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What do your students call you?

 
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Joined: 20 Aug 2017
Posts: 21

PostPosted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:49 am    Post subject: What do your students call you? Reply with quote

What do your students call you?
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/teacher_name_survey

Hello, I’m doing research on how Japanese students address their foreign English teachers in class. This survey is only 13 questions, most of them multiple choice. The survey is completely anonymous. I’d like to get responses from teachers

*at all levels, from part-time eikaiwa to full-time university and everything in between

*of as many nationalities as possible

*working all over Japan.

I will use the survey results to write a paper that I hope to present to the American Association for Applied Linguistics. I would be so grateful if you could take a few minutes to answer these 13 questions.
Thank you and have a great day!
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taikibansei



Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 811
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 9:22 pm    Post subject: Re: What do your students call you? Reply with quote

Author wrote:
What do your students call you?
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/teacher_name_survey

Hello, I’m doing research on how Japanese students address their foreign English teachers in class. This survey is only 13 questions, most of them multiple choice. The survey is completely anonymous. I’d like to get responses from teachers

*at all levels, from part-time eikaiwa to full-time university and everything in between

*of as many nationalities as possible

*working all over Japan.

I will use the survey results to write a paper that I hope to present to the American Association for Applied Linguistics. I would be so grateful if you could take a few minutes to answer these 13 questions.
Thank you and have a great day!


I think you would get more respondents by requiring fewer personal details. E.g., if I were to provide all the personal details (over 2/3 of the survey!) that you require in order to submit, I would be easily identifiable. This is particularly true of people working at universities located outside the Kansai/Kanto areas--in many of these places, there are only 2-3 universities that hire foreigners full-time, with only 10-15 foreigners in full-time roles in the prefecture.

Of the required personal details, I would keep "employer type" (and maybe "length of employment"), and choose just two from among "age," "gender," "nationality," "native language," "prefecture," "highest degree" and "highest TESOL qualification." Later, you can do a second survey requiring the other information.

My two yen, anyway.
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kzjohn



Joined: 30 Apr 2014
Posts: 277

PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

* 10. What do your students call you most often during class?



I've never been particular, only suggesting a thing or two at the beginning of each year. Asking for "most often" doesn't reflect the variety of classes I taught (and only allowing one answer there)--some were science students, some language majors, some non-language non-science (sports) majors, and so on. Both large classes and only a few. (uni level)

I've also had the same group in different years (e.g., 1st and 3rd), and also thesis students (who I'd had before in a zemi or other class). So there's a fairly wide variety in the degree to which students know me.

That variety of situations is a factor in how students might address a teacher, so somehow it should be included in your survey. Students don't generally know a teacher's background (the post above), until they really get to know you (really get to know you). Sure, they might browse the typical faculty profiles on a school's website, but that's both unlikely, and likely not important.

Your question about age is a good one, as that is important here.
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taikibansei



Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 811
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kzjohn wrote:


That variety of situations is a factor in how students might address a teacher, so somehow it should be included in your survey. Students don't generally know a teacher's background (the post above), until they really get to know you (really get to know you). Sure, they might browse the typical faculty profiles on a school's website, but that's both unlikely, and likely not important.


Just to clarify, I'm not worried about students finding my answers to this survey. (All the personal/professional information is freely available on the university website anyway...not that students ever look! Wink )

I do, however, worry about responding to an "anonymous" survey conducted by an unknown poster (just two posts at the time, both "surveys" of sorts...one a weird series of questions posted to the China board). In the survey posted here, 9 of the 13 questions ask identifying details. Now, I have no idea who this guy is...and have no interest in having him know who I am. My suggestion was to break this up into two surveys--the core questions (all 4 of them) would remain the same each time, but he'd change the variables (the required personal details) so that all this information wouldn't be given at one time, helping to maintain participant anonymity. That was my idea, anyway.

That said, I think the discussion itself is a good one. My students and colleagues all call me "last name-sensei," but I have had a number of new hires (young Japanese faculty) initially call me "first name-sensei" or 'last name-san." I usually respond by immediately calling them the same way they call me. Invariably, they don't like being called "first name-sensei" or 'last name-san"...and the problem corrects itself! Wink
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kzjohn



Joined: 30 Apr 2014
Posts: 277

PostPosted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think it made much difference in terms of address the students used, but there was a period about 3-7 years ago when a few or more students in some classes had been in middle and or high school with our kids. (Younger was more 'known', being valedictorian in high school.)

They seemed to feel closer or more connected, trusting, relaxed, etc. We were able start off by kind of knowing each other, without any (or less) exploring.
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rtm



Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 1003
Location: US

PostPosted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:52 am    Post subject: Re: What do your students call you? Reply with quote

taikibansei wrote:
I think you would get more respondents by requiring fewer personal details. E.g., if I were to provide all the personal details (over 2/3 of the survey!) that you require in order to submit, I would be easily identifiable. This is particularly true of people working at universities located outside the Kansai/Kanto areas--in many of these places, there are only 2-3 universities that hire foreigners full-time, with only 10-15 foreigners in full-time roles in the prefecture.

Of the required personal details, I would keep "employer type" (and maybe "length of employment"), and choose just two from among "age," "gender," "nationality," "native language," "prefecture," "highest degree" and "highest TESOL qualification." Later, you can do a second survey requiring the other information.

My two yen, anyway.


In terms of survey design, I don't think the survey asks for too much demographic information. Having age, gender, nationality, L1, location, education, etc. will allow the researcher to slice and dice the data in a few ways. Also, having a second follow-up survey would require that the survey taker provide personally identifying information so that they can be contacted for the follow-up survey (e.g., email address).

To address the question of identifying people living in more sparsely-populated areas, the survey could ask for regions, instead of specific prefectures. I think that would be just as useful for the researcher.

More problematic is that the researcher hasn't identified him/herself, as is typical in a research survey. The introduction to the survey should have the researcher's name and contact information, and a brief description of the purpose of the survey. If the researcher hopes to publish this in a reputable journal, there should also be an opportunity for participants to provide informed consent (and the consent form should detail how the responses will be used).

Then again, the "Author" didn't ask for input on the survey itself, though it seems maybe he/she should have.

To answer the survey's question, when I taught in schools (primary through high school) I was usually called firstname-sensei. At universities, I was usually called lastname-sensei by students.
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