mothers made sure that their childs teacher
was a native speaker of English.
Community-based eikaiwa groups and lessons offered by church organizations
do not operate for profit. Nonetheless, almost all the teachers who teach in these
settings in Hasu are white native speakers of English. While the commodified image
of white native speakers is produced and exploited in profit-making eikaiwa
businesses, it circulates as a discursive construct in these settings too, constituting
part of the social imaginary of eikaiwa world
an imagined community of English
speakers which the learners enjoy visiting once every week. As the narratives of Akio
and Misaki indicate, akogare is felt toward not only white native speakers of English
but also Japanese people who are fluent in English and thus able to interact with
native speakers in this imagined community.
As discussed, learning eikaiwa can be viewed as leisure and consumption of
service to experience pleasure and enjoyment of being included in an imagined
English-speaking world. This might explain why learning eikaiwa is often a
 486 R. Kubota

temporary activity. For many learners, like Yayoi and Miki, learning English is a
temporary pastime in nature, fulfilling their emotional needs or curiosities that are
momentary and short-lived and yet recurring
similar to playing sports or engaging
in hobbies.
Teaching and learning eikaiwa in Japan is a commercialized activity built on the
commodification of English, whiteness, Western culture, and native speakers
constructed as superior, cool, exotic, or desirable. While these constructs are
privileged in advertisements, pop culture, and other media, not every learner is
affected by these discourses in the same way. Learners bring different subjectivities to
eikaiwa lessons; while some fit the traditional learner profile of investing in learning
for professional advancement, others simply consume the service and commodities to
take pleasure in a fantasy world or to enjoy socializing with peers. However, as
Misakis case indicates, even professional aspirations may only lead to an illusionary
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

inclusion in a professional community in the commodified eikaiwa world.

Discussion
Language learning is typically associated with skills development for increasing
cultural capital to access mainstream social, cultural, and economic resources. This
especially applies to second language learners for whom social inclusion usually
constitutes an immediate need. It is also relevant to some learners of eikaiwa, such as
Misaki, who seek career development or upward socioeconomic mobility in the
globalized work place. However, for other learners, learning eikaiwa is unrelated to
socioeconomic inclusion
it is more about enjoyment, pleasure, and fantasy, which
constitute core features of leisure. In the latter case, the notion of inclusion is more
relevant to the desire to socialize with peers and a foreign instructor and to belong to
an imagined community
a captivating space removed from learners daily life filled
with exotic sounds, words, culture, and a person with different facial features and
skin color.
Referring to formal language education that takes place in schools and
universities, Kramsch (2009) identified students desire in language learning as
indexing human emotions, joys, fantasies, and dreams beyond communicative
success or professional benefit. This dimension beyond skills development is quite
prominent in learning eikaiwa. In fact, very little learning takes place, if learning is
defined in traditional psychological terms. Maintaining, rather than developing, the
knowledge and skills might be of utmost importance for some learners. In general,
some stay at the same level of proficiency and yet still continue taking lessons. This is
precisely because of the sense of pleasure, joy, and fantasy that the eikaiwa leisure
activity provides. In this sense, participation, rather than learning, more accurately
describe what these learners engage in.
Learning eikaiwa for leisure seems to be more related to the notion of
consumption than investment. It is an activity in which English, whiteness, and
native speakers are commodified and consumed. The eikaiwa industry capitalizes on
this economic scheme and further reproduces the discourse that privileges these
linguistic and racial categories as valuable commodities. As a sales-woman at a
franchised eikaiwa gakko in Tokyo who gave me a quick tour of tutorial cubicles said
to me, Its so rare to sit so closely with a foreigner, isnt it?, white native speakers are
constructed as an exotic icon to be consumed. Positioned next to this icon are
bilingual Japanese people as a target of akogare. Yet, consumers are not influenced
 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 487

by this social imaginary in a homogeneous way
they have diverse subjectivities and
participate in eikaiwa in different ways (Kubota and McKay 2009). In other words,
the interplay between racial, cultural, and linguistic ideologies in language learning
and individual subjectivities are not monolithic.
In conducting this research, I constantly faced some vexing questions of
pedagogy: If learning does not really matter, why should I pay attention to this
context as a focus of scholarly inquiry? Why should I problematize leisure that
provides personal benefits of enjoyment? How would my research contribute to
critical reflection and action for social transformation? For second language
specialists, teaching and learning a language outside of educational institutions
seem beyond their reach in terms of improving curriculum, instruction, and
materials. In community-based eikaiwa lessons, the selection of the teacher and
material is entirely based on the desires of the learners or the service provider. For
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

large franchised eikaiwa businesses, making profits drives curricular and hiring
decisions. In both cases, instructional effectiveness for linguistic and intellectual
development seems irrelevant. However, if the consumers become more critical about
the quality of the service that they receive, it is possible to change the status quo. For
instance, learners with critical awareness about the racial and linguistic biases that
eikaiwa promotes might demand a different type of service. Thus, it seems vitally
important to address, within the context of formal education, sociopolitical aspects
of language learning to raise students critical language awareness (Alim 2005).
However, as this study shows, eikaiwa taught by white native speakers provides
some people with personal benefits of enjoyment, fantasy, and socializing, which
might be vital to them at a certain point of their life trajectory. Striving to belong to
an imagined English-speaking community brings hope and refuge to others. Can we
deny these benefits and aspirations as complicit with linguistic imperialism and try to
alter them? If, at this difficult economic climate, a small eikaiwa business owner like
Yasuo is struggling to survive, what would be our professional advice for him?
The inseparable relation among language learning, consumption of pleasure, and the
economic system of our society poses more questions than answers.

