According to The Japan News (formerly The Daily Yomiuri) renowned Japanese educator Hideo Kageyama (homepage in Japanese) will be release a rock song entitled ‘Benkyo Shiyoze’ (Let’s Study!) on 8 May.
You have to hand it to Prof. Kageyama who is now advisor to the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education. His techniques for motivating students are fun and simple, making you wonder why we didn’t think of that in the first place.
It’s about time such a program was introduced anywhere in Japan.
Tokyo University will start streaming some students into an elite language program to groom future global leaders (13 July 2012, Daily Yomiuri).
Although many unversities in Japan have something similar running nothing with such vision and aim is available.
Tertiary institutions have to take the lead in this way to ensure their country’s and people’s future.
Everything.
“Revisiting” my master in Zen on YouTube the other day I was compelled to think about what it means to be a language student and how it relates to Zen.
It seems to me many of the students I teach unnecessarily limit themselves with a psychological barrier – they believe they will never achieve native-like fluency. By thinking so they have effectively placed a limit upon what they can achieve.
Language itself already places limits upon you. So for students to place another one upon themselves, the limits become twofold.
But I am not saying that they will achieve native-like fluency either, but rather they make it harder to even remotely make any headway into acquiring a second language. To truly achieve native-like fluency one must have the years of experience in and exposure to the target language and culture. Nothing can replace that.
But nothing can stop you from trying and that is the essence of believing in being able to acquire some resemblance of a second language which is like native-like.
So the next question is how can I possibly teach my students to not place limits upon what they can achieve. Again, for this I will need to think that it is not impossible.
In today’s Daily Yomiuri there was an article about the results from a survey of 3,225 middle school students on their perception about English.
The survey conducted by the National Institute for educational Policy Research found only eleven percent of students want to find work which requires English. But seventy percent also said they believed knowledge of English will help them get work in the same survey.
How to interpret these results?
It seems while there are pressures to learn English from companies and society the reality is most people don’t feel they really need it for work. In all likelihood most students will go on to work for companies which will continue to look at their English abilities all the while not really requiring them to use that knowledge in the workplace for any great length of time.
Do we really need to teach English in schools? The short answer is ‘yes’. This is obvious but it is not clear how we should teach it. Of course it should be compulsory BUT it should not be tested, if the survey results are any indication.
Since the bulk of students do require English in their work English should be taught not for passing tests but for practical communicative skills. If English is taught has a non-tested subject then teachers will have more freedom to teach these practical skills rather than grammar and vocabulary far removed from actual usage.
But because teachers are obliged to get students pass tests they focus on the things which are peripheral to actual communication. I have rarely met an English teacher who is truly interested in some aspect of English culture and so few teachers who ask questions about the pragmatics of language. So how do we expect our students to gain this knowledge when teachers are not interested themselves?
I was reminded by Stephen Krashen’s post on reading, access to books, and school performance about the three things Tokyo University students have that help them get into the University – bookshelves (with books of course, and the more the better), a globe (to help them see the world differently (or is it correctly)), and a piano (music is softens the mind for original and abstract thinking).
I don’t remember where the source for this is but it was in conversation with my wife and friends.
According to a quiz question on Sekai no Hate Made Itte Q (The Quiz Show that Goes to the Ends of the Earth [for answers]) Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, The Philippines and Romania rank first (with 100%) as countries in which their tecahers are respected most by their students. Second was Italy and Third was Venezuela. The average for the fifty-one countries surveyed was 93%.
At the bottom was Japan with 41.8%.
There are two things which should be noted:
One must be suspicious of the results from these numbers, especially if you are a statistician. Firstly, with the above information Japan must be an outlier in statistical terms. Secondly, was the countries for the survey randomly selected. Lastly, Korea was second from the bottom (is there a Asian connection here? Thanks A.E.).
From experience I would have to say Japanese students are rather disrespectful of teachers, often without reservation. But also how many cultures have “respect” grammaticalized as the Japanese language has.
≪学校の先生を尊敬する国ランキング≫ (in Japanese)
１位 （１００％）
タイ、インドネシア、ブラジル、トルコ、フィリピン、ルーマニア
２位 （９９.１％）
イタリア
３位 （９９％）
ベネズエラ
５１か国の平均は９３％の人が先生を尊敬しているそうです。
では日本はどのくらいかというと、
順位は最下位で、４１.８％です。
My kids watch this show on NHK called Cooking Idol Ai My Mine. Great show about a girl who is a real live cooking show host. Shows like these truly give kids imagination and creativity.
But I was really disappointed in the looseness of their script writing in this dialogue shown the other day:
Child: “Are there truly angels in the world, Mine?”
Mine: “Yes, there are … Probably.”
So which is it, Mine – yes or maybe?
Were they (the script writers) afraid to take sides on this issue? Afterall, Japan is not a Christian nation (there is no concept of angel in Buddhism). Japanese Children are indecisive like this. Perhaps the writers were only a mirror for society. Or are they wearing rose tinted glasses?
Either way it is troubling.
This is one instant I can think of right now but there are many others I have come across over the years.
