The following is my essay that I wrote as an assignment for an English school AEON:

Topic: School trips
Style: Casual

I like travelling, but I am not a fan of school trip in general. The biggest reason is cost. The average amount of a school trip in junior high schools in Japan is around 63,000 Yen ($600), while that a high school trip is around 100,000 Yen ($910). They are rather fair amount of money, and in public schools, there are some students who cannot join a school trip because their parents cannot afford it.
Secondly, it is almost annoying for me to see many students in the same uniform (usually all black) in some famous sight-seeing spots. Students are not soldiers, so I do not understand why schools train them to act in the same way even outside the schools.
Such students who experienced school trips, may choose packaged tours when they want to visit foreign countries even after they started to work. I have many experiences of travelling in foreign countries both on business and in private, but I have never ever used such package tours. Planning and arranging a trip is one of the essential parts of a travel, IMHO. For example, when I travelled to Italy in May in 2018, I first tried to book the flights by comparing charges of different flight companies. Then I booked an opera at the theater Scala in Milan, which was the biggest purpose of the trip. I also booked tours to some famous museums in Italy. Then I booked inland transportation, both a flight and trains. I booked trains at the TRENITALLIA’s site. Finally, I booked hotels on the Internet using a service of called booking.com. All these tasks are important parts of a travel for me, and I do not want to leave them to others.
Travelling in a big group may lessen the chance to communicate with local people and to use local languages.
I would like to suggest schools in Japan to adopt a new way of travelling for their students: to let their students travel alone. The budget for the trip is predetermined. Students must select some appropriate ways of transportation within the budget by themselves. They also select the destinations by themselves as well. After they have finished their travels, they should write a report for the trip they planned by themselves. In a Japanese saying, it goes that “let your lovely child travel”.

TOEICのS&Wの結果、3連休の後の発表かと思ったら、本日発表されました。結果、スピーキングが-10点の140点、ライティングが-20点の150点で前回よりも30点も下がってしまいました。
この結果はまったくもって納得出来ません。スピーキングに関しては、前回より今回の方がはるかに出来が良かったですし、そのための練習も前回受けた後かなりやっています。またライティングに関しても前回同等以上の感触でした。

前回は低い点にがっかりしましたが、今回はむしろ腹が立ちました。明らかに点数の再現性･客観性がおかしいと思います。調べてみたら、採点するのは一人の試験官であり、一応採点基準はありますが、決して客観的に決められるようなものではなく、おそらく採点者によるバラツキが大きいのだと思います。（たとえばスポーツの採点みたいに、複数の人間で評価し、最高評価と最低評価を斬り捨て、残りを平均する、なんてことはまずあり得ないと思います。）また受験者も少ないので、採点データとしても多くなく、各採点者の採点レベルの客観性なんてチェックされていないのではないかと思います。

実際に長く海外在住で、奥さんはネイティブなので家でも英語しゃべっていて、仕事でエンジニアのチームのリーダーをやり、また翻訳の仕事をやっている人が、一時帰国した時にS&Wを受けて、点が非常に低かった、という書き込みを見つけました。

念のため、週3回やっているEigoxでの評価はスピーキングに関してはほとんど10段階の8（10が最高でネイティブ上級、9がネイティブ中級、8がネイティブ初級、7がネイティブ入門クラス）です。（スピーキングという意味ではEigox以外に週一回AEONに通ってそこでもディスカッションコースでしゃべっています。つまり週4回です。）

今後の方針としては、
（1）TOEICのスピーキング以外のスピーキングテストを受けてみて、それでどう評価されるかを見る。
（2）TOEICのS&Wの採点基準に特化した話し方、書き方を練習する。

が考えられますが、（2）は本来の目的の英語力の向上という意味では、ある意味不毛で、TOEIC S&Wというほとんど世の中には知られていないテストで高得点を取るためにそんな勉強をするのは時間の浪費と思います。

それから大学受験での英語4技能試験のために、TOEICを使うのって大いに疑問です。L&Rはまだしも、S&Wはそもそも受けている人が非常に少なくてそのため問題の改善もほとんどされていません。更に今回のように採点の客観性･再現性にも疑問を感じます。それに何より出題内容がビジネス寄り過ぎて学生向きではまるでありません。

1月13日に受けたTOEIC L＆Rの結果が出ました。
自己ベスト更新の970点で、リスニングは初めての満点でした！10月に受けた時のリスニングが455点で今回495点ということで、リスニングがいかに水物か良く分かります。（2017年6月にリスニングで480点取った後、英語のTVドラマのDVD･ブルーレイを60分1本として130本以上英語の字幕だけで観てきています。なのでリスニングが480点から455点に下がるというのは明らかに変なのです。）ともかくリスニングでの前回455点のリベンジという目的はパーフェクトに達成されました。リーディングが前回の490点から15点下がったのは、リスニングに集中してちょっと疲れが出たんじゃないかと思います。やはりこの歳（50台後半）で2時間の集中力を維持するのはかなり大変です。

