Job Discussion Forums

[Mark]

[bosintang]

I've only been here a few months, but here's my opinion on this.

Motivation: Paul H, I think you take a lot for granted in that English is your first language. Imagine not being a lowly English teacher but a mid-level executive who has to deal with people around the world. Imagine having to postpone business trips (and lose money) because you don't have an interpreter available. Imagine having to depend on your English converstion teacher to translate emails people are sending you with important details. Imagine thinking about going for a vacation but afraid you won't be able to communicate with anyone. Imagine being an academic involved in cutting edge research and not being able to access the latest journals.

The world's changing, Japan's changing. Before I was a teacher, I worked for a mid-size company in Canada, and I had to deal with groups in several different countries. I was not a diplomat, international businessmen, or someone else expected to deal with international issues; but a bloody software developer. This is going to be reality in Japan, if it already isn't.

Of course, not everyone is going to use English in their lives, but enough are that it matters. Not everyone is going to be an engineer, but they all have to study math. Although I agree with tiered English classes, I think making English an option before at least high school is not a good idea. Who knows if they'll need to learn English when they get a job? LIke above, I was a software developer and I had no idea before getting the job that I would have to deal with groups in other countries.


JETS/ALTS: I agree with Paul. Useless. As an ALT, I almost as if the only thing I'm hired based on is how little negative impact I make rather than what kind of positive impact I make. Many ALTS disagree with me, feeling their impact as a foreigner in the community by their presence alone justifies their job, but personally, I think this is naive. First off, the people Japan really needs to understand, and be understood by, are not caucasian Westerners. If the JET program really was about breaking down cultural barriers, they would be hiring Chinese and Koreans. Secondly, how far does our presence actually correlate into action. So a few people get to meet and maybe talk to a foreigner, but so what? Where does that really correspond to a level where it really matters? Are foreigners, particularly non-Western foreigners, any less marginalised in Japan than they were twenty years ago, and if so, is this because of the JET program? I highly doubt it.

High School curriculum: I can't speak for high schools, but the junior high school curriculum is ridiculous and has *nothing* to do with communication. The Japanese teacher I work with is a very good teacher. She lived abroad for several years and speaks English fluently. She wants the students to be communicative and she is dedicated and sincere. Yet, the curriculum she has to work with is absolute garbage. But with focus on passing high school entrance exams (which in turn are designed to be focussed on passing University entrance exams), she has no choice but to work with what she has.

I won't pretend I know the answer to fixing this, but I believe it starts here. If you want students to be communicative, you ultimately have to design a program meant for students to be communicative.


Improperly trained foreign teachers: The quality of foreign teachers in most other countries are not any better than Japan. Ok, in Europe they make teachers take a pathetically short 4-week course. Big deal. I don't want to belittle training, it is obviously important and a teacher should have an exposure to language theory and teaching methods and approaches. However, a teacher will never learn to teach unless they do teach. Most untrained teachers, if they're intelligent and sincere, will eventually learn to teach with experience. They may not be the most optimally effective teachers, but they are still teaching, and its better than nothing. I've worked with many teachers in the past, and I see a huge difference between experienced and unexperienced teachers, and between teachers with different types of personalities. The difference between trained and untrained teachers is less noticeable.

In the JHS system in Japan, they've effectively parred down a foreign teachers duties until the ALTs are effectively *useless*. I'm a glorified tape recorder in my job, whether they want to pretend I'm something different or not. Ok, I do a few communicative activities once in awhile, or at least pretend-communicative activities, but the students have never been forced to try to communicate with me. They have never been forced to deal with me, and vice-versa. We've never developed a real teacher-student relationship. How can they possibly gain anything from me?

If they wanted to make ALTs more effective, they could start by giving them to teach regular lessons. They don't have to be involved with evaulation and counselling, but they should be teaching.

Ok, most ALTs are not trained, not real teachers so to speak. So what. With a bit of guidance, both the ALT and the students could learn a hell of a lot more from just trying, rather than keeping the ALT on a short leash as a class pet.

Anyways..long rant here. I needed to get it off my chest.

