Jimbo's English Teaching in Japan Blog

The Problem with PPP

2010-11-07T22:36:00.003+09:00

PPP stands for Presentation, Practice, Production and it is perhaps the dominant teaching method in Japanese junior high schools. PPP means that teachers will first present a grammar point, for example, present perfect, have students practice it, and then give them some kind of activity where they are expected to produce it. This way of teaching is efficient because it is easy for students to follow. Although I would probably use this method sometimes if I was a JHS teacher, I think it is important to recognize the problems of this method.

First, although a lot of teachers say that the field of Second Language Acquisition is completely useless for teaching, it does reveal a limitation of PPP. That is that learners acquire grammar structures (for example, the regular past tense) gradually after passing through various developmental stages. PPP might give the learners and teachers the false impression that learners should have mastered the particular grammatical structure after the presentation, practice and production. It is only through constant exposure and use that learners acquire a grammatical structure though.

This leads to the second and in my opinion the biggest limitation. In a PPP lesson, Learners and teachers might think that the goal of using English in class is to show that they know a particular structure but this could be counterproductive to their language learning. In my opinion, the most important goal for language use in the classroom is for learners to learn how to build their fluency in English and learn the communicative strategies necessary for them to make the best use of the knowledge that they have. As teachers, we also want learners to make the effort to learn from their miscommunications and errors to become more accurate and effective communicators. In other words, the major limitation of PPP could be that it leads learners and teachers to ignore the most important goals of communicative activities.

What the heck do I want learners to get out of my classes?

2010-11-01T15:14:00.004+09:00

Recently I have been reading a lot of books about new teaching methodologies or new activities for listening, reading and grammar teaching. I have been doing this because I thought I needed to expand my repertoire of teaching techniques and activities. One of the books I read mentioned that if teachers do not have some sort of overarching goal for which their activities are conducted, then what they do in class is meaningless. This got me to think about my rationale for conducting the kind of classes I do, so here it is:

I do not think there is much I can teach students. I do not think I can even get students to like English (By English, I mean the language, the English speaking culture, etc.). In fact, I probably do not care whether or not they like it. Learning a foreign language is an active endeavor which involves listening to it and using it. Learners can learn to listen through repetition and eventual understanding of the meaning of what they heard and some of the unknown grammar and words. Learners can improve in speaking and writing the language through activities that involve memorization and others that involve communication. Getting feedback is also an important part of the learning process.

I do not know how "communicative" a teacher but my mission is to keep learners as busy as possible listening to the language, using the language and analyzing the language. Sometimes their language use is mechanical and sometimes it is what might be called "communicative". From my classes, I hope learners "learn" how to learn English, and I hope they come to my classes looking forward to working with their classmates and a willingness to try. Language learning in the end is something that will be accomplished by the learner and not the teacher.

Adapting a Task to a Junior High School (An Update)

2009-08-12T12:24:00.019+09:00

In a previous post, I wrote about the how my graduate students and I were struggling to adapt a task to use at a junior high school. After a lot of negotiation, we were able to agree on a framework for conducting the task. The framework was based on the one in Jane Willis's A Framework for Task Based Learning . The task type was a Jumble. In a jumble, students have to arrange strips of text into its correct order. For the jumble, we used the story "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" by William Steig. We made cards of the story (see below). Each card had a picture from the story and we rewrote the text using mainly words that the junior high school students had studied up to that point.

The graduate students taught a total of 4 second grade classes at the JHS, each class had close to 40 students. There were three graduate students and each class was taught by 2 graduate students; one would be the main teacher and the other would serve as the assistant teacher. The goals of the lesson were the following:

JHS students see the words that they have studied in a different context from the textbook and reinforce their understanding of these words.
JHS students use the language that they know to organize the cards with their partners. This will give them practice in using communicative strategies and it is hoped that this activity will make it easier for students to use English with each other the next time they do a similar activity.
Organizing the cards helps students understand how pieces of text fits together to make a whole.

Perhaps the main goal of the class was number 2. Although the JHS students had many opportunities to write English, read English, and use English in speeches, they had little experience using English in free, spontaneous speech.

Below is how the class was organized.

Pre Task

1. The teachers introduce the topic:
Teachers, "Today we are going to read a story about a donkey named Taro. Taro likes stones. In the story, Taro finds a magic stone but something terrible happens to him. What happens?

2. Teachers tell students the goal.
The teachers wrote the goal of the class was "To put the story together in English". This goal was a little difficult for the students to understand.

3. Teachers teach new words.
The teachers taught students new words that appeared in the story.

4. Teachers demonstrate how to do the jumble
The teachers demonstrates to students how to do the jumble and pasted phrases they thought would be useful for students to learn on the blackboard (See the picture below).
The teachers explained that there were two rules for jumble: 1) The students should read and understand the text first. 2) The students should use only English and they can use the phrases on the board.

5. The teachers confirm that learners understand the instructions
Actually, the teachers only did this in one of four classes. This class was the most successful class.

During the pre task stage, the learners were supposed to listen for useful expressions to use for the task. Learners were not given any time to plan for the task.

Task Cycle

Task
1. Students do the tasks in pairs
2. The teachers let the students do the task but offer support to those who need it. They also encourage pairs to use English.
3. At the ending of the task the teachers show students the order of the story.

Planning
1. Students write a transcript of the dialogue they had in the task.
The point of this is for students to be able to analyze the English that they used in the task.

2. The pairs make groups of 4 and each pair reenacts their dialogue. The pair that is listening is supposed to write down useful words and phrases.
The point of this was for students to hear the phrases their classmates had used for the task and learn about the variety of language that could be used.

Reporting
1. The teachers call on various students to perform their dialogue in front of the class.

Post Task (Language Focus)

1. The teachers give students metalinguistic feedback on the reports.
2. Students write a self evaluation

Positive and Negative Aspects of the Classes

I will start with the positives:

JHS students made a strong effort to use English.
One JHS student wrote the following:(Jimbo translation)
"I was able to confirm the meaning in English with my partner when I did not understand something. It was really difficult to use only English but I was surprised that I could do so by using such simple phrases as 'Yes' and 'This is'."

JHS students realized the importance of using English.
One JHS student wrote:
"Up until now I could not really use the English that I had studied, I was not so skilled at English. From now on I was to study 'English that I can use". (Jimbo translation)

The JHS students were able to learn from friends.
"Listening to other people's conversations, I learned a lot of new expressions and could use them. I want to use these expressions in the next class." (Jimbo translation)

The JHS teacher reported that students’ comments made her realize that her students wanted to try speaking more.

Here are the negative aspects:
After each class, students were asked to comment on how much English they used in the jumble. Here are the results:

How much English did you use during the jumble?
	Class C	Class D	Class A	Class B	Total
Almost all English	6	21	7	9	43
Half English and half Japanese	18	13	26	28	85
Almost all Japanese	14	5	4	0	23

Class D was the only class where the teachers confirmed that students understood the demonstration of the jumble task. The students said no and the teachers gave a quick explanation in Japanese. The students then said "Oh, I see" and most succeeded in doing the task mainly in English. In the other classes the students were not sure what they had to do for the jumble task and struggled to use English. Through this experience, we learned the importance of introducing the task well in the pre-task phase. One of my students wrote:

"Even if you have a good task, it will not work unless the teachers present it well.

In all the classes the students struggled with the "planning" stage of the task cycle. The reason for this was that the teachers told them to write down their conversation but did not say why they should do so. So, the students did not know that they were supposed to transcribe their conversation so that they could present it to their classmates and, so, in turn, their classmates could learn new words and phrases by listening to their presentation.

Students thought that they could only use the expression on the blackboard for the jumble when there were other expressions that they wanted to use.

There was not sufficient time to go through the task cycle and the class was rushed.

The teachers had a difficult time giving the students spontaneous feedback in the post task (language focus) phase. For example, the teachers heard the students say the expression "How about you" in the following way in the report stage:
Student: "This card is here, how about you?"
The teachers said this was a good expression to use for the jumble when in fact the usage of this expression was incorrect.

The teachers did not discuss how the sentences fit together after the task.

Implication for Using Tasks in Teacher Education

The teacher-educator should consider making the lesson plan:
I had the student-teachers make the lesson plan and they must have given me 5 or 6 versions before it had my final approval. I think that making the lesson plan was a good experience for the student-teachers but they spent so much time working on the lesson plan that they did not have much time to practice presenting the task, explaining the planning stage etc. In the future, I will consider making the lesson plan myself so that the student-teachers have more time to practice doing the lesson. If we do a similar practice a second time, the students can design the lesson as they will have a better idea what doing a task in a JHS entails.