Acknowledgements
I thank the Japan Foundation for funding this research project.

Notes
1. All names are pseudonyms.
2. All interviews were conducted in Japanese; what is presented is my translation.
3. Other eikaiwa groups may discuss controversial issues.

References
Alim, H.S. 2005. Critical language awareness in the United States: Revisiting issues and
revising pedagogies in a resegregated society. Educational Researcher 34, no. 7: 24
31.
Anderson, B. 2006. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.
London: Verso.
Bailey, K.D. 2002. Living in the eikaiwa wonderland: English language learning, socioeconomic
transformation and gender alterities in modern Japan. PhD diss., University of Kentucky.
Graddol, D. 2006. English next: Why global English may mean the end of English as a Foreign
Language. London: British Council.
 488 R. Kubota

Grin, F. 2001. English as economic value: Facts and fallacies. World Englishes 20: 65
78.
Kanno, Y., and B. Norton. 2003. Imagined communities and educational possibilities:
Introduction. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 2: 241
9.
Kelsky, K. 2001. Women on the verge: Japanese women, Western dreams. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Kobayashi, Y. 2007. Japanese working women and English study abroad. World Englishes 26:
62
71.
Kramsch, C. 2009. The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kubota, R. 2011. Questioning linguistic instrumentalism: English, neoliberalism, and
language tests in Japan. Linguistics and Education, DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2011.02.002
Kubota, R., and S. McKay. 2009. Globalization and language learning in rural Japan: The role
of English in the local linguistic ecology. TESOL Quarterly 43: 593
619.
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. 2006. Heisei 17 nen tokutei sabisu sangyo jittai
chosa: Gaikokugo kaiwa kyoshitsu hen [2005 survey of specific service industry: Foreign
language conversation class]. Tokyo: Keizai sangyo sho keizai sangyo seisaku kyoku chosa
tokeibu [Research and Statistics Department, Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau,
Downloaded by [University of Pennsylvania] at 14:44 07 May 2014

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry].

Nino-Murcia, M. 2003. English is like a dollar: Hard currency ideology and the status of
English in Peru. World Englishes 22: 123
43.
Norton, B. 2000. Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change.
London: Longman/Pearson Education.
Park, J.S.-Y. 2011. The promise of English: Linguistic capital and the neoliberal worker in the
South Korean job market. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
14, no. 4: 443
55.
Pavlenko, A., and B. Norton. 2007. Imagined communities, identity, and English language
teaching. In International handbook of English language teaching, ed. J. Cummins and
C. Davison, 669
80. New York: Springer.
Peirce, B.N. 1995. Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly 29:
9
31.
Phillipson, R. 2009. Linguistic imperialism continued. New York: Routledge.
Piller, I. Forthcoming. Multilingualism and social exclusion. In Handbook of multilingualism,
ed. M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge, and A. Creese. London: Routledge.
Piller, I., and K. Takahashi. 2006. A passion for English: Desire and the language market. In
Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression and representation, ed. A. Pavlenko,
59
83. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Piller, I., K. Takahashi, and Y. Watanabe. 2010. The dark side of TESOL: The hidden costs of
the consumption of English. Cross-Cultural Studies 20: 183
201.
Rizvi, F. 2007. Lifelong learning: Beyond neo-liberal imaginary. In Philosophical perspectives
on lifelong learning, ed. D.N. Aspin, 114
30. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Rojek, C. 2005. Leisure theory: Principles and practice. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ryan, S. 2006. Language learning motivation within the context of globalization: An L2 self
within an imagined global community. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 3: 23
45.
Spada, N., and P.M. Lightbown. 2008. Form-focused instruction: Isolated or integrated?
TESOL Quarterly 42: 181
207.
Stebbins, R.A. 1997. Casual leisure: A conceptual statement. Leisure Studies 16: 17
25.
Stebbins, R.A. 2007. Serious leisure: A perspective of our time. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Publishers.
Takahashi, K. 2006. Language desire: A critical ethnography of Japanese women learning
English in Australia. PhD diss., University of Sydney.
Taylor, C. 2004. Modern social imaginaries. Durham, NC: Durham University Press.
Yates, L. 2011. Interaction, language learning and social inclusion in early settlement.
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 14, no. 4: 457
71.