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[guest of Japan]

Glenski, we're off topic, but since we're still keeping a good thread going I'll forgive myself.

My school hit a bit of a snag this year. For the first time ever 2 1st year students failed oral communication. Usually oral communication is the failsafe class for students who fail English One. If they pass one they can move up. One of the kids miraculously passed English One, so he'll pass through. The other failed. The've decided to give an English One re-test to the failing student. In all probability he will fail. I think at that point he will be ushered out of the school.

Like your school, mine does not want students to fail. However, mine seems to come to the conclusion that if students are resistent to putting in the most minimal effort then they are better served elsewhere. My previous school would never ever fail a student.

To my knowlegde my current school doesn't adjust the grades except in borderline cases. There is no quota system.

[Sweetsee]

Hi Guest of Japan and Glenski,

I find this extremely interesting because I too am employed at a private senior high school. It takes time to find your pace at these jobs, I am presently concluding my second full time year.

I am also extremely surprised to hear that your school will fail a student, Guest. You didn't say it was your student, I presume not. You said it was a first, sounds very progressive. Any thoughts on what would cause such a thing?


Thank you,
s

[guest of Japan]

Hello Seetsie,

Actually both of the students who failed Oral Communication were my students. They were a part of my worst class. They didn't give me too much difficulty though since they were asleep and would not wake up even when I did my best to interrupt their desk drenching dreams.

They were the first students to fail oral communication, because it is nearly impossible to fail. The English One final exam is also nearly impossible to fail.

I can't really speculate as to why they were so resistent to learning.

The school does everything it can to make students pass. In the end it realizes that eventually there must be some cut off. English was not the only subject failed. Students have been ushered out for other offenses as well.

I think the thing that makes my school unique is that all principals come from the public school system. While ensuring that there is a good relationship with the public schools for recruitment purposes, it also helps to insure that there is a committment to education in the school which supersedes profit motivations.

[Glenski]

Getting back on track with something guest of Japan wrote:

[Brooks]

Glenski,
you must be at a really conservative school.
Where I work, foreign teachers teach OC classes by ourselves.

I have only failed one student but I did since he was worse at English than he was at the junior high (I taught him when he was in ninth grade).
I was asked by an administrator to give him a make up test after I failed him for the 11th grade OC class. I flat out refused, and the failing grade stayed on his record.

What I think is that a lot of teachers are too yasashi, and feel sorry for kids at the end of the year. Last week I was shocked when one student who failed Japanese her last year of high school was at the graduation ceremony, since she graduated. I just don`t see how that is a good thing. The student learns that he/she doesn`t have to make an effort, because he/she will pass anyway.

But perhaps my school is stricter than others, because a few students fail and have to repeat the year, and some kids get kicked out. In fact two got kicked out last week.

Unfortunately, there are fewer students so the schools don`t want the numbers to go down, so they pass kids who should fail.
Tuition is too big a priority.
At universities and high schools, standards are lowered. At universities, many students will need to get remedial instruction.

I have looked at what students have to learn in the 11th grade, and it is tough for them.
A lot of kids I think give up during the 8th grade once they get to the present perfect. The way they learn is kind of like the way I learned French: every year, the grammar gets harder, but there isn`t time to learn the fundamentals.

I wish more schools were like at Yamanashi University. There, students can get kicked out, and they can return after they have changed their attitude.

[Glenski]

[Mark]

[Mark]

[Mark]

[quote="mandrake"]Also, there is the problem of definition. What exactly does the original poster mean when he comments on communicative, task based methodology?

Communicative methodology in its weak or strong form, whether it is seen as a methodology or an approach all impact on our understanding on what we are referring to. It is also wrong when people throw labels like Grammar Translation into the pot because the assumption is that all that Japanese teachers do is grammar and translation.
quote]

What I meant by the communicative approach is putting the emphasis on people communicating together. Somebody says something and somebody else tries to understand what the other person said.

Task-based learning is learning through doing tasks.

Combining them means learning through doing tasks that require people to communicate with each other in an attempt to understand each other and complete the task. Teachers support this process and provide students with language as they need it.

[Mark]

Well, this seems to have gravitate into a discussion of the K-12 system, so I guess I'll make a comment about it. I don't have any direct experience with it in Japan, other than the kids who come to my eikaiwa, so it's difficult to say much.

But, for those of us who studied language in high school, we can probably agree that most people didn't really care very much. That's the big problem. How do you get a (in Japan, very LARGE) class of kids to care about learning and speaking English?

The answer may simply be that you can't. Personally, I'm not sure of the wisdom of requiring everyone in Japan to study English especially when Japan lacks an adequate number of able teachers. Perhaps it would be better to make English an optional subject.

[Mark]

As for my original question, I still don't understand why Japanese schools (public or private, K-12, university, or language school) don't want to change. The Japanese public education system is a monolith and is presumably very difficult to adjust, but what about other areas?

Anybody who's picked up virtually any book about language learning or teaching will immediately see lots of flaws in the Japanese approach to learning languages. Japanese test scores are some of (if not the) worst in the world.

And, as a related note, I've never met a Japanese student who thought to read a book about the nature of language or about how languages are learned. You'd think that if someone had been studying something for 10 years and still couldn't do it very well, while people in many other countries could do it fairly well, they would start to wonder about that and look into it.

But that's not just for students. None of the teachers in my eikaiwa chain (some of whom have been doing this for a long time) have spent any time looking into language acquisition. It also doesn't seem to occur to them that perhaps the students' difficulties at least partially stem from a terrible curriculum. Or perhaps they don't care.

If I really wanted to learn how to paint, and I took painting lessons for a couple of years and I still completely sucked, I'd probably look into techniques for learning and teaching art to see how what I'd been learning fit with what the experts say I should be doing. If all of the books said that what I'd been doing was counter-productive, I'd search for an approach that fit with what they recommended and try again.

Personally, I suspect that a lot of people here don't really believe that they can ever learn to speak English well. And that lack of belief leads them to accept their poor results rather than question the way in which they were taught.

[Sweetsee]

Hi Mark,

It's all about motivation, isn't it? Some students can speak English because they want to, conversely the majority can't. Language acquisition is an individual process that is achieved through hard work and determination. Next time you are chatting with your students ask them why they are studying English.

As for the industry changing, that would be like the government owned tobacco industry giving smokers their money back because smoking is harmful.


Enjoy yourself,
s

[Mike L.]

[Nagoyaguy]

One huge problem is cultural.

The fact is that language learning is a process that involves making lots of mistakes, taking chances, experimenting, and uncertainty most of the time. These are feelings and activities that are anathema to most Japanese, particularly in a "school".

Notice how quickly Japanese ESL teachers move to cover up students who dont perfectly understand everything that is said or done. There is a fear of less than full understanding that borders on paranoia. Students will cry "wakarimasen" when in reality they understand 90% of a sentence, just arent sure of what one word means. Instead of speculating on the meaning, or negotiating the meaning with a partner, they freeze and panic.

Plus, as many have said, motivation. The motive to study is usually to pass a test. Until the test changes, the motive will stay the same.

[Glenski]