Job Discussion Forums

[Vince]

My experience has been that students recently out of the jr high and high school system are at least false beginners. They understand enough for rudimentary classroom instructions, and using the first lesson to review basic classroom English usually brings their understanding up to speed. Their understanding typically progresses along with the lessons, as long as the teacher controls his English. Speaking is slower, but their relatively rapid progress in understanding shows that they're tapping into that high school English.

At one point when I was struggling with a particularly difficult class, I started thinking that the English-only approach was limited. Then I had a Korean student from China (maybe a N. Korean refugee) who had no English. I had to start by teaching her the alphabet (she started with a shaky knowledge of about ten letters). The staff threw the poor girl in a regular class because it was all they had, so I had to block off 10~15 minutes of each lesson for the other students to do a reading or writing assignment so I could work with the Korean girl. It was incredibly difficult, and I used a bit of Japanese to get by the rough spots. After that, beginner Japanese students didn't seem so bad and definitely got no Japanese from me.

[Mark]

[fluffyhamster]

It seems then that Japanese teachers are prone to drone on in Japanese about whatever, and that native English teachers like to drone on in English.

[Vince]

Whether to use L1 also has to do with what you're trying to achieve with the class. I stuck with L2 because it met the goals I had set for my courses. I can't say that that proves L2 is the way to go, because I don't know what kind of results teachers using L1 get. Then there's the way it's presented, teacher rapport with the class...

[Glenski]

Just so people don't get the wrong impression, I use English about 98% of the time in my university classes, and I did the same in my HS classes. That remaining 2% is usually used whenever certain instructions are needed.

If even 10% of a class needs it, consider the size of some classes. In HS I had classes of 45-48 students. In university, I have classes of 50-120 students. Put them in pairs, and you have 25-60 groups. Ten percent of that means 2-6 groups could need some help. Oh, I'm not so naive as to think that L1 is the immediate way to go. Nope, I do as gaijinalways and the others have described. In the long run, though, perhaps the 2% that I end up using (whether written or spoken) is just critical to get some of the very lower level students up to speed with the rest in order to have a smoother running class and not waste valuable time.

In feedback surveys, most of the kids who mention the amount of English in class have written that they found that to be the most challenging and useful part of the class. I still get about 5-10% that wrote they didn't understand a word of my English. Ya gotta teach to the majority of the crowd, help the weaker ones without compromising time for the others, and throw bones to the higher level ones so they aren't wasting their time.

For those of you teaching outside Japan, let me ask you this. It's my opinion that those students are more motivated or they wouldn't have gone overseas, and they probably had to get 500-550 on a TOEIC just to enter college there. Do you know that such a score is significantly higher than the average college student in Japan, even approaching graduation? Makes a difference. Plus, as I think I've mentioned, motivation is a big factor, and living in an immersion environment helps enormously. Kids in Japan have little chance for both of those. Ninety minutes a week in "immersion class" is not immersion at all, so as much as I do my best not to use L1, the amount of L2 that they get is scant at best.

[ripslyme]

[gaijinalways]

I think Glenski's attempts to underscore why L1 might be used focus on

-building rapport between the teacher and students

-helping 'trailing' or 'lost' low level students

Myself, the biggest comment that I get from students (relevant to this thread) is that they wish I would use more Japanese. Of course, I am very resistant to that as I know it is very easy to turn classes into Japanese lessons for the teacher and try to limit myself to often translating what students say or simply giving brief instructions in Japanese to individual students if they are 'lost'.

Now as to people with mixed nationality classes, yes of course, you probably don't have this option unless you yourself are multilingual. Would it be time effective? Probably not. Though again if you have a student or students using the same mother tongue who are obviously trailing the rest of the class, yes you might want to use their L1 in some instances.

[Miyazaki]

[Nabby Adams]

What would you do Glenski if your students were from mixed backgrounds? I would have thought that once somebody has been teaching for more than a year or two they would NEVER use L1 in the classroom.

[Glenski]

gaijinalways wrote:

[Vince]

Regarding rapport, it can be detrimental to not use at least a bit of Japanese with some groups of students. If students know their teacher has been in the country past a certain amount of time (not to mention with a Japanese spouse) and suspect s/he doesn't speak a commensurate level of Japanese, they lose respect. Especially in a term-long or year-long course environment, teachers who speak Japanese well should make it known just for the sake of getting that respect and distinguishing themselves from the eikaiwa stereotype. But once you do that, there will be situations in which it's unreasonable and even rude to refuse to throw out the occasional Japanese bone. My experience has been that the best middle ground is: "yes, I speak some Japanese; but this is an English course aimed at immersion, so Japanese will be used as sparingly as possible."

[gaijinalways]

I agree, even though my Japanese is embarrassingly bad (it fluctuates from week to week ). My wife is surprised I know some advanced vocabulary, yet basic stuff often washes in and out of my mind (sort of like my students). And no, I haven't studied Japanese for 6 years, sort of more piddle about here and there over 10 years.

