|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Julie
Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 1
Location: Kumamoto, Japan
|
 Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 8:54 am Post subject: Teaching writing in Japanese high schools |
 |
|
I'm curious about the importance of teaching Japanese high school students how to write English paragraphs and essays. Is it only English majors who would ever need to write an English essay on a college entrance test? How likely is it that English major would need to write an English essay? Which colleges require it?
Thank you! |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:40 am Post subject: Re: Teaching writing in Japanese high schools |
|
|
| Julie wrote: |
I'm curious about the importance of teaching Japanese high school students how to write English paragraphs and essays. Is it only English majors who would ever need to write an English essay on a college entrance test? How likely is it that English major would need to write an English essay? Which colleges require it?
Thank you! |
Julie, just a heads up here, virtually every university has an English test in their entrance exam, so English is defacto compulsory in junior and senior high schools. Only those schools where students are not academic track will English be a low priority. There are no English majors when virtually every high school student in Japan has to study English anyway.
I dont teach in a high school and Glenski can give you a better idea, but in the entrance exams students dont actually have to produce anything that resembles English. Multi-choice, translation of english sentences into japanese and check the correct box. If you had seen an entrance examination test paper you would see that it doesnt test the four skills, except reading perhaps.
I teach basic writing skills to university freshmen and for the most part they have no clue about use of punctuation, connected sentences, paragraphs, paragragh cohesion etc. Another point is that most written exam papers are written by Japanese university professors in Japanese, for high school students, so what you have is the blind leading the blind, and a continued use of this strange thing called examination English perpetuated by universities. Native speakers of english do not make the questions at most universities for English entrance exams for the most part and are not called on to mark essays submitted by high school students wanting to enter a university. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
guest of Japan
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Posts: 1601
Location: Japan
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 10:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
Last year I taught writing to second year students. It was supposed to be team taught with me in a supportive role, but since the book actually required the students to write as opposed to translate, I had to be the lead teacher. It all came about because the teachers didn't actually look at the book before they chose it.
I had some limited success. When students were presented with a decent, yet comprehensible model, they could usually crank something out. Sometimes it wasn't bad at all. Though grading 200 short essays every week is no joy.
This year the school is back to grammar-translation for the students. Sadly, once again they didn't look closely enough at the book and it is way over the heads of the students. At least this year I'm only in a supportive role with most my partners, so I'm not left on my own to die. Though there are a few teachers who like to watch me give it a go. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Brooks
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1369
Location: Sagamihara
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 10:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
for students that plan to take the TOEFL, it is useful.
Some students want to study overseas at universities in America, Canada, etc.
Some universities have exams early, (in the fall), and some give speaking and writing tests in English.
I think Waseda, Keio, Aoyama, and Sophia universities do this. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 2:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| virtually every university has an English test in their entrance exam, so English is defacto compulsory in junior and senior high schools. |
One exception is the type of university that is part of the "escalator" system (has sister academies in JHS/SHS). Those students don't take the entrance exams to the college. (Mine don't, anyway.) They have to for any other college that they may choose to apply to, though.
| Quote: |
| I dont teach in a high school and Glenski can give you a better idea, but in the entrance exams students dont actually have to produce anything that resembles English. |
Entrance exams for the private high school where I work do, indeed, include an essay section. Most kids barely get to it, unfortunately, because the rest of the exam is so darned long.
My high school offers writing classes, but they don't even start until their last year. Pity.
My HS also has after-school classes for the essay section of college entrance exams. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
taikibansei
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 811
Location: Japan
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2005 2:44 pm Post subject: Re: Teaching writing in Japanese high schools |
|
|
| PAULH wrote: |
| I dont teach in a high school and Glenski can give you a better idea, but in the entrance exams students dont actually have to produce anything that resembles English. |
Paul, a number (over 40%) of individual university entrance exams have English writing/essay components. Of course, you are right in that students generally "don't produce anything that resembles English" for them....
Julie, if you could get your students to understand even the basics about paragraphing, etc., exam graders everywhere would probably create a shrine in your name. The Japanese faculty should have old copies of the local university exams, so consider using any writing prompts from those exams. Realize, of course, that the written components are generally worth only about 5-10% of the total number of points, so convincing students of the need to master these skills may be difficult.
| Quote: |
| Another point is that most written exam papers are written by Japanese university professors in Japanese, for high school students, so what you have is the blind leading the blind, and a continued use of this strange thing called examination English perpetuated by universities. Native speakers of english do not make the questions at most universities for English entrance exams for the most part and are not called on to mark essays submitted by high school students wanting to enter a university. |
Paul, is this really true about most universities? At both universities I was at, for example, a foreigner (usually the token tenured or tenure-track foreigner) was invariably on the exam committee, responsible for both helping in the generation of questions and grading the answers. Haven't they dragged you into this yet? How about Gordon? The other university profs here?
I've been on four committees and actually enjoyed it. In my experience, many of the Japanese faculty generally want to do a good job and test for the right things, just are completely clueless how. The results can be spectacularly bad...like that time they decided having passages from real engineering/science texts for the reading sections would make it "easier" for incoming students in those majors to, uh, succeed. I think the average score on the reading section of the English exam that year was 16%.... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
