(no subject)
May. 5th, 2012 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arishaSo it seems that everyone who comes to Japan as an ALT and has at least a little interest in the way languages are taught will go through a process of being frustrated by various parts of the way English is taught here. I personally am finding myself pretty frustrated by things that I knew about years before I came here as an ALT, but I guess even with those there's a process of seeing them in real life and realizing how detrimental they are to the teaching of English as a living, spoken language. Examples of things that I have been frustrated by:
- like 90% of the language used in class is Japanese, even in situations where simple English could be used instead
- katakana as a pronunciation guide no no no no no
- that time the third grade teacher brought me in to teach the kids romaji, except it was a system where ち is "ti" and the teacher said I couldn't teach it differently. Oh yeah I love being asked to teach the alphabet WRONG.
- the teacher showing the kids how to write the alphabet and telling them that if you write the "w" with rounded instead of straight lines it's wrong. YOU GUYS WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME THAT! I'VE BEEN WRITING ROUNDED "W"S FOR YEARRRRRS
- my junior high students are never asked to produce their own sentences. wtffffffff. All they do in their workbooks is copy words and sentences from the textbook. All they do on their worksheets is put given words in the right order. All they do when they have to make skits is add a couple "I see"s or "That's nice"s to the conversations from the textbook. When I told one of my JTEs that in my middle school and high school French classes we had to make up our own conversations from scratch all the time, she was surprised. You guys I cannot even begin to explain how messed up this is. No wonder I only have a few students in each grade who can handle the idea that there is more than one potential response to "How are you?"
- so I know MEXT wants English classes to encourage students to think about and be proud of their own culture, but I find it very difficult to wrap my head around that. Yes, of course I think Japanese kids should be interested in and proud of their own culture, and I can maybe see them becoming interested in their own culture through learning about a different culture, but Japanese culture is given SO MUCH PROMINENCE in the English textbooks that it blows my mind. I've never seen a Japanese language textbook that took place primarily in an English-speaking country, and any French or Spanish textbooks I've seen that featured chapters about Canada or the U.S. would be focused on areas where French or Spanish was the primary language. Meanwhile, every English textbook I've used in my schools has taken place primarily in Japan, most of the characters have been Japanese, most of the famous people discussed have been Japanese, most of the stories have been about Japan, the months are taught with pictures representing Japanese holidays ... my absolute least favourite part of the New Horizon textbooks was the paragraph on a famous shamisen player, written entirely in Japanese. WHAT ON EARTH is a paragraph in Japanese about a Japanese person playing a Japanese instrument doing IN AN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK??? I just CANNOT EVEN.
Anyway uh I didn't mean to get into any of that. I wanted instead to post about two recent happenings that have stood out in my mind because of how much they made me realize that the way English is taught in Japan is very, very different from the way a foreign language would be taught in Canada (and probably many other countries as well):
One! I went to a meeting for all of the teachers in my town at which we were separated into smaller groups based on what subject we taught. My JTE wasn't there, but I had a very short conversation in English with another JTE as we walked to the room. That was the last English I heard for the rest of the meeting. In the room was me and four junior high JTEs, and they all spoke Japanese the entire time. I confess I can't remember what language my high school language teachers spoke to each other, but I definitely remember seeing my middle school French teachers walking down the hallway speaking French. And no, they weren't all native speakers. Maybe I'm reading the situation completely the wrong way, but this meeting made me feel quite strongly that these teachers didn't necessarily see English as a living language, as something to be spoken and used for communication. That maybe they didn't become English teachers becaused they enjoyed using English, but because they wanted to be teachers and English was a subject they could teach. After thinking way too much about this meeting I guess I started to come to the realization that - in general - when you study a language in Canada, you hope to be able to speak that language. But when you study a language in Japan, you hope to pass a class.
Two! I have been really surprised by the tiny amount of time the JTEs I have met have spent overseas. One of my JTEs lived in California for six years as a child (and spent several months in Brazil as an adult), but the rest of them have spent maybe two weeks in the U.S. and that's it. That's it!! I'm not saying you have to travel in order to learn a language - we had an amazing speaker at mid-year who learned English entirely in Japan, and his English was FANTASTIC - but I do think it often helps, and I definitely think it helps you to learn about the culture of the places where the language is spoken. I guess this ties in to the above point ... I mean, surely if these teachers really enjoyed English, they would have travelled more? My new JTE told me she never even reads the English at Tokyo Disney. I have been told by a couple Japanese people that when they see English text they don't even really see it, but I thought that someone whose job was teaching English would at least attempt to read some of it. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, since as soon as she was told I knew some Japanese she pretty much stopped speaking English to me. :/
Anyway, anyway, the happening that made me think about all this was the following:
JTE: "Do you go to the church in _____ every Sunday?"
Me: "No, I've never been."
JTE: "Aren't you a Christian?"
Me: "Nope."
At the time I was more interested in finishing my lunch before the bell rang than I was in discussing religion, but looking back I really wish I had explored that question. Why did she assume I was Christian? Because I speak English? Because I'm white? Because I'm from North America? The more I think about this the more frustrated I get. I mean, if the person in charge of teaching English to an entire junior high school is for whatever reason under the belief that every native speaker of English is a Christian, then we have A Problem.
- like 90% of the language used in class is Japanese, even in situations where simple English could be used instead
- katakana as a pronunciation guide no no no no no
- that time the third grade teacher brought me in to teach the kids romaji, except it was a system where ち is "ti" and the teacher said I couldn't teach it differently. Oh yeah I love being asked to teach the alphabet WRONG.