If the JHS students and the teacher educators are doing a task for the first time consider an alternative framework to Willis's task cycle
Personally, the cycle has worked for me well. However, if teachers and students are doing the task for the first time it will take them longer to complete the task. Fifty minutes if probable too short. Thus, we should consider thess options:

They do the jumble task, reflect on it, and then move onto another activity. There is no planning or reporting.
Students do the jumble task, relfect on it and get feedback from the teacher, do a different jumble task, and see if their performance was any better.

What do kids get out of listening to English picture books? An update

2009-07-29T19:03:00.003+09:00

A few months ago I wrote a post about up and coming pilot lessons using picture books that would be conducted at a local elementary school. The project which is overseeing this endeavor is called the Working with Picture Books Project.

In late June, teachers at the elementary school conducted 12 classes using picture books. Classes were conducted for 1st through 6th grades and a total of 4 English picture books were used.

Here is a list of the Picture Books we used for each class.

Grades 1 & 2: Suddenly by McNaughton, C: 165 words
Grades 3 & 4: Tulip Sees America by Rylant, C. and Desimini: 362 words
Grade 5: Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs by Tomie dePaola: 403 words
Grade 6: Yoko by Rosemary Wells: 508 words

I rewrote the text for all the picture books expect for Suddenly. I also scanned the books into my computer and gave the teachers a laminated A3 sized copy of each page. Lastly, I gave the teachers a CD of me reading the books so they would have a model (albeit not a very good one!)

Most of the picture books were read in less than 10 minutes. The teachers who read Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs and Yoko read about two third of their respective books and continued the stories for the next lesson.

Below are the results of the questionnaire given to the children. Under the question, I have written the result and what I found out.

１） Did you understand the story? (Students write a circle next to the answer they agree with)

Results: (N=251)
a. I understood it well (115 )
b. I understood it a little (97)
c. I did not understand it well (33)
d. I did not understand it at all (6)

What I found out: The majority of children felt that they understood the story. This is notable because question 3 will reveal that teachers used means other than translation to help children understand the meaning of the text.

２）Did you try hard to understand the story? (N=251)
a. I tried very hard　　　　　　（140 ）
b. I tried a little　　　　　　　（97）
c. I did not try so hard　　　　（10）
d. I did not try at all 　　　（ 3 ）

What I found out: After observing the classes, it seemed that most children listened to the story attentively and made great efforts to understand it. The above responses seem to substantiate this.

３）How were you able to understand the story? Please write circle next to what was useful
a. The teacher’s facial expression when he/she was reading　（109）
b. The teacher’s voice would change from loud to soft （83）
c. I heard words that I recognized 　　　　　　（112）
d. I would think about what would happen next while I was listening to the story（79）
e. The picture　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（141）
f. Asking the teachers questions　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（22）
g. The teacher using Japanese　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（76）
h. I did not understand the English but I could follow the story 　（89）
i. The teacher’s talk before reading the book 　　　　　　（35）
j. Other：　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿　(a few)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

What I Found Out: I was pleased to learn that children used a variety of means to understand the book in addition to the teacher using Japanese. What was surprising is that more the books' pictures, hearing words they recognized, and the teachers' facial expressions helped more children understand the story than the teacher using Japanese.

４） Was the story interesting？
a. It was very interesting　　　　　（145）
b. It was a little interesting　　　　（68）
c. It was not very interesting 　　　（33）
d. It was not interesting at all 　　（5）

What I found out: Most of the responses about the book not being interesting came from the sixth grade. Many students felt that the book was too childish or did not like the fact that the main character, a Japanese cat, was teased for eating sushi by her animal classmates.

５）What was the most interesting part of the story? Please write it below.

What I found out: Most classes only did questions 1 - 4. Also, since each book is different it is hard for me to generalize the results for all the classes.

６）What did you enjoy most about today’s lesson?

What I found out: Many students did not write the storytelling part of the lesson but rather "the interview game" they played before or after the story or the song they sang for warm-up. In the "interview game" students have predetermined questions they must ask each other and then they must write down their classmates' responses. In some of the "interview games" I saw, the children spoke in Japanese and copied each other's worksheets. They seemed to be having a good time socializing.

７）Did you learn any new English words today? If you did, please them below. You can use katakana to write the words. Do not worry about writing the words correctly.

What I found out: Interesting results. In the 1st grade class students wrote many of the words the teachers wanted them to learn from the book. In the sixth grade class, students tended to write words they had learned from the Assistant Language Teacher's talk about people extracting maple syrup from trees in Canada rather than words they were exposed to in the book.

８）Today, if you learned anything about the USA, please write it below.

What I found out: Not really conclusive. Although in the sixth grade class students wrote things like "Americans don't like sushi" or "Japanese are made fun of about their food." Hmm...

９）Today, did you learn anything about Japan? If so, please write it below.
What I found out: Very few children wrote a response to this question. The teachers tended to address the culture portrayed in the book but did not compare it to their own culture. Part of learning about different cultures is getting to understand your own culture better. This is something we should probably address in future lessons.

Overall: The majority of the children enjoyed the experience of using storybooks in their English activities. It is my belief that if children associate the pleasant experience of enjoying the story with the new linguistic or cultural knowledge that they learned, then this content is more likely to remain in their long-term memories. I think the results of these pilot lessons show that if teachers conduct the proper pre-storytelling activities and practice the storytelling beforehand, then they can read English storybooks to children without relying on Japanese. Children, in turn, our likely to enjoy the experience and maybe even learn something from it.

The difficulty of adapting tasks to Japanese Jr. High Schools without destroying them

2009-06-22T21:12:00.003+09:00

I teach a graduate school seminar on Task Based Language Learning. For the seminar we have read the Willis book, a Framework for Task Based Learning, and a chapter from the new Paul Nation book, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking which gives a lot of good ideas for tasks. The class consists of 3 Japanese graduate students and a researcher from Pakistan. Next week, they will go to a junior high school (JHS) and teach a lesson that is supposed to feature a language learning task. Our goal (or at least the goal that I imposed) is the following:

"Design a task supported lesson that will encourage communication and interaction among junior high school students to reinforce their understanding of how to use the language they have studied up to that point."

Last week the student-teachers designed a lesson plan which consisted of a jumbling task, where the JHS kids would have to order a story, and then a writing task where the JHS kids would have to write the ending of the story. The problem was that the story was too complex for the JHS kids and the writing task was too long. We went to the JHS last Thursday to present the plan to the teacher and she rightly pointed out that it would take about 3 classes to do such a task. On the way back to the university from the JHS I reiterated to the student-teachers that they needed to drastically reduce the content.

Tonight I got the new lesson plan from the student-teachers and I was shocked. The lesson is only task by name. It changed to a typical JHS lesson. To make a long story short, they plan to read half a story to the JHS kids in English, have them write the ending of the story in Japanese, and then change the story to English. Last the kids will read their English story to each other. What is worse is that the JHS where they will teach did a similar lesson which the student-teachers observed. The lesson was actually pretty good. What bothers me is that the graduate students' lesson is like a bad imitation. If they are going to fail, I want them to at least fail trying something original.

After they made their first lesson I encouraged the student-teachers to "adapt" tasks to the JHS. By "adapt" I meant reduce the content and think about how they could change the task to encourage the JHS students' language use. For some reason, they seemed to perceive my "adapt" to be completely destroy. We have one week until the lesson and I will meet with the graduate students tomorrow. Let's see what happens.

What do kids get out of listening to an English picture book? Developing a questionnaire

2009-06-15T17:03:00.007+09:00

At last, tomorrow the picture book pilot lessons will begin. Altogether we have conducted 2 workshops and held 2 separate meetings with teachers. I have also received some phone calls and e-mails from teachers asking for help with finding teaching materials or advice on their lesson plans. I am not sure how the lessons will go, but I can say that I have enjoyed very much working with the teachers. I think that English picture books are a great means to help children learn about language and culture but I now have a full appreciation of the time and effort necessary to make the use of English picture books possible at Japanese primary schools.

Over the past couple of years we have conducted numerous pilot lessons using picture books but this is the first time where we will be giving a questionnaire to the children. We are giving the questionnaire to find out the following:

How many children were able to understand the story?
How were the children able to understand the story?
What did the children enjoy about the story?
What kind of activities during the lesson did the children enjoy?
What English words did the children feel they were able to learn?
Did they learn anything new about the USA or Japan from listening to the story?

