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taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

Do many English classes/teachers still under-perform (to be kind)? Sadly, and particularly at many mid-rank or low-rank schools, yes. There are a number of reasons for this, though again kzjohn references one important one: It is no longer necessary to do well on the entrance exams to enter most Japanese colleges/universities. As even low-performing students can now enter university, parents and students are much less likely to complain...and without such complaints, MEXT is unwilling to confront individual teachers (and the powerful teacher union) over poor performance. I mean, heck, as far back as 1999, MEXT sent out the following to all teachers:

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

Aw c'mon, it's going to be perhaps a dozen key shortish sentences at most, and it'd be nice to have more than just your word that these textbooks have really improved that much.

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

The link I gave was to help show that JTEs indeed may do just what they want (in the negative sense) - they either select examples as bad as or certainly no better than those in the set textbooks, or simply make ones up themselves (which are unsurprisingly usually even worse).

The fact that you've chosen to not supply any examples of tag questions from supposedly improved books would suggest that that area is still functionally lacking. As for the "random" sampling you've provided, I note a tiring preponderance of "full-form" answers (thus demanding more of foreign learners than native speakers usually bother to say, or their communicative focus is necessarily elsewhere than always echoing the question forms back) and a general stiltedness in the last four quoted items. The first is OK I suppose but the second would be odd were it face to face rather than on phones (especially the 'at a department store'). Long story short is I for one would not be happy to be a co-author of/much more than a mere advisor for such content.

As for the general gist of what you're saying, it just seems to ultimately be that good schools produce more able students and vice-versa, and that you're fortunate enough to work at a reasonable uni. Pity then those (natives and foreigners) who get chewed up at the less than stellar schools or indeed at eikaiwa, the stuff of the original topic of the thread (sorry but yeah, I like my moaning as much as the next lowly AET's or eikaiwa drone's! Improvements are obviously beyond us despite what we may still witness).

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

taikibansei · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 811 Location: Japan

I took models/exercises from textbooks written by native English speakers and put out by the major publishers to make two points.

First, in the absence of outright error, looking at such models/exercises tells us little. Language learning exercises, particularly at the beginning levels, often seem artificial to masters of that particular language. This is true for L1 acquisition as well--two of the quoted exercises are taken from popular textbooks intended for 1st grade native speakers of English.

Second, I think some people here are inflating the importance of teachers and school curriculum in language acquisition. I learned Japanese over 30 years ago while living in the US, using the Nelson dictionary (to learn kanji) and Kenji Ogawa's New Intensive Japanese (to learn grammar). The usage examples in the latter book are completely unnatural, mirroring Japanese used in the Meiji Era. While I would never use the speaking examples in actual conversation, I absolutely loved this book. It gave me a very strong understanding of grammar, building the foundations for all my later learning. Indeed, within a year of arriving in Japan, I had already passed 2 kyuu on the Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken and was working on 1 kyuu...all thanks to that ugly green book.

I think most people who have mastered a foreign language have similar stories. Yes, some may have met a good teacher or taken a good class as well, which is great. Many, like me--and like a large number of our students--have not, and still do fine. I remind myself of this whenever I get depressed thinking about how "the system" has let our students down.

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

Nobody is contesting that textbooks from the major ELT publishers often aren't up to much either (note my reply too to Yurii). What would be more revealing then than my "failure" to recognize quite where your quotes were from would be for you to simply supply relevant examples for the language area I requested (tag questions, which are never that well-contextualized, especially in Japanese schools) from those books you claim to have on your desk.

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

I would argue that examples that do not reflect norms of usage are in fact errors or failures, at least of linguistic taste, imagination and judgement on the part of the writer or compiler. They should and nowadays of course can do better. It is to your credit that you were able to go beyond and somehow extrapolate from the "data" in the abstract, but not all learners (Japanese ones especially) are as capable of that, and every extra item and point can become a burden for some that is quite hard for them to overcome. Why make the language more unreflective and "testing" than it really needs to be? I prefer to furnish my students with maximally-useful stuff, and reduce whatever artifice is involved down to as near zero as possible.

kzjohn · Joined: 30 Apr 2014 Posts: 277

The original goes something like: "He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand."

Now, it's "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

The BS early on in this thread (and others here) about bad books, bad ALTs, bad JTEs, too much or too little of L1, L2, or some interlanguage, blah, blah, blah, goes way too far in most cases. (on edit: and bad hiring practices, bad salaries, no "good" jobs, hapas who can't speak English...!)

Frankly speaking, those broken records who moan, complain, demean, and, of course, project that there's some kind of disdain out there, should at some point that's sooner rather than later, shut up and show everyone how they made lemonade.

Becoming a whiner and complainer is the easy way out--exemplifying something creative in the face of odds stacked against you is what is admirable.

And who knows, you might find that the odds are far more favorable than you had thought.

kzjohn · Joined: 30 Apr 2014 Posts: 277

fluffytwo · Joined: 24 Sep 2016 Posts: 139

I really don't see what is so inexcusable about simply pointing out that unimaginative stuff such as "full" answers do little more than waste time and may cause some learners to develop hang-ups (I'm all ears however if there is conclusive research that shows otherwise), and that a well-designed syllabus will have plenty of necessarily full statements elsewhere within it that will more than compensate for the "loss". And I've supplied more than enough lemonade recipes on these forums gratis, thanks. But of course all this pales in comparison to very good-natured repeated demands that a single word somebody dared to use be explained, and explained, and explained.

Still waiting for those quality tag question examples, by the way (Taiki).