- the teacher showing the kids how to write the alphabet and telling them that if you write the "w" with rounded instead of straight lines it's wrong. YOU GUYS WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME THAT! I'VE BEEN WRITING ROUNDED "W"S FOR YEARRRRRS
- my junior high students are never asked to produce their own sentences. wtffffffff. All they do in their workbooks is copy words and sentences from the textbook. All they do on their worksheets is put given words in the right order. All they do when they have to make skits is add a couple "I see"s or "That's nice"s to the conversations from the textbook. When I told one of my JTEs that in my middle school and high school French classes we had to make up our own conversations from scratch all the time, she was surprised. You guys I cannot even begin to explain how messed up this is. No wonder I only have a few students in each grade who can handle the idea that there is more than one potential response to "How are you?"
- so I know MEXT wants English classes to encourage students to think about and be proud of their own culture, but I find it very difficult to wrap my head around that. Yes, of course I think Japanese kids should be interested in and proud of their own culture, and I can maybe see them becoming interested in their own culture through learning about a different culture, but Japanese culture is given SO MUCH PROMINENCE in the English textbooks that it blows my mind. I've never seen a Japanese language textbook that took place primarily in an English-speaking country, and any French or Spanish textbooks I've seen that featured chapters about Canada or the U.S. would be focused on areas where French or Spanish was the primary language. Meanwhile, every English textbook I've used in my schools has taken place primarily in Japan, most of the characters have been Japanese, most of the famous people discussed have been Japanese, most of the stories have been about Japan, the months are taught with pictures representing Japanese holidays ... my absolute least favourite part of the New Horizon textbooks was the paragraph on a famous shamisen player, written entirely in Japanese. WHAT ON EARTH is a paragraph in Japanese about a Japanese person playing a Japanese instrument doing IN AN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK??? I just CANNOT EVEN.
Anyway uh I didn't mean to get into any of that. I wanted instead to post about two recent happenings that have stood out in my mind because of how much they made me realize that the way English is taught in Japan is very, very different from the way a foreign language would be taught in Canada (and probably many other countries as well):
One! I went to a meeting for all of the teachers in my town at which we were separated into smaller groups based on what subject we taught. My JTE wasn't there, but I had a very short conversation in English with another JTE as we walked to the room. That was the last English I heard for the rest of the meeting. In the room was me and four junior high JTEs, and they all spoke Japanese the entire time. I confess I can't remember what language my high school language teachers spoke to each other, but I definitely remember seeing my middle school French teachers walking down the hallway speaking French. And no, they weren't all native speakers. Maybe I'm reading the situation completely the wrong way, but this meeting made me feel quite strongly that these teachers didn't necessarily see English as a living language, as something to be spoken and used for communication. That maybe they didn't become English teachers becaused they enjoyed using English, but because they wanted to be teachers and English was a subject they could teach. After thinking way too much about this meeting I guess I started to come to the realization that - in general - when you study a language in Canada, you hope to be able to speak that language. But when you study a language in Japan, you hope to pass a class.
Two! I have been really surprised by the tiny amount of time the JTEs I have met have spent overseas. One of my JTEs lived in California for six years as a child (and spent several months in Brazil as an adult), but the rest of them have spent maybe two weeks in the U.S. and that's it. That's it!! I'm not saying you have to travel in order to learn a language - we had an amazing speaker at mid-year who learned English entirely in Japan, and his English was FANTASTIC - but I do think it often helps, and I definitely think it helps you to learn about the culture of the places where the language is spoken. I guess this ties in to the above point ... I mean, surely if these teachers really enjoyed English, they would have travelled more? My new JTE told me she never even reads the English at Tokyo Disney. I have been told by a couple Japanese people that when they see English text they don't even really see it, but I thought that someone whose job was teaching English would at least attempt to read some of it. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, since as soon as she was told I knew some Japanese she pretty much stopped speaking English to me. :/
Anyway, anyway, the happening that made me think about all this was the following:
JTE: "Do you go to the church in _____ every Sunday?"
Me: "No, I've never been."
JTE: "Aren't you a Christian?"
Me: "Nope."
At the time I was more interested in finishing my lunch before the bell rang than I was in discussing religion, but looking back I really wish I had explored that question. Why did she assume I was Christian? Because I speak English? Because I'm white? Because I'm from North America? The more I think about this the more frustrated I get. I mean, if the person in charge of teaching English to an entire junior high school is for whatever reason under the belief that every native speaker of English is a Christian, then we have A Problem.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-05 04:49 pm (UTC)One of my Japanese friends took a year to study abroad in England and Ireland in order to study English. Fine.
Except he's a German major.
He has two years to go before he graduates now and he says he remembers nothing but greetings, but he's "certain" he can graduate as long as he just "studies over the summer" before the next semester starts.
IT'S HIS MAJOR. I mean, I'm pretty sure when it comes to college languages it's a little different than it is in elementary and high schools, because the school I went to is really good for foreign language majors (Nanzan Daigaku) so a lot of people who go there learn English, French, Korean, Chinese, etc. but apparently he thinks he can just pick back up two years of German in like, two months.
?!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-06 03:06 am (UTC)"But when you study a language in Japan, you hope to pass a class."
Tru dat.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-20 08:14 am (UTC)* This teacher has become like my favourite English teacher because despite the fact that his own English is very basic, he uses more of it in class than any of my other teachers. Seriously awesome.