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[gaijinalways]

I was speaking with a Japanese uni colleague the other day. She told me she will be speaking at an annual conference here in Japan about pragmatics. She went on to tell me that she conducts some kind of teacher training for Japanese English language teachers with a focus on cultural differences between using English and Japanese.

I was wondering how many of you address these differences (if you do ) in your teaching. Do you address them directly or indirectly?

Of course, when we talk about cultural differences, we're often talking about generalities due to differences in customs, personalities, gender, etc.. One of the examples she gave me (and she will be giving me a copy of her handouts later, unfortunately I'm not planning to attend this year) was how direct one should be. Some Japanese speakers incorrectly assume that English speakers always speak directly, as opposed to speakers of Japanese who quite often speak very indirectly.

First, I'm wondering how she teaches this subject as I can envision some real "cultural" landmines when teaching pragmatics. Secondly, I'm wondering how useful the training is as my impression of a lot of Japanese English teachers is that they often seem to ignore pragmatics in dealing with their native speaker colleagues (but who knows, maybe my sample data is skewed ).

I was wondering how many of you address these differences (if you do ) in your teaching. Do you address them directly or indirectly? And how effective is the learning process for your students?

[dackinator]

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[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Wait...France had a revolution?

NCTBA

[johnslat]

Dear NCTBA,

There are those (or so I'm told) who think that France is always revolting.

I don't agree, of course,

Regards,
John

[Glenski]

If by "pragmatics" you mean teaching the context of how to speak, then I think most of us slip a little of that into oral communication classes.

Sometimes it's just teaching how to be polite or less/more direct.
Sometimes it's way out there in left field and way beyond anything I could even imagine teaching because my students are stuck in "This is a pen" mode.

Kind of hard to teach much when you have this kind of opening conversation:

Me: Hi, Akiko/Takashi.
Them: Hi. Hello.
Me: How's it going?
Them: ???????????????????????????????

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Them: "I'm fine, thank you...ando you?"

NCTBA

[artemisia]

I'd sometimes walk into a classroom to a chorus of:

"Fine thanks, and you?' with Japanese students.

I hadn't said (asked) anything and didn't much feel like it after that! But perhaps these students had extra sensory perception??

[Kofola]

I teach in the corporate sector and focus on this a fair bit as in business it can make a big difference to the success of the deal.

I particularly look at things like what kind of emotional signal you are sending to your business partner if you don't use the correct intonation, how we use 'ok' and 'satisfied' in English and why these don't translate well. I also look more specifically at cultural differences such as who you would introduce first and last and how that might differ between cultures.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Japan: The Wonderful, Wonderful World of Gambits! God, how I HATED them!

My funnest moments were when I'd ask a new student his/her name and get the programmed response.

Then, I'd follow on with another question that the student would have been programmed to confidently expect..."and, where do you live?"

Except...

The question I would pose was..."Why"?

The scenes of utter panic will last me a lifetime!

And, you cannot imagine the glow of my smile, when the 1 out of 10 would actually think...partially recover their composure...and timidly ask..."Because my parents named me that?"

THOSE were my success stories...and I "worked" for NOVA!

NCTBA

[artemisia]

So much of ESL teaching in the conversation schools were like that in Japan. Rote learning, join up the dots and yes, panic if you operated outside of the mode.

Maybe things have changed since my days there but I'd not hold my breath on that one. Although I didn't hate Japan in the way so many teachers seemed to, (I loved travelling there and still think Japanese people are wonderful), I remember a sense of relief when leaving and realising I could work in much freer, more open environments. Ones with a totally different approach to learning.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Hear, hear...I've been married to a maiden from the Land of the Rising Sun for going on 18 years now.

Her nickname was "wagamama"...which is the best clue as to why she's stayed with me for so long.

She's a "thinker"...

NCTBA

[spiral78]

Pragmatics: noun ( used with a singular verb )
1. Logic, Philosophy . the branch of semiotics dealing with the causal and other relations between words, expressions, or symbols and their users.
2. Linguistics . the analysis of language in terms of the situational context within which utterances are made, including the knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and the relation between speaker and listener.
3. practical considerations.

I'm perhaps being picky, but I was a bit puzzled by the use of the term 'pragmatics' in this sense, so I went for the definition. I think that, to teach pure pragmatics, one would need to be quite an expert, and probably to specialise in a particular realm of the subject.

I have done quite a lot of work with Intercultural Communications, of which pragmatics is a component. The uni where I taught for some years applies Geert Hofstede's work to some practical degree, and there is a tradition of cultural awareness and consideration there.

This thread seems to be about two very interesting and useful topics - ICC studied inside a classroom, to be applied outside of the classroom, and cultural expectations inside classrooms and how they affect teaching and learning.

[artemisia]

Spiral78 wrote:

[gaijinalways]

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics

[gaijinalways]