Job Discussion Forums

[Mark]

Most modern language programs are based on a communicative, task-based approach to language acquisition.

For example, an activity might have two students given a weekly planner listing the activites they've already planned, movies they've already seen, and a list of movies currently showing. The two students (with different schedules) then have to try and make plans to see a movie. Very simple. The students do the best they can, and during and after the activity the teacher can identify the language (both in terms of accuracy and discourse concerns) that the students lack and help them acquire it (or at least help them with a particular point that they lack). Perhaps the group can build a sample dialogue together and then practice it for sentence stress and speed practice and whatnot. The students realize that they need this language because they had communication difficulties without it. For example, one student says "Do you see "Movie Name"?" and the other student doesn't understand if they mean "Have you seen" or "Do you want to see". That's an easy point to address, and students are more likely to remember it this way.

In Japan, students thoroughly practice everything before they try to communicate anything. I suppose this is to prevent them from finding themselves in a situation where they don't know what to say, but that seems to be rather self-defeating when it comes to language learning. In a listen/repeat environment, students usually aren't even listening to each other, they simply wait for the other person to stop talking before they say their next line of dialogue.

I have to do some of this kind of instruction, and it's always entertaining to say something completely different from what's expected. Most students don't even notice. They have no idea what they're listening to, and may not even understand what they're saying some of the time. Very little is retained.

Granted, virtually any method can work with beginners (especially people with years of studying grammar and vocabulary), but past a quickly-attained point, the methods used in language schools here don't seem to do much good.

Any idea on why schools are not interested in changing? You'd think a more effective program would give them a competitive environment. I'm assuming here that the schools are not ignorant of the changes in language education, but that they're deliberately choosing not to adopt them. It's hard to understand how so little thought can be put into the curriculum.

[canuck]

The vast majority of Japanese teachers aren't equiped to teach in a communicative approach. Most English teachers in the world aren't native speakers. In Japan, it's grammar translation to pass tests. The rest is just a bonus.

[moot point]

Canuck, I don't know if I agree with your take on teacher's qualifications or abilities.

I do, however, agree that the teachers feel they need to teach for the "test".

That is where the problem lies, I'm afraid.

[guest of Japan]

Good topic Mark.

I think that Japanese teachers see themselves as distillers of information rather than facillitators of learning. The Japanese way is risk free. It's tightly controlled. They are guaranteed to cover all required content. Student innate academic ability will give them a stand bell curve on exams. They follow established protocols which will keep them from having difficulties with the higher ups.

The facillitator approach, while if done correctly yields better results, is full of risk. Classes can turn into chaos. Content is more difficult to control. Results are more unpredictable, and some higher-ups may be heavily resistent to the use of such methods.

Most teachers will teach the way they were taught in any country. They will usually supplement their acquired behaviors with learned ideas, but the abilitity to do this is determined by having the time to do careful lesson planning. Due to clubs, homeroom responsibilities, and heavy administrative tasks the Japanese teachers don't have much time to put into lesson planning. Most Japanese teachers I've worked with have viewed lesson planning simply as specifying the content to be taught and determining the best way to explain that content.

With all that said, I don't think Japanese teachers are really resistent to communicative activities in the classroom. In both high schools I've worked at the oral communication curriculum has been left entirely up to the foreign teachers. This enables the teachers to teach in communicative way, since the curriculum is designed for that approach. I've found that Japanese teachers are on the whole excited to see the communicative approach in action and are more than willing to support the process. Given enough experience, I think they can effectively do it themselves if they have sufficient language ability.

Japanese students are used to being controlled. They are not adept at using their knowledge in a free manner. Given freedom in an activity many students will complain that they do not know what to do. It takes a lot of patience and care in weaning students from the known into the unknown.

[wintersweet]

I think people are too quick to blame East Asian countries for not using CLL-type approaches--of the three languages I've studied in the US, not one has been taught in a truly communicative way. (Of course, all of the teachers were Asian, but anyway...)

One of the things we've been talking about in my TESOL program is how to get students to feel comfortable with a communicative approach, when such approaches make many students feel scared, uncomfortable, anxious, stupid, or even cheated/ripped off. It's a pretty big question. But there's a lot of research out there on how to teach your students how to learn in this way. If you have access to academic journals through a university or library, there are some great papers on this topic. If not, some of the ESL journals are online free anyway.