The questionnaire was written in Japanese by me. I then asked the elementary school teachers for their feedback. They gave me advice on how to reword the items so that the children could understand and recommended a could of additional items. After that a colleague of mine at the university rewrote the questionnaire. I showed it one more time to the teachers and they gave me their approval. This questionnaire will be given to children in grades 1 - 6 after their picture book lesson. I have just translated the questions to English for this blog but the questions do not seem to be as clear in English. Here are the questions and what I hope to find from each question:

１） Did you understand the story? (Students write a circle next to the answer they agree with)
a. I understood it well ( )
b. I understood it a little ( )
c. I did not understand it well ( )
d. I did not understand it at all ( )

What I want to find out: This is pretty straight forward, I want to find out how many children understood the story (or at least thought they understood it)

２）Did you try hard to understand the story?
a. I tried very hard　　　　　　（　）
b. I tried a little　　　　　　　（　）
c. I did not try so hard　　　　（　　）
d. I did not try at all 　　　（　　）

What I want to find out: If children did not understand the story, I want to know if they made the effort to understand or if they just decided not to pay attention

３）How were you able to understand the story? Please write circle next to what was useful
a. The teacher’s facial expression when he/she was reading　（　　）
b. The teacher’s voice would change from loud to soft （　　）
c. I heard words that I recognized 　　　　　　（　　）
d. I would think about what would happen next while I was listening to the story（　　）
e. The picture　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（　　）
f. Asking the teachers questions　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（　　）
g. The teacher using Japanese　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（　　）
h. I did not understand the English but I could follow the story 　　　　（　　）
i. The teacher’s talk before reading the book 　　　　　　（　　）
j. Other：　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

What I want to find out: I want to know HOW the students were able to understand the story (What listening strategies they used).

４） Was the story interesting？
a. It was very interesting　　　　　（　　）
b. It was a little interesting　　　　（　　）
c. It was not very interesting 　　　（　　）
d. It was not interesting at all 　　（　　）

Why do you think so? Please write a reason below.

What I want to find out: This is pretty self-explanatory too. I want to know if the children found the story interesting. Four different types of books will be read and it will be interesting to find out which type of book captured the students' interest.

５）What was the most interesting part of the story? Please write it below.

What I want to find out:The particular part of the story that the children liked.

６）What did you enjoy most about today’s lesson?

What I want to find out: Did children like the pre or post-storytelling activities more than listening to the story or was it vice versa?

７）Did you learn any new English words today? If you did, please them below. You can use katakana to write the words. Do not worry about writing the words correctly.

What I want to find out: Were there any particular words that stuck in the children's heads?

８）Today, if you learned anything about the USA, please write it below.

What I want to find out: Three of the four books are from a previous project, Cross-cultural Understanding Using Picture Books. In this project the English picture books were used to teach about aspects of the US culture, so I am interested in knowing if children thought they were able to learn anything about the USA.

９）Today, did you learn anything about Japan? If so, please write it below.

What I want to find out: Part of cross-cultural learning is making discoveries about your own culture. People say that it is impossible to understand other cultures without understanding your own. So, I want to know if children were realized anything new about their own culture in this lesson.

A speaking task where students did not interact and an interesting discussion with my students

2009-06-04T22:04:00.005+09:00

This is a follow-up to my previous post about a speaking task I did in a university freshman English class. In the previous class the students exchanged profiles. As a follow-up, in the next lesson we did if the "World were 100 people" activity (I admit that I am using task and activity interchangeably here) which I had used various times in other classes. In this activity, students filled out a worksheet (html version - some mistakes) (pdf version-some mistakes) citing statistics about the world if it were a village of 100 people.

The worksheet looked something like this:

If the world were 100 people
there would be ____________ Asians
there would be ____________ Europeans
there would be ____________ Africans
there would be ____________ from North America
there would be ____________ from South America and the Caribbean

___________ people would have no clean, safe, water to drink
___________ own 59% of the entire wealth of the community.
___________ would be undernourished
___________ would be unable to read
____________ would be educated at a secondary level

etc... There are a lot of items.

After going over some difficult words/phrases with the students, I asked them to work in pairs and guess how many people for each item. First, students worked individually and filled in the blanks, then they compared answers. When their answers were different, I asked them to explain to each other why they gave that particular answer. For example, if one student thought that 10 people would be unable to read and her partner thought that 40 people would be unable to read, both students would try to justify their answers to each other. In this class, there seemed to be very little interaction among the students. After the class I asked students whether or not they agreed with the statement that

"I was able to use a lot of English when comparing answers with my partner for if the world were 1o0 people activity"

Of 20 students, 10 agreed and 10 disagreed. Their primary reasons for saying that they could not use English was that 1) the worksheet contained too many unknown words, 2) they did not have the vocabulary to explain their answers, 3) they answered based on intuition (which I encouraged them to do) and could not give a reason for their answers. Those who wrote that they agreed with the above statement did so because they were 1) trying to make me feel happy, 2) enjoyed explaining their thinking to their partners, or 3) enjoyed learning and using new words.

After students had compared answers, they watched a movie called Miniature Earth which presents the "If the World were 100 People" data. Students then write the correct answers and I asked them how accurate they were.

Lastly, we had an interesting discussion - in Japanese. As a surprising amount of people in the world live without poverty, clean water, etc. I expected that a group of Japanese university students would feel pretty fortunate about what they have (a roof over their head, an education, the financial flexibility to pursue their dreams, etc.). I asked them if they felt fortunate after watching this video. One student started speaking in Japanese and said that compared to other people in the world she is fortunate but inside Japan she is not fortunate so she does not consider herself to be so. I asked her why and she said because she cannot do what she wants. I asked her what she wants and she said that she wanted to buy a lot of things that she could not. She knew a lot of rich kids who got whatever they wanted. The bell rang and I felt guilty about having this discussion in Japanese. Before students left I told them that I wanted to have a discussion at the beginning of the next class. I told them to think of an answer to the following question and we would talk about it in English.

Are you currently satisfied with your life? Why or why not?

The next class we went outside to have the discussion. We made 2 circles, an outer circle of 10 students and an inner circle of 9 students and 1 teacher (one student was absent). At first, I told students to only speak in English and gave them some communication strategies (How do you say ~ in English etc.). One student in the inner circle talked to another in the outer circle. First, they had some light exchanges (Hey, how are you? How was your weekend? etc.) After the pleasantries, the content became deep: "Are you currently satisfied with your life? Why or why not?". At first, students had 3 minutes to talk with each other. After three minutes, the inner circle rotated and each student had a new partner. Then the inner circle and outer circle students talked again.

For pair work to be effective, I read that students need to push themselves to produce language that is a little beyond their level or their partners level. If the partner does not understand she should ask for a clarification. When an interlocutor (speaker) reformulates his utterance he can either correct a misunderstanding he has about a particular grammatical item or lexical phrase or the listener can learn a new piece of language (if the interlocutor said something that was correct and the listener just did not understand).
I have no idea what the quality of the students' interactions was because I had to be involved in the activity myself and could not monitor the conversation. I can say, though, that I heard A LOT of noise and I am sure that we annoyed the other classes who left their windows open. Hearing a lot of noise in an English speaking activity is usually a beautiful thing.

At the ending of the activity, I asked some students what their partners had said. Then, I told the whole class that I learned that many of us have problems. However, our problems such as a long commute to school, not being able to buy what we want are much smaller than what many people in this world face; living on one or two dollars a day, etc. Maybe I should have encouraged students to come up with their own conclusions or at least asked them what their conclusions were. I didn't.

At the ending of class I asked students whether or not they agreed with the following question and why:

"I was able to use a lot of English when discussing whether or not I was satisfied with my life"

18 of 19 students agreed with this statement. They wrote that they were able to express their ideas in English.

So, why did the first speaking activity not work so well and the second activity work well? I have learned that these students like to talk about themselves and their own lives. It is a way that they can get to know their classmates and maybe even make some friends. It is also something that they can talk about with very little preparation because (as they should) they know a lot about themselves. As college freshmen, though, they are not so knowledgeable of global issues. Therefore, some students struggled to give a reason for their estimates in "If the World were 100 People activity." Thus, next time we have a discussion about global issues I need to make sure that students have enough knowledge of the content beforehand.

A Simple Speaking Task where students actually interacted!

2009-05-29T17:35:00.005+09:00

The other day I did a simple speaking task that worked very well with college freshmen who are novice English speakers. There are 20 students in this class and they are a little reserved but very considerate and copperative young men and women.

