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moot point
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 441
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 Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:10 pm Post subject: Motivating our students to WANT to learn |
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Someone said:
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| Anyway, I can not make the students study or learn if they dont want to. |
Any suggestions? |
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taikibansei
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 811
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: Motivating our students to WANT to learn |
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| moot point wrote: |
Someone said:
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| Anyway, I can not make the students study or learn if they dont want to. |
Any suggestions? |
Moot, I think your initial post to the other thread was excellent; if you don't mind, I'll try to answer that one here, then attempt a fumbled response to the above as well.
You wrote:
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| Doesn't it seem strange that people feel that their authority to fail students is a reflection on their teaching abilities? |
I think there's some truth to this observation--a number of people in Japan, and not just foreign instructors, do equate the ability to fail their students to being a "real" teacher. The reasons why (in my opinion) are complex; a number of them I've already alluded to in other posts: the lack of real accountability (for both students and teachers), the lack of long-term job stability for foreign faculty, the lack of--in some cases--proper training and experience.
However, I firmly believe the "system" is a major culprit. It is, literally, illegal for public elementary and junior high schools to hold back--let alone fail--students in Japan. At high schools, the last time I looked up the figures (in Japanese and a bit difficult to find), less than 1% of the total student population was "failed" for academic-related reasons. In interviews for articles that I've written in the past, Japanese school teachers have made clear to me their own frustrations with this--e.g., the numerous students who take advantage of the situation, who just do not participate or care, who sometimes are quite violent about their not caring, who actively and completely seek to disrupt their classes.
Even Japanese high school teachers--who in theory can fail such students--have told me they feel intense pressure (administrative and parental) not to fail anyone, to the point that they'll give multiple testing opportunities for the same material (even sometimes providing the answers) and change any failing grades (often given by stubborn foreign ALTs) that sneak by. Until, say, the mid-90s, fear of the tests could sometimes be used to control students. However, the declining population has made this a buyer's market; many schools now--at all levels--do not receive enough applications from quality applicants to be choosy...and the students know it.
A friend of mine has written extensively on a related phenomenon, referred to in Japanese as 学級崩壊 [gakkyuu houkai]. This is when a single class--sometimes even a whole grade level--literally rebel against their teacher(s), even violently. For an interview I've done on a related subject, a female junior high school teacher (Japanese) told me how she'd once been tied--upside down--to a fence by her ninth grade students in protest of her attempting to wake up the two sumo senshuu in the classroom. And yet, there was nothing she--or the administration--could do to the offending students. They could not be failed or kicked out. (The "solution" was to transfer them to another school...without other penalty.)
Teachers/schools have responded to these situations in healthy (e.g., with greater curriculum creativity and a more student-centered teaching approach) and unhealthy ways. Among the more unhealthy responses, I've noticed a kind of bizarre fetishization of the ability to control--including fail--students. Indeed, some people--including a number of Japanese teachers--come to equate the ability to "enforce" control with being a real teacher, and failing students can become a somewhat twisted "symbol" of this ability. (Other examples of twisted teacher attempts at classroom control include verbal bullying--sometimes truly horrible--and the well-documented use of physical violence.)
And yes, the fetishization of "failure" can lead to unhealthy usage of it. Which brings me to this point:
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| I always thought a teacher would rather brag about how they were able to increase their students communicative/wriiting/debating/etc. skills over the course of a term. Or at least brag about bringing their TOEIC/TOEFL scores up over a couple of hundred points. Bragging about failing students is just displaying one's poor effort at teaching |
First, Paul was not bragging about failing students--moreover, if he really wanted to brag about something, he could find a number of other things to brag about regarding his many classes.
A bit off-topic, but I once (actually, more than once...) advocated to my university department (frighteningly, the only English-teacher training program in the whole prefecture) that they adopt some sort of objective grading standardization (e.g., norm grading the comp papers at the end of each semester, requiring TOEIC/TOEFL scores of a certain average for each grade-level, etc.). This would have helped ensure that passing and failing weren't such arbitrary things at the university in question. E.g.:
--one faculty member failed only students who missed more than 1/2 the semester (everyone else got A's).
--one literature faculty member based 100% of his grade on a single yakudoku assignment on the last day--randomly chosen from a text not on the reading list.
--one faculty failed nobody, period. Everyone got A's--whether they came or not, whether they even bought the books or not. His class was accordingly very 'popular'--students would sign up both for it and another class at the same time, thereby getting credit for two classes though they'd only have to take one. (I'd actually walk by his class while "in session" and see no students in the room; he'd just be sitting alone next to the podium, reading from some old Japanese classic....)
I can still remember the shock/nervous laughter my suggestions received. I was even told that the whole idea of establishing objective, level- and learner-appropriate grading criteria was "illegal" in Japan...still haven't found the relevant law, however. 