受験時の感想はこちら

年月　　　　　L　　R　　Total
1995年02月　　470　420　895
2014年07月　　430　440　870
2015年06月　　460　455　915
2016年06月　　450　465　915
2017年06月　　480　485　965
2018年10月　　455　490　945
2019年01月　　495　475　970

The following is my essay that I wrote as an assignment for an English school AEON:

Topic: Should smoking be allowed in public places in Japan? Why or why not?
Style: Formal

Regarding this subject, there have been long-lasting controversies between smokers and non-smokers in Japan. Let me marshal points of both sides briefly:

Smokers – smoking should be allowed in public places:
– Smokers are paying a huge amount of tax. The annual amount reaches around 2 Trillion JPY ($18 Billion). Since smokers are contributing a lot to the national budget, they maintain the right to smoke wherever they want.
– Given that drinking alcohol is not prohibited at all in public places in Japan, why should smoking be prohibited? Please note that drinking alcohol in public is strictly prohibited in Australia, for example.
– Nicotine can activate the human brain and increase willingness so that we can prevent depression or other mental disorders and enhance working efficiency.
– Government should not control each individual’s taste. It is the start of fascism since Nazi Germany tried to promote “a healthy empire” by banning smoking.
– Many smokers are now shifting to an electronic cigarette that usually do not harm bystanders.

Non-smokers – smoking should be banned in public places:
– Secondhand smoke contains diversified toxic chemicals that harm bystanders who just breath in the vicinity of smokers.
– In restaurants, the smell of smoke damages the taste of served dishes.
– Smoking increases the risk of fire in public places.
– There might be people who are suffering from asthma or bronchitis in the nearness of smokers.
– Smoking induces many types of diseases including lethal one such as lung cancer so that it increases the cost of our health care insurance system.
– Children or young students might be lured to smoke by seeing some adults are smoking in public spaces.

Both sides have legitimacy in one way or another. It is clear, however, that the number of smokers has been continuously decreasing so that they are becoming a clear minority in Japan. Smokers must be louder in insisting their right otherwise they will lose places to smoke freely more and more.

TOEICのSpeaking & Writingのテストを終了。先週がL&Rで2週続けてのTOEICで中々ハードです。会場は第1回目の受験と同じ、京急川崎駅近くの外語学校です。
今回スピーキングは前回よりはかなりマシで後半の60秒しゃべらないといけない2問も時間が余ることなくむしろ足らない位で、十分しゃべれました。前回つまづいて途中でしどろもどろになった、ある問題を解決する提案は、「オフィスの紙のサプライヤーが突然15%の値上げを通告して来た。予算は決まっていて値上げは受け入れられない、どうしよう」というもので、そんなの社員を集めて相談するような話ではなく、さっさと別の業者を探せばいいだろうと、インターネットの価格比較サイトを使ったら、とか適当に述べて問題無し。最後の問題も問いが何だったか忘れてしまいましたか゛まあまあしゃべれて、点は前回よりは間違いなくいいと思います。
ライティングも大きな問題はありませんでしたが、最後の30分かけてのエッセイでは、最後にある個所をより良い表現に修正しようとしていて、残り時間を見てなくて、修正しきれなくておかしな表現が残ってしまいました。しかしお題は「就職希望者への面接を電話で行うことをどう思うか」で、全部で380語のエッセイ（要求は最低300語ですが、多少長いくらいが点数がいいと言われています）が書け、理由も3つ挙げそれぞれに具体的な例もつけたので、出来は悪くないと思います。
まあトータルでまずますです。今考えると前回の受験は準備不足だったと思います。

第237回のTOEIC L&Rを受けて来ました。通算7回目の受験です。また前回が10月で、こんな短い間隔で受けたのは初めてです。目的は前回のリスニングのリベンジです。今回席が中央の前から2番目というベストポジションで、なおかつ音声の再生機器がいつものラジカセではなく、比較的大きめのスピーカーがついた専用の再生機でした。それもあってか、リスニングはPart 2の問いに対する3択で答えに迷うのが2問ありましたが、公式問題集（2018年10月10日発売の4）のTest 2で非常にトリッキーな問題が出ていたPart 4については今回は比較的平易でした。多分前回よりはいいと思いますが、自己ベストの480に達したかは微妙です。
リーディングも前回とほぼ同じ位の感触で、一応7分ぐらい余して全問解答し、Part 5の30問全部を見なおすことが出来ました。しかし前回は満点の一歩手前の490点だったので今回そこまで取れた自信はありません。
トータルで前回よりはいいと思いますが、自己ベストの965点には多分達していないかな、という感じです。
ちなみに会場は4回目くらいの明大の生田キャンパスです。実はここは戦争中に軍の登戸研究所があった所です。そうです、あの珍兵器の「風船爆弾」を開発した研究所です。もし資料館みたいなものがあるのなら、いつか訪問してみたいです。

