Job Discussion Forums

[shmooj]

[cafebleu]

I hear what you`re saying Schmooj and I think you make good points. However, I suppose what I am saying when I make my point is - I wish I had studied Japanese for so long in the Uk. I have never studied Japanese.

Had I done so, I would be able to think of the necessary grammar structures when I am trying to think in and speak in Japanese in my non working hours. I studied Italian and Spanish for one year each, and even given they are relatively `uncomplicated` languages to learn (note I say `relatively` because I think to call any language `easy to learn` or whatever is to underestimate it), I can still remember enough grammar to speak basic Italian and Spanish. When I have been on holiday in both countries I got by fine although it`s been quite some time since I studied those languages.

I agree that the Japanese school way of teaching English leaves a lot to be desired and is focused on learning grammar to the detriment of conversation. However, I was never taught by native speakers of Spanish and Italian, my teachers were rotten to be honest, yet I can make passable conversation remembering the grammar structures I was taught.

I feel that some of the Japanese poorness at speaking foreign languages (there are exceptions of course) is due to the insular, monoculture. When you are reading material that emphasises the uniqueness of your language, your brain, the Japanese `race` etc, that surely must have some effect on your ability to want to absorb to even a minor degree another language.

[shmooj]

While I hear what you are saying too, I think your own personal examples of language learning are interesting. You mention two European languages which you, as an English speaker would find a lot easier to acquire than a Japanese speaker would. You also mention "basic", getting by and having "rotten" teachers which is precisely what I mean. If you had had an excellent teacher for, say French, as I did, you would have been far more able to communicate and, more importantly for the sake of this discussion, you would be far more predisposed to work on those languages.

I learned French in a communicative setting (though I didn't know it at the time). It was fun, we had a laugh, the teacher always rewarded hard work and was very sympathetic. I hate France and dislike almost all the French people I've met. I don't like the food and so on. But I love French and would love to have a need for it in my life as an excuse to go back to it. It has nothing to do with grammar because I can't remember hardly a word of it now twenty years on. But teaching transfer has directly shaped my attitude so that now I would be, I guess, an excellent student of French despite not remembering much of the language itself any more.

Elementary school students in Japan usually like English. They may even love it. Junior High first grade students can also be seen to be enjoying it. Find a High School student who enjoys it and you will have a museum piece. What is happening here is that the method is killing them. It becomes a dead, difficult language for them associated with the risks of pass/failure.

That will provide them with a deficit when, for whatever reason, the average adult starts learning ESorFL despite whatever rudimentary English they may have picked up.

Or, to put it another way:

All the grammar/vocab they learn - diabolical pedagogy = deficit

[Glenski]

Yes, Japanese are exposed to teaching of English grammar for about 6 years in JHS and HS. But, having worked in a HS, I can tell you just what that really is.

JHS gives basic structure and a start on some higher structures. Most oral communication is mostly repetition and choral reading. They also rely heavily on trying to expand vocabulary (my school uses Word Navi), but it's useless because trying to memorize 30-40 words a week is impossible in the setting they provide. That's the number my school offers, anyway. Over half of the students fail their weekly vocabulary exams, too. But, the school just plods on with another 30-40 words. Complex words, too, with meanings so similar to each other sometimes that it's difficult for a native speaker to explain the differences (to the JTE)!

HS continues trying to expand some vocabulary, but then tries to get students into talking and writing. The writing fares better, but this is not oral communication. The talking fares pretty miserably. Why?

1. Try to get 30-40 students to have paired conversations and monitor them effectively.
2. Try to motivate teens who are forced to take such classes, as many as 8-10 per week, on top of their already full schedules that keep them at school 10-12 hours a day and on weekends for various other things.
3. The main reason Japanese students study English at all is because it's required for the college entrance exams. This means that they are taught basic structures, and then huge loads of esoteric and often arcane things that their teachers fail to understand well and that the students will rarely if ever use in a conversation even if they become 10% fluent. But, it's on the exam, so they have to learn it.
4. The rote memorization process itself is a major fault. Knowledge in today, gone tomorrow (after the exam, that is).
5. Problems with pronunciation inherent in the deficiencies in their own language (compared to English).

[leeroy]

I remember reading a Thornbury book (might have been "How to teach grammar", but I'm not sure...) which referenced to another writer. The written style was quaintly "old", possibly not from this or the last century.

This is from memory, but it went something like this:

"I had studied Portuguese academically for a year, and though I had no-one to practise with, I could recite the grammatical structures, forms and rules that governed the language.

When I arrived I Brazil I could not communicate. But slowly I noticed the structures and systems in action, I could recognise the real application of what I had previously learnt about. Though I couldn't use this language, somehow it was familiar to me..."

Shmooj's comments have given me food for thought, because I had thought (as above) that while a more "academic study" of English might not lead to an improvement in communicative ability - it wouldn't necessarily hinder it.