We are using the textbook Global Issues by Tim Grose. The text book has a profile of a boy living in India talking about his family, school and future dreams. This boy has to drop out of school to support his family.

Class 1: I asked the students to write their own profile in the 3rd person. I asked them to talk about their family, their school history and their future dreams. I asked them to use the profile in the textbook for ideas on how they can write their profile.

Class 2: Students handed in their profiles. Some tried hard and others simply wrote 8 - 10 sentences with no real coherence. I took their papers home and underlined mistakes or parts that I could not understand. I also wrote comments such as "connect your sentences" or requests for students to add more content.

Class 3: First, I put students in pairs. I handed back the papers to the students and asked them to revise their papers. I told them to consult with their partner or me if they were not sure how to revise their papers. I realize that this was not real pair work, but I have found that it is best to make peer feedback optional among students if they still do not know each other well. It took them about 20 minutes. I walked around the class and ended up helping each student individually.
When they were finished revising, I told students to read their paper to their partner (without showing the paper!). The partner would write key words. After each student read their profile, pairs joined to make groups of 4. Students would then use their notes to tell their new group members their partners' profiles. I made this activity "English only" and encouraged students to ask each other about words that they understood. I was surprised about the amount of English use and interaction in this activity because usually these students were very hesitant to interact with each other in English.
When the groups of 4 were finished, I asked various groups interesting things they heard about their classmates.
At the ending of the class I asked students to answer the following questions on their response cards
1) What did you learn today?
2) Do you think that this activity is useful? Why or why not?
3) I could introduce my partner to other people.
a) strongly agree b) agree c) disagree d) strongly disagree
4) I could understand other people's profiles.
a) strongly agree b) agree c) disagree d) strongly disagree
5) I asked questions when I could not understand.
a) strongly agree b) agree c) disagree d) strongly disagree
Many of the students wrote various phrases or vocabulary they had learned after writing their profiles and getting feedback. Other students wrote vocabulary they had learned from listening to other people's profiles. Two students wrote that they learned about how to connect sentences. Four students wrote that they learned nothing but that they thought the activity was useful! (In hindsight, question 2 was not a good question.)

Class 4: I found that the previous week's task gave us a good reason to study conjunctions and I gave students a conjunction worksheet to complete for the next week. We did a follow up task where we did the if the World were 100 Peopleactivity. There was much less interaction among the students during this activity. In my next post, I would like to talk about why this was so.

Why Tasks are not incorporated into many Japanese secondary school English classrooms (Part 2)

2009-05-26T19:07:00.003+09:00

This is a continuation fo my last post. Today, I read a great article that attempts to explain problems that teachers have with adopting communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based language teaching (TBLT) into East Asian classrooms. The article is Communicative and task-based language teaching in East Asian classrooms by William Littlewood and appeared in Language Teaching (2007), 40: 243-249.

Littlewood gives 5 concerns that teachers have with CLT and TBLT
1) Classroom management: Students misbehave or slack off
2) Avoidance of English: Students and teachers do not use English during the task
3) Minimal demands of language Competence: Students use minimal language or non-verbal communication to complete a task; they do not challenge themselves to experiment with new or complex language.
4) Incompatibility with public assessment: Task objectives are inconsistent with standardized tests or university entrance examinations
5) Tasks conflict with educational values and traditions: TBLT and CLT are based on western conceptions of learning that might differ from that of countries in East Asia.

Littlewood argues that a solution for these problems is for teachers to "adapt" rather than "adopt". He argues that no single set of methods will fit all teachers in all contexts. Thus a teacher should probably attempt to adapt the strengths of multiple methods to their respective contexts to maximize their students' learning potential.

Littlewood's last argument is that many teachers have misconceptions about TBLT and CLT. For example, many teachers believe that in CLT students only speak and do not study grammar. Regarding TBLT, there are various definitions for "task" in the literature and many educators have different ideas of what a task is. He argues that if teachers have a better understanding of CLT and TBLT it will help them adopt these approaches into their teaching.

This year, I hope to offer some solutions for the issues raised in my first and second post through working with secondary school English teachers in my community. Hopefully, I will have some solutions posted in a couple of months.

Why Tasks are not incorporated into many Japanese secondary school English classrooms

2009-05-26T18:43:00.007+09:00

I just read an interesting chapter and article about problems that teachers encounter with Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT). In this post I will talk about the chapter. The chapter, "Pedagogic Perspectives on Second Language Tasks" is from Tasks in Language Learning by Virginia Samuda and Martic Bygate (2005, Palgrave Macmillan) and it attempts to explain why TBLT is not adopted in many educational contexts.

First, Samuda and Bygate argue that the three primary reasons that teachers do not use TBLT is the following 1) The decision to use tasks is a top-down decision made by people sitting in high places who are far removed from the teachers' daily grind. 2) Teachers are pessimistic about the potential pedagogic value of tasks. 3) Unrealistic demands are placed on teachers to dramatically change their way of teaching instantaneously. I think that these reasons show that change in education must also be a bottom-up process. Just telling teachers what they should do will not convince them to adapt new teaching methodologies into their classrooms.

Samuda and Bygate also list the following logistical issues that teachers have with tasks:

Using tasks in monolingual classes
Matching tasks with skill levels
Integrating tasks with a prescribed syllabus
Viability of tasks with beginning students
Using tasks in mixed ability classes
Using tasks to introduce new language
Giving feedback on task performance: how and when
Fitting tasks with other kinds of activities
Tasks and grammar learning
Motivating students to engage in tasks

The issues that are in red I think need to be discussed with Japanese secondary school teachers if they are to incorporate tasks into their classrooms. Hints in how to resolve these issues will give them a foundation necessary to start experimenting with tasks.

I do not think "using tasks to introduce new language" is a relevant issue. Samuda and Bygate make a distinction between Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Task Supported Language teaching(TSLT). In TBLT, the task is the central component of the syllabus while in TSLT tasks are used with a pedagogic purpose to help accomplish some of the goals of the syllabus. Tasks themselves in TBLT or TSLT are not different, but the ways in which tasks are used is different (Being the central part of the curriculum vs. helping to realize the learning goals of the curriculum). In the Japanese public secondary school which is based on a nationally approved structural syllabus and students have limited time to study English, I do not think that TBLT is viable. Thus, I do not think that the issue of using tasks to introduce new language is relevant.

Samuda and Bygate argue that tasks can serve a variety of purposes (provide students with an opportunity to use language that they have studied, give them an opportunity to experience real-world language use for a situation they might find themselve them in, learn communication strategies, enhance students' motivation - these examples are mine) and that teachers should not equate tasks with TBLT. I agree that teachers should adapt tasks into their current teaching (TSLT) rather and that expecting teachers do adopt a whole new teaching methodology (TBLT) is not feasible. The next article I will write about, addresses this issue.

Conducting a Workshop on Using English Picture Books: Part 2 - How to read an English picture book

2009-05-08T18:13:00.010+09:00

Introduction
This workshop was held on April 23 and was the second and last workshop for School A teachers on how to use English picture books. In the first workshop, I gave the teachers a very robust handout on the structure of a lesson using English picture books as well as a list of possible activities (see the previous post) . During the last workshop, I realized that I had talked too much and this time I decided to talk as little as possible and let the participants do 90 percent of the work.

Details of the Second Workshop
In the workshop we did the following:
1. My colleague and I told teachers 4 key points to reading picture books. (10 minutes)
2. We did pronunciation practice for warm up (5 minutes)
3. Practice reading the books in groups. (40 minutes)
4. Each group read its story to everyone else. (25 minutes)
5. Final words

The 研究就任 (lead researchers) of School A facilitated the workshop by introducing and ending each activity as well as giving the teachers instructions. This was immensely helpful. Also, the lead researchers and I planned the workshop together. I will now briefly write what we did for each stage.

1) Four Key Points for Reading English Picture Books

There are of course many more than four key points but I wanted my talk to be as brief but also meaningful as possible so I tried to condense a lot of information into 4 key points. I talked about two key points and my colleague spoke about another two key points. The four key points we discussed are below.

1) You can do it! (If you practice)
2) Plan ahead what kind of questions you will ask and when
3) Abbreviate parts of the story if necessary
4) There are ways to help the children understand other than translation. Pre-storytelling activities, questioning techniques, the book’s pictures, the reader’s expression, intonation, and variation in rhythm will help children understand the story.

The points were elaborated upon and you can see the details in the handout I gave the teachers (in Japanese).