[PAULH]

[PAULH]

[Mark]

[kdynamic]

Don't overestimate we yanks. I have no idea what a lot of the slang my british friends use means, and I have to ask. The BBC is another story, but they don't use colloqialisms or slang on the BBC (usually) and if they did, many Americans wouldn't udnerstand. Just like there is a lot of American slang non-Americans might not know. I didn't realize which words in my lexicon were California-only until I moved away. This happens to lots of people when they enter a new environment, I think. However, because of hollywood movies and that sort of thing, and TV, I think there is more global exposure of American English than there is of other types of English in the US media. I am not saying that's how it should be, just that it's a fact. So it's more likely that you're going to know what "dude" means than it is that an American would understand when my Aussie friend calls everyone "punters" or what have you.

[womblingfree]

[Mark]

Womblingfree,

I get what you're saying, but I think you're taking it too far. I think you're still confusing native and natural, as in natural language. Nobody is saying that Japanese should choose a native speaker model (say, upper-middle class Italian-American from New York) and imitate that model as closely as possible. There's no need for a Japanese person to disguise the fact that they're Japanese when they speak English.

Languages are flexible, but not infinitely so. It seems like you're saying that Japanese can say anything they want and it should be considered a valid form of English.

So, if a Japanese person says "Yesterday I go movie friend very good," that's ok? Yeah, you can probably figure out the meaning, but is that natural English? Think about how much cognitive work the listener is required to do.

And, also, try asking Japanese students if they'd like to learn some Japan-only English variant that is incomprehensible to non-Japanese speakers of English. People generally learn languages so that they can communicate with other people who speak that language (native or not).

And, as for your point about mistakes aren't mistakes if everyone makes them, well, yes and no. Grammaticality is not a yes/no proposition. But, are you completely discounting first language interference? Japanese all make the same mistakes because they all have the same first language. Koreans all make the same mistakes. Italians all make the same mistakes. And so on.

Plus, in Japan, they learn English in a very rigid, uniform way, so they all learn the same speech patterns (including Japan-only patterns that many would regard as mistakes) in school.

I guess it depends on how you view language as well. Coming from a background of generative linguistics, I definitely think that languages have certain features that are fundamental. You can't speak English with a SOV word order and reasonably expect people to understand you. You can't speak English as if it had a very flexible word order like Japanese or Classical Latin. You can't reduce the phonemic inventory of English by half and expect to be understood. If you do these things, English speakers (native or non-native) will not recognize your language as English.

[Mark]

And, one other thing, I'm not saying that teachers should tell students that language is a yes/no game. It's not. But students deserve to know whether they're using their new language in a way that would generally be regarded as natural and comprehensible.

The main point is that learners are able to use their new language to communicate with other speakers and/or interact with media in the new language.

[womblingfree]

[womblingfree]

p.s. The answer to my pidgin quiz was:

"Pren, man bilong Rom, Wantok, harim nau."

means...

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."

Ja ne

[bosintang]

[bosintang]

[king kakipi]

Paul H wrote:-

[king kakipi]

As an aside, Trainspotting seemed to very popular with some of my business students in Japan. I don't know how they understood it. I first saw it, at the movies, in Athens, with an Irish-Greek friend of mine. He kept laughing at the Greek subtitles; they were well off. I also saw a Ken Loach movie here in Oz ('Riff Raff'; full of regional accents) which was subtitled. My fav. line was when the Glaswegian says "Away ye go an raffle yersel ya f**kin c*nt" which was subtitled as "Please leave me alone".......

Have you read the 'Trainspotting' book, written in the east coast dilaect? Must be difficult for any non-Scots eg:-
So ah gits the draftpaks, one fill ay spesh fir me, n one fill ay lager fir that rid-heided c**t. We gits the cairry-oot n jumps a Joe Baxi up the toon n etc etc.

And, although there are different 'bens' in regional Japanese, my wife, from Tokyo, reckons she can pretty well work out what anyone says, in any 'ben'. Is this akin to me being able to work out the jist of what I hear from a Liverpudlian, Yorkshireman, Aberdonian, Dubliner, Kiwi etc even though I have never been to some of this places?