Unfortunately, I think there's less research on how to convince fellow teachers/head teachers/adminstrators/government officials of CLL's benefits, but there's probably some.

[Mark]

Well, I was thinking more of the private EFL market than high schools. You can't run a communicative class if you can't really communicate in English, and it seems like many high school teachers don't speak the language very well, and would have a very difficult time identifying areas of student weakness.

I had a high school teacher come in one day for a private lesson. We talked a bit and I decided to focus on future tense stuff as he kept using "will" all the time. He spoke reasonably well, but everything was "will". So, we did a little activity about future probability and talked about the different options you have when talking about the future. He got a bit testy and said that this was a very simple topic that he taught to his students all the time.

Me: Oh, okay. So, what are you going to do this weekend?

Him: I will see movie.

As for the private schools, my assumption is that they're worried that students would quit if they were regularly put into situations where they didn't know what to say and had to do the best they could with what they had.

I've tried slipping more communicative tasks into some classes with mixed results. But a good simple activity could be to put people into pairs and have them describe their train stations to each other while the other one draws a diagram of the station or a map of the surrounding area. That could easily bridge into a lesson on prepositions or any number of other things. You do a lesson to clear up some of their problems and then pair them up with someone new and have them do the activity again. They have less trouble than before, and they've learned something. Plus, they realize that they need this new language, because they were unable to communicate effectively without it in the first round of the activity.
This doesn't necessarily go over well with students who've never had to do this sort of thing before, but most can get the hang of it.

I guess companies must think that this sort of thing would decrease their profits rather than increase them.

As for high school students, it's really amazing here. I've gone into a JHS class at an eikaiwa where the students have been studying 2 hours a week for almost a year and are completely blown away by the question "How are you?" It's astounding really. How can someone attend a class like that and simply retain nothing. I can't understand it.

[Glenski]

[Glenski]

[Glenski]

deleted because it was double-posted.

[canuck]

[Nagoyaguy]

CM doesnt work for a number of reasons, at least at the public school level.

1/ CM assumes that the goal of language learning is to communicate. This assumption does not apply to the Japanese classroom. Japanese students study English to pass tests. Communication is seen as,at best, a waste of time that could be spent cramming for the Center Exam.

2/ CM forces teachers and students to assume roles that they are not comfortable with. Ever see Japanese English teachers try to team teach? It's pretty funny. From the student side, it takes a lot of effort to change from being a passive sponge at school (in every class except English) to being an active participant in English class.

3/ Japanese English teachers receive very little pre service training in methodology, pedagogy, lesson planning, or classroom management. Those of you who teach in public schools will know this. When student teachers come to my school for a teaching practicum (in the final year of their programme), they stay for a grand total of 3 weeks. In that time, they observe a lot of classes, learn about school life, but do very little actual practice teaching. Often only one lesson, which is so carefully planned and choreographed as to defy description.

4/ Teaching is a small part of a teacher's job in Japan, whatever the subject. There are too many demands on teachers' time for them to plan creative and stimulating lessons.

[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.

I do not think that the Education system in Japan is resistant to change and if more people take time to actually look at what teachers study and what activities are used in the classroom we can actually find that a lot of what happens is in line with societal norms in Japan.

Students can communicate but need to be given the right circumstances and level of challenge. Also, for a lot of foreign teachers, education in Japan is viewed from the perspective of teaching a subject rather than a rounded approach to the overall education of the students.

This is perhaps more noticeable with public school teachers at the elementary and junior high levels from my experience.

Here is a link to Pestalocci, one example of someone who has had an influence on Japanese education and is studied by teachers.

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-pest.htm

In fact, cut away the methodology and look at what teachers are really doing with their students and we can find many teachers actually exhibit fantastic qualities to inspire and motivate their students even though they may not be experts at SLA.

[Glenski]

[guest of Japan]

Mandrake, you seem overly optimistic. I read the link you gave and I don't see how it link to Japanese education. Japanese education focuses on the socialization of the individual to fit into Japanese society. Individualism is suppressed. The link you gave talks about bringing out the personality of the student. It's a polar opposite. I will agree that there are some great teachers in this country, but the entire system works against them.

Glenski, in regards to my bell curve statement - Nothing is perfect in practice. Also we can't get a standard bell curve in a private high school because of the separation between the normal kids and the athletes. I'm not saying that all athletes in Japan are weak academically, but they are allowed to be.

[Glenski]