I've become aware of just how bad, what a dog's dinner this book makes of this area, because for the past two days I've been marking over 100 third grade test papers, and a lot of what the students wrote ain't good: in fact, it took 3 or 4 hours to correct what amounts to less than 10% of the paper (the JTEs didn't want to mark this section themselves, revealing eh).
The reasons for the students' relative failure are partly due to one the test item's instructions: 'Write at least 4 sentences.' But the main reason is that the textbook makes a meal of it and introduces complexities when in real life, we'd streamline things substantially.
The sort of dialogue (I don't have the Teacher's Book, so I can't give it verbatim) that serves as the model goes something like this (it's actually longer than this):
Points:Get on the train at A station.
(Get off the train) at B station (and) change trains to the Yakisoba line.
Get off the train at C station. It's the second station.
1) I am pretty sure I have never heard or said 'Get on/off the train' - this is a thing that we can assume people will "naturally" do at the appropriate times, and they'd hardly be getting on a camel now, would they! As for 'Get on the train at A station', see 2).
2) A station is the local one, so it will probably be known to the particpiants in the conversation; in real life, I suspect people start talking about the route from the interchange (B station) and assume the listener can fill in the journey before that point.
3) Following on from the above two points, 'take' is mentioned in a further dialogue, but not highlighted (it's like the writers wanted to introduce a few "phrasal verbs" or something instead). This is unfortunate, because with it (take), one can express a lot of the above points in one fell swoop: '(From B station) Take the Yakisoba line (to C station)' (even the changing trains doesn't need to be explicitly stated).
All this is pretty much how conversations about train routes go: whenever I ask Japanese friends about how to get somewhere new, a lot about the starting point is known and assumed, and what gets emphasized is the relevant line: 'You need (to take)/Take the Keihin Tohoku line.' C station is also ellipted because we both know that's where I will get off (presuming I don't fall asleep on the train!). (It also helps to know the possible or final destination(s)/terminus(es), so you get on a train that's at going in roughly the right direction for at least a couple of stops - and don't whatever you do get on the express train! But the book makes no mention of these things).
In a nutshell, directions can boil down to 'You need (to take)/Take the X line' (?'You should take the X line' - simple statement or imperative versus more "loaded", potentially complex modal of obligation). Totally clueless tourists spankingly new to the place should be given a very clear map to brandish through their white-knuckle ride, rather than be forced (whilst in a hurry to make connections) to decipher tortured JHS student-level, mistake and repetition-filled "English".
So, we have a textbook dialogue that has a lot of redundancy in it (requiring more memorization than is necessary), and a test which expects regurgitation of the more or less that whole model intact, and will accept no less (re. the four sentence minimum). The end results could end up looking something like this (admittedly this is one of the worse examples...among those who actually wrote anything near the required length!):
Obviously, the model hadn't quite sunk in... (Actually, should the students be studying how to give directions at all? If a foreigner can't follow a guidebook, all the signs in English, or speak even the most basic of Japanese, whose fault is that? And accuracy in production, whilst it might help with understanding in reception, is of a different order of difficulty (for JHS students at least), and if they don't actually end up ever going abroad it will in fact have been a complete waste of time to have studied it; this sort of language can be picked up soon enough later, a short while before any such trips are to become a reality).You should take the Nanboku line. Then you should get on the Kurowa station. You should Misaki station at change trains at Tozai line. Train stop second station near the zoo.
ANYWAY I also noticed that quite a few students had been writing 'Get on the X line', and wrote comments on their papers along the lines of the above (stressing 'take', along with 'to Z station...' if Z station was an interchange (it's then followed by another 'Then, take the Y line (to ZZ station)')). Ah, the joys of frogjumping!
The Head JTE noticed this and informed (read, 'gently patronized') me that as I was British, and this structure (so she assured me) American English, I wouldn't be as aware of it and was thus (implicitly) in no position to query it or suggest alternatives...and this, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear in the book! (Can a non-native speaker safely extrapolate from ?'Get on the train' to 'Get on the X line'?!).
Why are JTEs so attached to the key phrases in the book, even when they are clumsy and lead to unnecessary circumlocution (which increases the burden on memory and/or the risk of error in reproduction)? To me, the student phrase 'Get on the X line' was a subconscious cry, a sign that their cognitive processes were working their way towards 'take' in an effort to 'make sense' (in completing the task); that is, the model had gaps or begged questions...
So, any American English speakers want to confirm or deny what that head JTE was saying? (General comments also welcome!).