To return to your point, yes, "failing students" does not equal "teaching," good or bad. Furthermore, yes, as I alluded to above, people fail students for inappropriate reasons. However, you seem to be implying that the failure of non-performing students is always a bad thing, that it can never be one tool in a good teacher's arsenal...if true, then I have serious problems with the naivete implicit in your assertions. E.g., the following:
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| (mind you I DO sincerely sympathise with those of you teaching courses that your students have absolutely no interest in -- in that case, we could split the blame between you and your institution but it still doesn't leave you off the hook) |
Yes, how to motivate unmotivated students? How to handle, for instance, a university class of 55 engineers with English vocabularies of (on average) less than 500 words, who have been forced to take the class in question, who neither need English (their perception) or want it.
Of course, you need to find ways to make the course relevant to their interests and careers; as much as possible, you need to structure your assignments to build on skills (e.g., pertinent sentence structures and vocabulary) that they might actually have to use someday. Furthermore, you try to include activities which are both helpful and fun, which both stimulate their interest and inspire active participation. I think we're all in agreement here on this....
However, when you have 6-10 classes with that number (and background) of students, you'll invariably have a tiny minority who not only fail to show interest/participate, but actually attempt to disrupt the class, whether by never doing preparation for group work (sometimes even bragging about it!), refusing to participate in activities, playing with their keitai denwas (even talking on them out loud during class...), etc. Frankly, my solution for these few students was to write my grading criteria on my syllabi in Japanese, then hold them to those written standards on each assignment.
Almost invariably, the very few disruptive students would either shape up (the majority) or drop my classes early in the semester (muttering about how "kibishii" I was...), allowing me to concentrate my efforts on the 99% of the students who actually wanted to learn. Rarely would I have to fail students for the full class; simply having and enforcing standards from the beginning--including failing students on assignments when applicable--was almost always enough.
My two yen. Send me a pm if you want citations for some of the research I mention earlier. |
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guest of Japan
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Posts: 1601
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:03 am Post subject: |
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The ability to fail students does not equate to good teaching. However, it does put the teacher in a more authoritative position. When students recognize this position they tend to act the part of the student a little better.
Managing intrinsically motivated students is easy. But managing students who lack intrinsic motivation is the challenge of teaching. The ability to give grades is an essential tool for extrinsic motivation. However as Taikibansei has illustrated, giving a failing grade in Japan is far easier said than done. In both private high schools I have worked at I had to give tests which all students could pass, but that also separtated the grades of those students who had academic university aspirations. Despite another teacher and my best efforts at designing such tests we still had two students fail for the year during the last school year. These students did absolutely nothing in the class for the whole year. They even slept during the final exam. In the end their failing grades stuck, but they were still promoted to the next academic year. I teach them in second year writing now. Guess what? They're asleep. They know that they will eventually graduate and be swept out into society. As long as they keep their hair color near black, put on a uniform before they come to school and bow at the appropriate times they will have met the minimum standards placed on them. Education in Japan is a socialization process first and foremost. Adademic standards are only in place for those competing for the top universities and the top jobs.
Sure there are ways to motivate students who have accepted that they cannot succeed. But when teachers teach 500 students a week in addition to a slew of other responsibilities, those students who need a lot of additional one on one attention will not get it. The teachers learn to accept that the students can't succeed. The students become comfortable with this acceptance. When a rogue teacher actually does try to break the cycle they meet resistance from both the student and the other faculty. I'm with Taikibansei in that the system is so flawed that it is near impossible to push the boundaries. |
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Brooks
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1369
Location: Sagamihara
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| Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:55 am Post subject: |
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I prefer the tough love approach.
Learning is a 2 way street.
At my school we show students the door, we even give them the key but only they can open the door.
Students have to learn to be responsible for their own learning.
After high school, they are on their own.
They need to learn to be independent.
What I have found, though, is that some students need strict teachers.
If they don`t have strict teachers, they can get passive and lazy.
So some students have become dependent on their teachers instead of independent learners.
Sometimes I feel that I am a shepherd and each class is a flock.
Some sheep are black and some are wayward. Some are teacher`s pets and some rebel. My job is to keep them together and have them follow me.
It is obvious which kids have good parents who have taught them well and those who have been given more money than love.
Some don`t have a moral compass and abuse the freedom they are given. Some have discipline and some are impulsive.
In Japan, the belief is that it is up to students to learn, and that a proper attitude is important. In Japanese `do` means the way, so when students learn judo or kendo, they learn a martial art and learn the right attitude to learning as well.
At my school boys have to learn either kendo or judo.
They have a week of kangeiko in January.
For girls, it is optional.
For teachers I think things are getting tougher.
This year, in fact, I was told that I have to teach grammar to the 10th graders. Think about that. Before I had to teach oral skills and culture.
It used to be that grammar was the domain of the Japanese English teacher. No longer at my school.
with grades we separate the wheat from the chaff. Japan only needs a certain percentage of people competent in English. It is not surprising that students give up after doing poorly on tests. I have seen it happen at junior high school. Kids at elementary school seem so genki but the first year of junior high can be rough. Junior high is where the bullying can be a problem and some kids do get stressed out.
For your own reading I recommend a book from CUP called Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom by Zoltan Dornyei. |
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