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taikibansei
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 811
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 12:06 am Post subject: |
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To follow up on the non-major stuff, at the two universities I worked at, all non-majors had to take a minimum of three foreign language classes, including two "general" classes, and one elective seminar. I know this is the case at a number of other universities as well; does anyone work at a university where this is not the case?
Thanks! |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 12:16 am Post subject: |
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| One study found that 65% of non-English majors at Japan's private universities (number surveyed unmentioned) had English levels no different from 3rd-year junior high students. Which of course begs the question, what about all that 'intensive' English study in high school? |
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I guess what interests me about this is the idea that something is happening in junior high school English classes that may not be happening in high school or university.I've heard from a number of Japanese students of English that they enjoyed English in junior high but felt that high school and university English courses were a waste of time. The study as well seems to suggest that students learn many of their English skills in junior high school, with high school and university English classes, at best, helping them maintain what they learned.
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I teach at a JHS/SHS, and although I've never taught the JHS classes, my fellow foreign co-workers have, so I'm getting this firsthand from them.
JHS lessons are the "fun" lessons. Students usually have never seen a foreigner, let alone had one teach them. And, in the beginning, classes are made to be so simple and entertaining (to alleviate any nervousness or anxieties), that kids can't help but absorb some of the stuff. For example, even though they may not understand the sentences, they do 3 years of choral repetition just to get their mouths in motion. Do this in a class of 35-40 kids, and you don't have to worry about being the only one to answer a question, for example, and you can feel like you might actually be speaking a foreign language! (I won't argue my true feelings on this, but this is what is perceived.)
Three years of this stuff crams in (or at least exposes them to) a lot of grammar and vocabulary. Then, they move to SHS.
The atmosphere changes drastically. Besides club activities into the wee hours of the night (our students stay until 7 or 8pm six or seven days a week!), they have pressure from other academic standards put on them.
1. Their classes are larger. So, they don't get as much attention from teachers.
2. There are many new students suddenly in the classrooms. Anxiety over using English increases. Moreover, for the NEW students, this may be equally daunting because of a new school environment after transferring to the new school. In my school, half of the kids come from public schools, where their English education has been pretty low, so to be thrust into a private school requires a lot of catching up in order to just survive the daily lessons, and of course, the lessons are more accelerated for reasons below.
3. They get more homework from all classes, and taking tests is harder.
4. They get more English to study (in all of the 4 main areas).
5. TOEFL and STEP tests loom over their heads more so than in JHS because the levels they must pass are harder. I can't count how many different types of exams of this nature SHS students take in just one year, and many of them use summer, winter, and spring breaks to prepare for the tests because the tests are given immediately after (sometimes DURING) those breaks!
6. Second year is especially hard because they are also being forced to consider which colleges to get into, so they have to take pre-entrance exam tests as well. All of this test-taking pretty much dissolves any communicative aspects of learning English, because as we know, the entrance exams and STEP & TOEFL tests do not measure a whole lot of speaking communicative ability.
7. Third year is usually short, 8 or 9 months instead of 11 because they will TAKE the college entrance exams and/or prepare for leaving school.
One more point. The method of teaching is usually different between JHS and SHS, whether it's done by a native English or a Japanese teacher, solo or in team-teaching situations. At my school we just went through a dismal failure last year of trying to retain the inane choral repetition system from JHS in the 1st and 2nd year SHS classes. Here we stand only 3 weeks from starting the 2005 year, and nobody has come up with a suitable replacement, even though it has been recognized that we need one. My point is, that if you DO use silly choral repetition systems in the hopes that SHS students will pick up on its merits from JHS, it will fail. The students are more mature, they are sick of doing it for 3 years (those that may have done it in JHS, that is), the new kids who have never done it are in total shock over such a plan, the goals for SHS students are different as I've described above, and the grammar material itself is much harder and does not lend itself to such teaching patterns.
These are just the experiences from my private school, but I suspect they are similar to what many others see. |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| taikibansei wrote: |
To follow up on the non-major stuff, at the two universities I worked at, all non-majors had to take a minimum of three foreign language classes, including two "general" classes, and one elective seminar. I know this is the case at a number of other universities as well; does anyone work at a university where this is not the case?
Thanks! |
At my private university, all non-English majors must take two general English classes, 1 in 1st yr and the other in 2nd yr. There are also elective English classes that they can take. Sadly, many of them speak better English than the English majors. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| JHS lessons are the "fun" lessons. Students usually have never seen a foreigner, let alone had one teach them. And, in the beginning, classes are made to be so simple and entertaining (to alleviate any nervousness or anxieties), that kids can't help but absorb some of the stuff. |
This sounds more like the elementary school classes in the area where I live. I normally teach at a couple of JHS and the majority is listen and repeat and memorize dialogues with a Japanese translation. The beginning of first year JHS here normally involves a lot of "write the alphabet six times. First in big letters, then small ones".
I didn't realize that Japanese students have to take English in university. I guess by the end of it it must even out with the amount of French that Canadians have to take (but then, Non-French Canadians in non-French speaking areas in an English language education system who drop FSL as soon as they can are very likely to not be able to carry on a conversation in French either).
I've met SHS students whose English is really pretty good. I've met others who are still afraid to answer the question "How are you?". |
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QueenSerenity42
Joined: 09 Mar 2005
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:46 am Post subject: |
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One of the saddest things is indeed how easily surveys and polls can be skewed to make numbers say what you want them to. It isn't just the Japanese who do this, btw. I'm American, and I see it rampant in the news here. (And I'm ashamed to admit that as during my time as a news journalism major, my university professors *taught* us how to do it. There's a reason I didn't stay a news journalism major.) Ethics are completely ignored for this "yellow journalism" and it makes me very angry.
To sum up: Never, ever take a poll, survey, or study at face value. So much can be done to manipulate the results and/or to make the entire thing say exactly what you want it to. |
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