237回の結果はこちら

The following is my essay that I wrote as an assignment for an English school AEON:

Topic: How do you feel about working conditions in Japan?
Style: Formal

(Please note that I am entitled to work as a consultant for Labor and Social Security issues since I passed the examination of Sharoshi in 2010. Labor problems are a part of my specialty.)

On December 25, 2015, on Christmas day, Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old lady working at Dentsu, one of the biggest advertising agencies in Japan, committed suicide because of too much time spent working at the company. Such death is called “Karoshi” (overwork death) in Japan. Very surprisingly, this is the second time Dentsu forced one of their employees to commit suicide. The first incident happened in August 1991, and a 24-year-old (the same age as Ms. Takahashi, very coincidentally) man committed suicide because of too much working time (it reached more than 300 hours monthly). The word “Karoshi” was coined because of this former incident and it was the first case that Supreme court acknowledged the responsibility of the company for the management of long working hours expected of its employees. Dentsu eventually paid 168 Million Yen ($1.5 Million) to the bereaved family. That high amount of money, however, was not enough for the company to change the working “culture” in it and it repeated the unhappy incident again 24 years after the first one.
We can see some characteristics in these incidents of Dentsu company:
(1) Working so long is quite normal in the company. There are few people in the company who see the situation abnormal and try to change it.
(2) New hires tend to become victims of this forced long working hours.
(3) It is difficult to see that the company tried to evaluate its employees by their productivity.
Dentsu is just the tip of the big iceberg, and there are tens of thousands of companies who are akin to Dentsu. While many workers are spending so many hours in their offices, the labor productivity in Japan is quite low, alleged to be around two thirds compared to the ones in Germany or in France. It is the lowest among G7 countries.
It took more than 100 years for workers in Europe to win “an 8-hour workday” since Robert Owen first insisted it in 1817. It is crucial for most office workers in Japan to keep good work life balance and to strive for a better ability utilizing free time in order to survive in the era of AI and robots.

The following is an essay that I wrote for an English school AEON as an assignment of writing:

Topic: A person I admire Style: Casual

Hiroshi Orihara, a professor emeritus of the university of Tokyo, is a person I admire and respect. He was born in 1935. He is a famous researcher of the sociology of Max Weber. In 1968, when he was an assistant professor at the Komaba campus of the university of Tokyo, he protested against the university regarding a unwarranted suspension of a student in the literature department and declined to restart lectures for several years. What he criticized harshly at that time was dual attitude of the university’s professors who teach in one side scientific approaches to students and do not follow those scientific principles in another side; in their real lives. (The student of the literature department was suspended by false accusation that he used some violence against a professor which he instigated. But the truth was, the professor tried to drag him out of a room and the fact that he resisted against that was interpreted falsely. Mr. Orihara tried to find the hidden facts by a kind of scientific approach, but the university ignored his protest and the suspension was not changed eventually.)
In his study of Max Weber’s sociology, his main achievement was that he studied Max Weber’s one of main works named “Economy and Society” very precisely spending 10 years and showed one very strong hypotheses for the correct edition. (I joined this study in the first two and half years when I was a university student). In this giant work of Max Weber, there is a famous edition problem. He started to write this book as an inclusive textbook of economics and sociology in 1910. He was forced to stop writing because World War I started in 1914. After the war, he tried to revise the old drafts and also tried to make some additions, but since he suffered from Spanish Flu, he died in 1920 and could not finish the work. After his death, his wife Marianne Weber tried to rearrange the whole drafts based on her own judgement. Her edition was criticized very harshly by some scholars later, and controversies for the correct arrangement of the drafts has been still continuing. Mr. Orihara joined these controversies from Japan and criticized German scholars who edited the complete works of Max Weber, published by Mohr Siebeck.
What I plan in the near future is, to publish “Economy and Society” in the orders based on Mr. Orihara’s hypotheses. (Please note that Max Weber’s copyright expired in 1990.) I have already prepared the web site for this project: https://max-weber.jp/

Since Mr. Orihara is now 83 years old, I must be hurry.