2. Pronunciation practice

My colleague prepared a print which featured sets of minimal pairs which were typically difficult for Japanese speakers to pronounce. I led the practice and I was surprised at how enthusiastically the teachers participated.

3) Practice reading the books in groups

The teachers were divided into four groups, each group had a different picture book:
Sixth Grade teachers (Yoko, for a description see CCUP)
Fifth Grade teachers (Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs, for a description see CCUP)
3rd and 4th Grade Teachers (Tulip Sees America, for a description see CCUP)
1st and 2nd Grade Teachers (Suddenly)

The text for Yoko, Nana, and Tulip had been rewritten and simplified by me. Also the book's pages had been scanned and then printed onto A3 sized paper to make them easier to see. I also laminated these pages so they could be preserved. The simplified text was pasted onto the back of each page. Lastly, each group had a recording of me reading their book.

Again, each group was very enthusiastic about practicing. First, they listened to the CD. Many of them highlighted words which were emphasized or wrote accent marks over the parts of words that were stressed.

After listening the teachers practiced reading paying particular attention to how to pronounce the words as well as the proper intonation. During this time, my colleague, the lead researchers and I walked around and provided assistance when needed. I spent a lot of time with the group reading Nana because it was the most difficult book to read.

I would like to note that the teachers did not think of questions to get children involved in the storytelling because it was beyond the scope of the workshop.

4) Storytelling
In this stage each group read its book to the rest of the teachers. After each group read their book, the other teachers wrote them a feedback sheet on their reading. This sheet can be seen in the handout. The feedback sheet consisted of the following questions:
1) Did you understand the content of the story?
2) Which parts of the story were difficult to understand?
3) Did the way in which the story read make you want to listen more and make you anticipate how the story would develop? If so, which part was particularly effective in catching your interest?
4) Any other feedback?

At the ending of the workshop each group received its feedback sheets.

Some teachers read the story very well while others were a little difficult to understand. To my surprise, Nana was read particularly well. Tulip was the most difficult to understand. The reason for this was that to understand this book pre-storytelling activities are important but we did not do any pre-storytelling activities. The teachers were very enthusiastic about reading the books in front of their peers. It will be interesting to see how the books are received by the students. Lessons will begin in June.

5) Final Words
My colleague and I gave our final thoughts. I decided to use English this time because the teachers had been working so hard to speak English and the atmosphere had changed from a formal training session to a real English education workshop. I told the teachers that reading the book was just part of the storytelling lesson and that pre-storytelling activities, post-storytelling activities, and conceiving of ways to get children to participate were essential to conducting a successful lesson. I then pointed out some words that each group had difficulty pronouncing. Lastly, I congratulated the teachers on their effort and encouraged them to keep on practicing. At the ending of the workshop, the teachers also wrote a workshop evaluation sheet that is also on the handout. The questions the teachers answered were:
1) What did you learn in the workshop?
2) What content would you like to learn more about next time?
We have yet to analyze the teachers' responses.

Conducting a Workshop on Using English Picture Books: Teaching the structure of a picture book lesson

2009-04-12T21:06:00.010+09:00

Background

Last Thursday, as part of the Working with Picture Books Project, I went to the primary school affiliated with my university (hereafter, School A) to give a workshop about using English picture books. A Japanese colleague in my department accompanied me. The 研究主任 (lead researcher) of School A also helped me facilitate the workshop.

We have planned to give two workshops of an hour and a half to the School a teachers about using English picture books. The first workshop, which has already been completed, was supposed to help teachers learn about the structure of a lesson using an English picture book and the second workshop is designed to give teachers confidence in reading English picture books. Starting in June, teachers will start conducting lessons using English picture books which will have been conceived in these workshops.

In this post, I will summarize the first workshop. As a facilitator I would give myself a grade of a C -, and I am being generous. I hope that this post might give readers ideas of some "dos" and "don'ts" when conducting workshops.

Workshop 1: Planning and Conducting Lessons Using English Picture Books
The aim of this workshop was to give teachers as many practical ideas as possible for using English picture books and help them understand the structure these kinds of lessons. The outline of the workshop was below, it was supposed to last 90 minutes.

1) Introduction (Lead Researcher) 5 min
2) Advice for using English picture books (me and my colleague) 20 min
3) School A Teachers design a rough lesson plan using a picture book (divided into 4 groups) (35 minutes)
4) Each group presents their lessons (20 minutes)
5) Comments about the lessons (my colleague and me) (5 minutes)

I prepared a 7-paged print in Japanese which discussed
1) The reasons for using English picture books as well as three primary uses of English picture books (teach about language, culture, or just to enjoy the story)
2) Secrets for giving a successful lesson
3) How to prepare for a lesson using English picture books
4) The structure of a lessons
Stage 1: Pre-storytelling (The goal of this stage and various activities)
Stage 2: Storytelling (The objective of this stage and various techniques for reading)
Stage 3: Post-Storytelling (The goal of this stage and activities for language study, activities that involve reading the book again, activities that involve discussion, activities that involve cultural learning)

I am putting the file of this handout on-line. The print does not have a reference list so I will describe which sources I referenced for each section and include a bibliography at the bottom of this post. For 1) my reference was the Japanese translation of Brewster & Ellis (2008, in Japanese) and my own research (Hall, 2008). The secrets for giving a successful lesson came from my own observations and opinions of the lead researcher for School A. References for 3) came from my own observations, Ellis & Brewster (1991), and Wright (1995). Ideas for 4) came from myself(ホール, in press), Wright (1996) , Ellis & Brewster (2008), and Ur & Wright (1992).

First, it was my turn to speak. I told the School A teachers that I was so happy to be able to collaborate with them and that I was going to summarize what I had learned about using English picture books over the past year. I also told them that I was looking forward to expand the content of the handout by working together with them. There was a lot of information on the print and I told them that I would only highlight the important parts. I had also prepared a DVD to show them scenes of teachers conducting pre-storytelling and post-storytelling activities.

I HAD planned to tell them that I hoped that they would use the handout as a reference when making their lesson plans but I forgot! I was a little nervous. I was dressed in a suit, something I am not accustomed to, and the participants were dressed in much nicer attire. While I was talking, the lead researcher was kind enough to write notes in his computer about what I said. His notes appeared on the screen behind me as I spoke. His notes have been a valuable way for me to know what I actually said. His notes were much more eloquent than what came out of my mouth. My Japanese is not bad, but my wife tells me that when I speak publicly, I speak with a stronger foreign accent and make more grammatical mistakes than I usually do. I was feeling a little self conscious about my Japanese. I always enjoy the opportunity to give workshops in Japanese because it enables me to understand how my students feel when I put them on the spot and also improves my foreign language skills. However, my inability to relax probably made my presentation a little difficult to understand for the listeners.

I finished my presentation in 25 minutes. Given the amount of material I had, going 5 minutes over time was not bad. However, I now realize that I gave them too much information and this might have prevented the teachers from understanding my main message: "English picture books are a wonderful way for children to make discoveries about the world around them as well as the English language and I want to give you tips for conducting classes that children can understand and enjoy". If I could do the presentation again, I would know what information to include and what to not include. Unfortunately, the only way for me to learn this was to appear on stage and give a mediocre performance.

After my presentation, the teachers were divided into groups. We asked teachers to give a proposal for a lesson using an English picture book and then present their ideas. The teachers were asked to discuss the following in their presentation:
1) The focus of their lesson: language, culture, or the story
2) The number of periods they would need to conduct their lesson
3) Possible pre-storytelling, storytelling techniques, and post-storytelling activities.

The teachers were divided into four groups, each group with a different picture book:
Sixth Grade teachers (Yoko, for a description see CCUP)
Fifth Grade teachers (Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs, for a description see CCUP)
3rd and 4th Grade Teachers (Tulip Sees America, for a description see CCUP)
1st and 2nd Grade Teachers (Suddenly)

I rewrote the text for Yoko, Nana and Tulip to make the stories shorter. According to Wright (1995), stories should not last over 10 minutes because children's concentration will not last longer than that. Each group devoted a fair amount of time to reading the story and trying to understand it. I sat with the group who was preparing a lesson plan for Yoko. I tried not to interfere and only spoke when they asked me something. When they were preparing their presentation, they did not discuss any of the points they were asked to nor did they use the print I had made to help them think of activities. These teachers were veterans who had their own ideas about how they could use the book. I was not offended that they did not use any of my ideas because when I am a participant of a workshop doing a group task, I also tend to produce something different from what the facilitator plans. I guess that is what makes us educators human: We are all unique and we each have different ideas for handling the same material.