Glenski, if you could clarify why you use it it may help some teachers to understand why it may be used. I myself also used to use bilingual texts (sometimes even now, but it's not a main feature in my classes) when I taught in Hong Kong. I also wrote my Master's thesis on using L1 in the L2 classroom, so I am well versed in the arguments pro and con on using students' L1s (as I am sure Glenski is).

How you teach will depend on the class, your admin's rules, and your own theoretical approaches to teaching. There is no one best way to teach, the factors affecting your situation will always be different.

[Glenski]

gaijinalways,
I'll explain without reservation, but I can't stress strongly enough the fact of how little I use it. Please, everyone, keep that in mind.

In HS, I taught 45-minute classes. So, one reason there was to get to the point of the class faster.

In eikaiwa I taught 80-minute classes, and currently I have 90-minute university classes, but in both cases there were/are extremely low level learners. In eikaiwa, that meant young OLs and 50-ish housewives or retirees, so yes, they had had 6 or more years of English instruction, but how many students actually learned any conversation with their parochial teacher-centered classes, especially if they lived in rural areas with no foreign teacher to assist? In university, I have two courses of second-year students who have about junior-high level ability and vocabulary, but they have not had to use it since JHS. So, for both groups, even though the lessons are longer, I feel the need to use Japanese more often than in my other classes as a reminder of certain grammar points and vocabulary, among other reasons. It also boosts the confidence of the lowest level students and stops some from feeling so isolated that they wouldn't otherwise even participate in an info gap or group activity.

Those students are also very self-conscious. In eikaiwa, they pay for the lessons. In university, whether the student or parent pays, it makes no difference because the course is mandatory, so passing becomes a requirement for graduation that year (it's a special 2-year program). To blitz them with 100% English is asking too much, IMO, especially since the uni students will probably never need it again in their lives (this fact comes from their major advisor).

Rapport. What teacher doesn't want at least some rapport with students? Perhaps only the aloof and the type in love with their own voice, but not me. Students don't have to love me, but liking me is certainly helpful in getting through 90-minutes a week, and some of my classes have 120 students, so that's a challenge. I don't let students sleep, use cell phones, or stay if they come late, so it's important to keep a balance of discipline and comfort. So what if I throw out "shoganai" here and there if I'm making a point (especially if I also explain what it means later in English)?

Lastly, it is necessary at times in order to define some things. Students don't always have dictionaries, and those that do may not know how to use them well, or they may be too slow or reticent about using them to get the meaning soon enough (or correctly). Guessing from context doesn't always work, and even though I'm very good at simplifying meanings of words, there just comes a time when L1 is better. Try explaining some adjectives about emotions or moods and you'll know what I mean just as an example. Pulling a good student to the front to demonstrate is one thing, or asking one how to say the word in Japanese is another, and I've used both techniques often, but there comes a time when you just can't go to the same few (and I mean few!) kids all the time. Acting words out or using gestures or pictures are also very good techniques, but there are limits sometimes to getting the full meaning across. Differentiating parts of speech can also be more expedient. "Free" vs. "freedom", for example. If you can't say "noun" or "adjective" in Japanese, and they don't know it in English (and they don't!), then you can be stuck. And, in Japanese there are some confounding words that are nouns, adjectives, verbs, whatever in Japanese but different parts of speech in English, so even that ploy is not guaranteed.

One more reason has already been mentioned by someone. Students who realize I've been here more than a week will automatically expect me to know Japanese, but 98% of the time I don't use it for the reason cited earlier. I want to do my best to maintain an immersion atmosphere, even for 90 minutes. However, if I can show them cr@ppy pronunciation or a (sometimes purposefully) poor grasp of certain L1 language principals, then they might realize that, hey, a person can communicate without being a perfectly fluent speaker, or they might realize that the teacher has some empathy towards their own weaknesses. (I studied Spanish in HS a zillion years ago and never used it, so I understand what it's like to learn a language in an academic setting, and the results of never using it. I impart that wisdom to them, too.)

Lastly, even when I use Japanese, I sometimes butcher it on purpose. There's a reason for that. If they catch it, sometimes they can sift through the noise and come back not in Japanese but in English to correct me, and that's exactly what they have to learn if they are going to help each other in class. You just try doing an eikaiwa style course with 60 sleepy students and give them individual attention!

So, is using 2% too much for you guys now?

[gaijinalways]

Sounds fine by me. I more or less use it the same way. Even as I teach some encouraging words and commands, I will give the Japanese equivalent if I know them and feel they are necessary.

Often I will get other students translating for me to their partner, but I do try to remind the students interpreting that he/she can't take the test for the other student. The interpreter should try and let the lower level students grasp what they can rather than giving constant translations.

Also, as Glenski pointed out, many students may rarely use English. They might work for a company with an international section or with foreign customers, or heaven forbid, take a trip abroad now and then where they might use it, but many will not use or need it beyond the cannibalized words used in Japanese.

[Vince]