[Lynn]

The 6 years of studying English in Japanese JHS/HS is a hindrance. I say Japanese should elimate the English requirment to get into universities. English should be a rare elective for only those who are crazy about English. No exams are allowed. English should be taught briefly in elementary school, but only the alphabet and a few songs. No katakana pronunciation permitted. Credit should be given to those students who pronounce the word "special" as Spesho. The pronunciation "spesheru" will not be recognized as an English word. (Although accepted as a wasei-eigo word in Japanese class)

[Sherri]

Leeroy
I think what you are talking about is rule "noticing". It is based on the idea that knowing a grammar rule helps you later when trying to communicate. For example you study a tense, then later you hear people using it and you realize, hey that's what I learned in class, I understand what they are saying. Then you might try using it yourself.

I think it is a very important part of learning. I have found that with Japanese learners, they tend to know the form but often have trouble knowing when to use it in a communicative situation.
S

[Roger]

One of the most widely made mistakes these days is to play up traditional teaching "Grammar'Translation") versus "communicative approaches".
I don't believe one is entirely good to the exclusion of the other!

I favour formal grammar instruction followed by exercises to transfer the newly-learned concepts into the learners' subconscience. Learning gammar rules is a strictly academic exercise; for those rules to become effective cops in a learner's L2 he or she has to train and rehearse.
This should NOT happen communally as is routinely done in East Asia by chorussing; that way, students "speak" half-heartedly, absent-mindedly, and there is no reasonable monitoring of individual student's performance!
One way to guide students to a permanent practicfal grasp on grammar is by reading and writing.
Surely you can't learn French grammar effectively by chorussing:
- J'apprend l'anglais
- tu apprends l'anglais
- il apprend l'anglais
- nous apprenons l'anglais
- vous apprenez l'anglais
- ils apprennent l'anglais
Those who know French realise that many verb forms here are homophonous in spite of spelling differences. Can students "remember" ver endings without ever seeing them themselves?

In China too they claim students have exposure to English grammar for many years - some say 6 years, others ten. But not even the majority of university English teachers have a decent command of English; they "know" x thousand English vocables but don't know the instructions of use to each word; for some inexplicable reason, most Chinese would say "you meanS", even when they never use the final-S at the end of any other verb, neither with the first, nor the second or third person! Why does someone constantly say "I (you) means", while never saying "he giveS"?

So long as our education enviornments treat English as just another academic subject, not as a skill, there will always be a huge discrepancy between our students' "knowledge" of the language, and their actual performance!

I do not even favour pairing so they have "a chance" at speaking; what 'chance'? A chance is a God-send, but most students abhor taking yet another acadmic subject,m even if it's called English; they hate practising (you notice their silly giggling and acting funny). Pairing only reinforces fossilisation.

It also gives them a convenient cop-out for not doing anything in their own initiative; speaking with one another - a thing unheard of in China! But I ask you, why?

They should have to deliver speeches or recite stories and poems IN FRONT OF THE CLASS, and their peers should judge their English, so they learn to identify their own English and its shortcomings. Most Chinese cannot tell a Texan from a Tahitian, let alone a Chinese EEnglish version from a native English one. That's because they don't learn to LISTEN; they recognise English as that foreign noise emanating from the mouth of a foreign face.

I also think it's sadly true that they exhibit no respect for speakers of foreign tongues; there is a strong inhibition to take it seriously! Nationalism, no doubt!

And this would definitely work towards raising their self-esteem!

[guest of Japan]

Thank you Roger. I'm now fluent in French.

[Glenski]

[dmb]

Most of my Arab students have had about 10 years of English at school but they come to us at level 2-elementary. The reason is cultural. At school, they are not taught English. They are taught how to pass an exam.i.e. here is the answer. Remember it. It doesn't matter if you understand it or not.

[Roger]

I am sorry, Glenski, we disagreed on this before, and in this thread again; not my intention. You seem to have some answers to problems that I don't have - yet; the answer, for example that students here would NOT ovrcome their inhibitions when speaking in front of the class. I can only say, pairing does not help them overcome those inhibitions either. Maybe they would really overcome them if no one forced them to a) "study" English (if it was made a genuine elective!); and, b) if their local teachers had to submit to a strict discipline and speak exclusively English during their own lessons!

Is this "inhibition" "built-in"? I know what you mean, but again, if I am supposed to be the magician who removes such psychological burdens why can't Cinese TEACHERS be expected to do just that? These teachers get "respected" for "knowing" English even though they can't normally communicate in it; they are setting a bad example!

In the EU, you can study Mandarin. I know a lycee publique in France where students aged 12 through 18 go through 6 years of a second tongue that also is used as medium of instruction for a few subjects. Why are French teachers of Mandarin or English capable of turning their charges into virtually bilingual students by the age of 18, but not their Chinese teachers of any second tongue? I know that lycee because my common-law wife's daughter attended it and studied German and English; after 3 or 4 years, she could survive on her own in both Germany and Britain, where my wife sent her for some months!

[Glenski]