After about 45 minutes, each group gave a presentation. I was in deep thought during the group presentations. I realized that one problem with this workshop was that we had chosen the books for each group. I think that for an English picture book lesson to work the teacher herself must be interested in the book. If the teacher believes that the book contains a message that children will find appealing than she will work very hard to use the book in such a way that children understand the appeal of the story. It felt like one of the groups did not see how their story would appeal to the children. If this is indeed true, I would have no problem with them choosing another book.

After the presentations, my colleague and I were supposed to give the presenters advice. My colleague gave the presenters good advice about the importance of linking the story with children's own experiences and the importance of determining what skill in children you want to build through English activities (imagination, listening strategies, etc.)

I, on the other hand, was surprised about how the ideas of each group were different from each other and from mine. I basically felt that I had no advice to give, I was just interested in knowing how the lessons would turn out and seeing what kind of discoveries about using English picture books these lessons might lead to. Speaking in Japanese, I said that I realized how many different ways there are to use English picture books. I should have shut up after that but then I actually tried to give some advice when I should have just said what I really felt (I was interested in seeing how the lessons turned out).

What did I learn from this experience? First, of course, it would have been better to have more time and it would have been better to ask the groups to read the books before the workshop. However, Japanese elementary school teachers are very busy and I think workshops should be as minimally demanding of their time as possible. Therefore, workshops need to be short and to the point. For this workshop, I prepared a handout that I could have used for an entire 90 minute lecture. If I could have done this workshop all over again, I would have given them a much more condensed version of the handout.

I also learned the importance of being yourself when speaking publicly and not giving advice for the sake of giving advice. I am looking forward to the next workshop with the teachers where we will practice reading the books.

Bibliography

G.エリス　＆　Ｊ．ブルースター　（松岡洋子訳）　2008．『先生、英語のお話を聞かせて』　玉川大学出版部.
Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with Children. OUP.
Ur, P. & Wright, A. Five Minute Activities. CUP.
Ellis, G. & Brewster, J. (1991). The Storybook Handbook.
J. ホール (2009). 小学生の理解と興味を高める英語絵本の効果的な読み聞かせ方. 『教材学研究』　第20巻
Hall, J. M. (2008). Selecting and using English picture books in Japanese elementary schools. In K. Bradford Watts, T. Muller, & M. Swanson (Eds.), JALT2007 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.

The Working with Picture Books Pilot Project:The 3 Keys to Using Picture Books Successfully

2009-03-31T13:25:00.006+09:00

I am back to blogging (maybe).

Last August I started a pilot project called Working with Picture Books. In this project we used picture books from CCUP in elementary schools to teach about the English language and culture. Three teachers from two primary schools in my prefecture were kind enough to participate. The challenges that using English picture books impose on teachers is a little more formidable than I thought it would be. Not only must teachers must try new teaching materials and activities that they have never done before, but they must also read the book in English. Before the project began, we discussed with the teachers about the structure of English activities using picture books: pre-storytelling, storytelling and post storytelling. We gave the teachers 15 picture books as well as guides for using the picture books to teach about culture. The teachers were able to use the picture books to teach about culture but, perhaps, struggled to use the picture books to teach about English. The primary reason for this was that I did not give them as much support as I should have.

As teachers and university staff are busy, we only met once for an hour and a half before the project began. I explained to the teachers the structure of English activities using storybooks: They have a pre-storytelling phase, a storytelling phase and a post storytelling phase. I then demonstrated how a typical lesson might look like using the book Too Many Tamales(or see CCUP ). After that the teachers were on their own. In retrospect, If I had given the teachers a list of potential pre-storytelling activities, post storytelling activities as well as a taxonomy of techniques that they can use for storytelling it would have made it much easier for them to do the pilot lessons. Nevertheless, we have learned a lot from the teacher's pilot lessons and these pilot lessons have contributed to the New Working with Picture Books Project which has just started.

From these pilot lessons and my discussions with the teachers, I think that there are 3 keys to using English picture books successfully.

First, the teacher should conceive of pre-storytelling activities and storytelling techniques that will spark children's interest in listening to the story.

Second, the teacher should conceive of pre-storytelling activities and reading techniques (using pictures, the mother tongue, facial expressions, changing intonation, asking questions etc.) that will make the story understandable for the children. In many cases the teacher will have to simplify or abbreviate the story because more than 10 minutes of reading (in most cases) seems to be too long for primary school children.

Third, the teacher should conceive of activities that will get children actively involved in the class.

Thanks to this Pilot Project I am now ready for the new project where we will be working with the Primary School that is affiliated with my university to introduce English Picture books into their English Activity curriculum. I will write about this new project in my next post.

Bangkok Poverty

2009-03-30T23:02:00.003+09:00

I was visiting schools in Thailand for 6 days last week and for 5 of those 6 days stayed in Bangkok. One night I was talking to a teacher-friend of mine (who is Thai) and she asked me what were some things I did not like about Thailand. First, I told her what I did like: the Thai smile, people's hospitality and friendliness, fresh fruit year-round, Buddhism, reading about Thai history, etc. I then told her what I did not like: corruption, poverty, etc. But when I said poverty she stopped me and said poverty was not necessarily a bad thing. I agreed with her. However, I explained to her that what I meant by poverty was seeing homeless children on the street in Bangkok or a mother sitting on a sidewalk breast feeding her child at 11 at night. Seeing these sights was absolutely heartbreaking for me. It was not like I had not seen stuff like this before but now that I have a child, seeing someone about the same age or a little older than my son sleeping on a sidewalk overcomes me with a profound sadness. Believe it or not, I did not give these kids or young mothers money. I wanted to help them, but in the end, I thought that giving a larger sum of money to an organization for getting kids/mothers off the street would be best.

I wanted to learn more about how the disadvantaged in Bangkok live so I bought two books at Asia books, one book was called Bangkok Boy by Chai Pinit and the second was Welcome to the Bangkok Slaughter House by Father Maier. The first book was the autobiography of a male prostitute from rural Thailand who moved to Pataya and then Bangkok. Below the title on the cover of the book is written "The Story of a Stolen Childhood" and you expect that this will be the autobiography of how this poor fellow was victimized. In the beginning of the book, though, Chai (It seems that just about everyone in Thailand uses their first name) writes that the reader should not feel sorry for him and he was writing this story to come to grips with his past. After reading the book, I felt less sorry for the author and more sorry for the people he victimized. I thought that this book shed some light on why some people choose to enter the sex industry, but will not tell you much about how people are forced into it.

The second book I read is about Father Maier's work in a Bangkok slum. Father Maier togther with Sister Maria Chantavarodom runs an organization called the Mercy Centre which runs a orphanage for children who are HIV Positive and also creates schools in the slums. The book consists of the stories of the children in the orphanage or who live in the slum. All the stories are sad but also instilled some hope in me. The reason why is because no matter how dire the situation the children found themselves in, most of them did not give up in their pursuit of happiness and neither has Father Maier. After reading the book I decided to give a small donation to the Centre.

The MMCE Blog

2008-05-02T15:24:00.005+09:00

This year I am teaching an "international understanding class" at the university. I call it the "Meeting of Multicultural Educators" or MMCE. In years past MMCE members have formed 5 to 6 "common learning groups" with each group studying a different country. The highlight of MMCE is the "Breaking Down National Stereotypes Discussion" where members of each country being studied come and we have a big discussion about the validity of the stereotypes of the various countries. In the last MMCE meeting (we do not call MMCE a class), the different groups teach each other about their countries of concentrations. In MMCE, we have also spent time studying Geert Hofstede's 5 Dimensions of cultural values as a way to consider the root of misunderstandings between members of different cultures and ways to prevent them.

One of the weaknesses of MMCE in previous years has been that most of the knowledge that we have accumulated has been superficial or trivial information about countries. Rarely did we focus on serious issues we and other countries face and how we can perhaps cooperate to solve these issues. Thus, this year I have added a "global issues" element to MMCE where each CLG focuses more on studying a global issue than a country. Tim Grose's Global Issues in English textbook has served as an invaluable reference for how I can encourage MMCE members to teach each other about their global issue of expertise in English. MMCE has a blog where I write the minutes of each meeting as well as post materials and video of the meeting. MMCE members write comments on what they learned/experienced. If you are interested in the blog, please have a look here.

Challenges in Using English Picture Books for Japanese Primary School Teachers

2008-05-02T10:13:00.009+09:00

In the Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books CCUP project, altogether, 27 pilot lessons were conducted in 20 elementary schools in Iwate during the Period for Integrated Study. Twenty-one of these lessons were taught solely by a Japanese elementary school teacher and six were team taught by a Japanese homeroom teacher (HRT) and a non-Japanese Assistant Language Teacher (ALT). In 15 of the 27 lessons the book was read in English while in the other
lessons the Japanese translation of the book was read. After the pilot lessons teachers completed a questionnaire. In one of the items, they wrote about the obstacles they faced in trying to use the picture books in class. In this post, I will write about the obstacles that teachers who read the book in English faced. I am interested in adapting the CCUP materials to use to teach English in elementary schools so I will consider the implications that the teachers' responses have on using picture books for English activities in Japanese primary schools.

Below is the question to which the teachers responded. The numbers in parentheses next to a selection indicates the number of teachers who chose it. I have also translated and included teachers' write-in answers to "other". Altogether there were 15 teachers who responded.

What are some challenges that you faced or will face in implementing lessons like these ?
a. lack of time (11)
b. limited ALT availability (6)
c. English (7)
d. lack of interest from the students (1)
e. administrative problems (having more than 1 teacher hold a class and coming to an agreement) (1)
f. Other ______________ (8) (Below are translations of the answers teachers wrote in)

"The amount of work a practitioner must do in order to determine how to use the book is substantial. Also, sometimes it is hard to know whether the events a book discusses are true. Perhaps it would be best to use the books with a whole class." <<Jimbo's note: This teacher used a book called "Parade Day" which presented a parade for each month. Some of the parades, presented though, were not real parades. Also, when the teacher says it would be best to use books with a whole class I think that she means it would be best to use the books with several homerooms at once so the homeroom teachers can cooperate and share the work.>>
"It helped to have a Japanese translation" <<Jimbo's note: I don't think this is a problem.>>
"The book was small [and it made it difficult to use]. Also, there is not an ALT [Foreign Assistant Language Teacher] at my school so it is hard for students to see the necessity of studying about different cultures. [When I did this class] it was not necessarily easy to invite the ALT here, negotiate with him and arrange multiple meetings. The children's interest was very high so I definitely would like try this [again] but unfortunately the picture books do not fit in well with the school curriculum because international understanding is not in the fourth year curriculum."
<<Jimbo's note: This was written by a junior high school teacher who tried one of the picture books>> "First, JHS English instructor's energy is taken by student guidance, clubs and homeroom management. It is hard to make a picture book project manageable [for the typical teacher]. I wish the universities could help... Second, [our ALT played a primary role in helping to plan the picture book lesson], I think that we need [support] to use the picture book even if there is no ALT. At many schools this is expected."
<<Jimbo's note: This is not necessarily a problem.>> "If we have a sample class and [lesson plan] we can continue to build on it and use it to exchange ideas [with other teachers(?) or schools()] Thank you for the precious materials."
"We have to study very hard about the country [which the book is discussing]."
"If there are not more opportunities for seminars teachers will [not feel confident in reading the book in English] and [CCUP] will not spread."
"At the elementary school level, I am not sure how accurate I should pronounce the words [to the children] or how much English activities I should include."

Jimbo's Analysis:

Let me start with the good. Of 15 teachers, only 1 said that children's interest in the book was a challenge. Also as substantiated in comment 3 of "other", even when the book was read in English, most children in CCUP were interested in the story and lesson. Thus, student interest does not appear to be an issue when using English picture books. Also, only 1 of 15 teachers wrote that it was difficult to plan and conduct a lesson using an English picture book with another teacher (Of the 15 English lessons, 7 were taught by more than one teacher). Thus, teaching with a colleague did not appear to be an issue and as mentioned in comment 1, team teaching a lesson can reduce the amount of work required to plan for the lesson.

A lot of the obstacles teachers answered (limited English proficiency, lack of ALT availability) are to be expected. Teachers' responses show that the biggest obstacle was lack of time.

In CCUP we tried to lessen the burden of the teacher by supplying useful background information and teaching materials in addition to the teaching guides for each book. The teaching guides gave teachers a series of activities they could use for a lesson and expected teachers to choose the ones they felt most appropriate. In the lessons I viewed, I personally saw teachers use many activities that were in the guides and I thought that we had given the teachers sufficient support.

At the ending of the project, however, we had a meeting with many of the teachers who had conducted pilot lessons. Similar to what was said in comments 3, a few teachers said that they needed more concrete lesson plans. In other words, it was my impression that teachers wanted a step-by-step guide as to how to conduct a lesson using a picture book. To be honest, my first reaction was dismay that the teachers would want to be told exactly what to do. After thinking about this for a couple of days, though, my opinion of this began to evolve. I put myself in the shoes of a typical Japanese Primary School teacher. If they are to conduct an English activity using a CCUP picture book they must

1) learn background information about the culture and country which the picture book is showing
2) practice reading the book in English or learn necessary English
3) plan a novel lesson and make necessary teaching materials
4) (optional) meet with an ALT and negotiate/confirm roles

As comment 4 indicates, teaching classes are just a part of teachers' job. They simply do not have a lot of time to plan for classes. Also, many Primary School teachers do no have any formal education in teaching English nor practical experience. Thus, to use an English picture book they must plan a new unit of study and also teach a subject they are not familiar with, English. I understand why teachers would want a detailed lesson plan which tells them exactly what to do step by step. A detailed lesson plan can help them get started and as they become accustomed to using picture books for English activities they can start making more original lesson. Perusing through Primary School English activity guides published by Japanese publishers, the lesson plans are very detailed. In conclusion, I think that if we are to make CCUP books and guides more user friendly for English activities we will have to present teachers with a detailed, demonstration lesson plan that they can model when planning their own lesson. This detailed lesson plan will have to be based on the lessons we have observed or have ourselves done.

Why English Picture Books for Japanese Elementary School Students? - Reason 1

2008-04-22T10:32:00.006+09:00

In Iwate most elementary school students have little experience studying English and their teachers are not highly proficient in the language either. Nevertheless, I can think of many reasons why English picture books should be used in elementary school English activities. Writing all the reasons would make for a very long blog post so I will start by writing one.

Recently I have been reading Sandra McKay's Assessing Young Language Learners (2006)which gives an excellent background on the characteristics of young learners, relevant second language acquisition theory for teaching young learners, and an overview of Bachman and Palmer's theory of communicative competence (I have not gotten to the part about assessment yet).

First, Mckay discusses Skehan's (1998) cognitive theory for SLA. Skehan hypothesizes that learners first primarily rely on chunks or formulaes to communicate in the language. Examples of a chunk would be "What's that?", "How are you", "Can I have a ~?". Rule-based learning follows formulaic learning in that learners learn the rules that govern the chunks. For example, "May" can replace "can" in "Can I have a~" or that "Can I have a ~ " is formed by adding the auxiliary "can" to the verb "have" and then inverting it with the "I" (Wow, sounds really difficult, doesn't it?).

On a personal note, when I first came to Japan I spoke no Japanese and to survive in the country I learned essential formulaic phrases such as "Toire ha doko desu ka" (Where is the bathroom?), "Dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu" ("Please be nice to me" - something that is said all the time here after you meet somebody). About 12 months after I learned "Dozo yoroshiku onegaisimasu" did I realize that "yoroshiku" was an adverb form for the adjective "yoroshi" (fine, nice, good) and that "onegai shimasu" was a honorific form of the very "negau" (wish) and started to use these two words in various contexts.

What I am trying to say is that perhaps the role of grammar is to help us manage, manipulate and make sense of the language we already know rather than to manage and manipulate language that we do now know.

It is my opinion that English picture books supply children with a wonderful opportunity to learn formulaic phrases. Many picture books tend to repeat the same phrases, for example, the "very hungry catepillar". It has been recommended that when reading a picture book with repretitive phrases, that the teacher have the children say the phrase when is appears in the book.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that Monbukagakusho is proposing to introduce English activities for the 5th and 6th grades. I think that a book such as the "Very Hungry Catepillar" would be too childish for fifth and sixth graders.

McKay (2006, p.37) writes that "Foreign and second language learners who have had little opportunity to draw on formulaic systems developed through language use opportunities quickly become tongue tied and anxious as they try to construct a sentence based on the rules that they learned." In other words, if we have to apply rules every time we use a language the mental burded is so great that we will struggle to say much of anything.

Monkasho has said that it wants Elementary school English activities to serve as a "base" for junior high school and senior high school English. The Japanese junior high school English syllabus seems to be centered around learning grammatical rules. Using picture books,　children can learn formulaic phrases which might eventually enter their lexicon. Perhaps, then, primary school English can serve as a base by helping children to learn some formulaic expressions so that when they enter junior high school the grammarical rules they learn can be used as tools to help them manipulate and make sense of the language that they already know.　

Perhaps, when we emphasize grammar students get the mistaken impression that speaking a foreign language constitutes applying grammatical rules to every phrase that they utter. Using English picture books might help give children a different view of language.

Recent Reforms on English Activities in Japanese Elementary Schools

2008-04-07T23:04:00.007+09:00

On January 26, 2008, I attended the 第4回全国小学校英語活動実践研究大会 (The 4th Annual All-Japan Conference on English Activities in Elementary School [Note: the translation is my own]) in the city of Omuta in Fukuoka Prefecture.

The first day consisted of demonstration classes at Omuta shi ritsu Meiji Shougakkou and the second day was an all day conference which consisted of speeches and panel discussions from 9:50 - 16:30. It was a little ironic that a conference that advocated learner-centered English activities would keep the participants in their seats listening the whole second day. Nevertheless, I got a lot of good information about the future of English activities in Japanese elementary school (when I managed to stay awake) and I would like to share some of that information in this post.

In the morning Masataka Kan who is one of the key planners of the current English education reforms which will take place in 2011 gave a speech outlining the plan for compulsory English activities in elementary schools and discussing its rationale. Here is what he said.

Introduction

First, almost all elementary schools in Japan are conducting English activities but because there is no standard English curriculum, there is a lot of variation in the quality and quantity of English activities conducted in primary schools throughout the country. In order to address this problem, it was proposed to make English activities in primary schools compulsory. Under this reform, English activities would be held once a week for fifth and sixth graders (35 hours a year). Monkasho (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) has also produced a teacher's handbook called eigo no-to or English Note as well as a national curriculum. In the 2008-2009 academic years, pilot schools (拠点校) will begin using and testing the teaching materials and curriculum.

The Necessity of English Activities

Mr. Kan gave 3 reasons for this.

First, he said that English activities can take advantage of children's ability to adapt to different situations. I will add an example. One thing that has surprised me about the CCUP project is primary school children's willingness to listen to a story in English and use any means necessary such as the pictures and the expressions of the reader to work out the meaning. When older children are place in situations where they do not understand a lot of the language that is being spoken, they seem to be more likely to give up. In my experience, younger children appear more willing to make sense out of an ambiguous situation.

The second reason was to respond to globalization. Kan talked about other country's, such as Korea's, English education and also how children from other countries are more willing to communicate in English than Japanese.

The third reason was to ensure that all children have the same educational opportunities. As discussed in the introduction, some schools have much more comprehensive English curricula than others.

The Goals of English Activities

1. Improve children's' communicative competence.

In my opinion this goal is problematic in that most teacher's do not know what communicative competence is nor do they know how to evaluate it. Looking at the notes I took and searching through my recollections of the speech, I cannot remember Mr. Kan offering a layman's definition of communicative competence nor were there any examples given as to how one assesses whether or not children have developed "communicative competence." At the book exhibition, there were various communicative competence assessment instruments for sale but I was surprised that the policy makers or practitioner panelists did not discuss this issue so much. Maybe I slept through that part. Anyway, I think that teacher's need an easy definition of what communicative competence is (would Canale and Swain, 1980's theory be reasonable?) and simple ways to observe it or encourage it.

2. Increase children's understanding of language and culture

3. Become familiar with (nareshitashimu) English expressions and pronunciation.

Mr. Kan added that the goal of English activities is not for children to acquire skills in English but rather to raise their English ability in general and this also includes their ability in the first language. He also said that children would not receive any kind of numerical evaluation for English activities. He made a very interesting analogy, he said that listening and speaking English are like riding a bicycle, once you learn you never forget.

Jimbo's Analysis of the Goals

My analysis of the goals is that Monkasho wants to encourage children to become more active speakers and listeners. Mr. Kan talked about elementary school English as being a base from which jr. and sr. high school English will build off. Monkasho wants students who will work hard to make sense out of an ambiguous L2 situation rather than ask for a translation. They also want students who will not be shy to use the language. I think that any sane EFL teacher would want students like this. I think, though, that elementary school children are already endowed with the aforementioned traits. I believe that if one wants jr. and sr. high school students to be more active participants in class, then one has to change the nature of jr. and sr. high school English education (the reforms do make changes to middle and upper school English education). I am not opposed to English activities in elementary school but I am opposed to giving elementary school teachers, most of whom have no formal training in teaching English, the reponsibilty of reforming English education in Japan.

Training Teachers, Developing Teaching Materials

Mr. Kan emphasized that Japanese home room teachers would lead the English activities and receive assistance from ALTs, exchange students or local volunteers. He said for this to happen, it will be necessary to implement more professional development workshops for elementary school teachers. Here in Iwate, from this year we are expected to give more workshops to local elementary school teachers.

In terms of teaching materials, he discussed the English Note as well as more use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology).

My recent life and future directions in research

2008-04-07T22:19:00.005+09:00

One of the reasons I neglected in writing in my blog almost entirely from October to March was that I had been involved in 2 big projects related to English activities in elementary schools. One project was a "Regional Elementary School English Activity" support project in which we collaborated with elementary schools to make an English textbook as well as an accompanying website. The other project was Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books (CCUP). Both projects were very rewarding and I learned a great deal about elementary school English education, something I previously did not know much about. However, I got a little burnt out from the enormous amount of paper work and other administrative tasks that accompany being involved in large scale projects and for a while my brain became mush. For a month or so after the majority of my administrative work ended I went through the motions at work and lost most of my intellectual curiosity. I also started to reflect on what happiness is but kept most of my thoughts to myself and produced one measly post on the subject. Cleaning out my office and the approaching spring season, has seemed to energize me. I am reading more, exercising more, playing more and starting to become more productive at work. This year I will continue to research using English picture books in elementary schools. I have just finished the final edits on a paper for the JALT 2008 proceedings about selecting and using English picture books. This year my research will deal with the following:
1) The challenges teachers face in using English picture books and how teachers address these challenges
2) The potential for using English picture books as a means of training elementary school teachers on English teaching methodologies
3) The potential for using English picture books to meet the learning goals of the new Monkasho English education reforms

Actually, there is so much I want to learn and so much I want to do. I would like to learn more about the programming language C#2005, I want to dive into calculus as I shied away from it in high school and college, I want to learn more about factor analysis, I want to learn more about assessing young learners, I want to research more on task based language learning, I want to improve on my serve in tennis, I want to bicycle to Hokkaido again or around shikoku, I want to redesign the curriculum for all my classes, I want to spend more time in coffee shops reading, I want to learn to cook something other than pasta, I want to move some place warm, etc..... According to Jim Fannin in S.C.O.R.E for Life, "champions" accomplish one goal at a time. Like a lion seeking its prey, they focus on that one objective until they are chomping the life out of it. Hmm... Focus, Jimbo, focus.

Japanese Elementary Teacher TEFL Training Needs

2008-04-04T22:41:00.026+09:00

This year the Ministry of Education, Sports, Culture and Science (Monbukagakusho) reported it plans to make English activities complusory in the 5th and 6th grade for all elementary schools in Japan beginning in 2011(?). Under this reform, English activities would be held once a week and they would focus only on speaking and listening. Although most elementary school teachers have little to no formal education on how to teach English and little command of the English language, they will be the ones in charge of leading these activities.

As a result of this reform, university teachers will be asked to give more English teaching workshops for elementary school teachers. So I thought I would use this post to consider what skills/ knowledge elementary school teachers need to be able to faciliate English activities that encourage language learning. I will review two articles I have read. One is a mammoth report by Curtis Kelly on the training needs of Japanese elementary school teachers and the development of an on-line training website to address these needs and the other is a 2004 article in TESOL Quarterly by Dr. Yoko Goto Butler about the level of English proficiency that teachers in elementary schools in Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan need to attain to teach EFL. I will only introduce the points in the articles that are relevant to identifying the TEFL learning needs of Japanese elementary school teachers and not summarize all the findings.

A word of warning, I am writing this after a big dinner and a couple of glasses of wine and there will most likely be some inaccuracies below.

Study 1

Butler, Y. G. (2004). What level of English proficiency do elementary school teachers need to attain in order to teach EFL? Case studies from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. TESOL Quarterly, 38(2), 245-278.

Butler gave a survey to elementary school teachers during an English teaching workshop in Japan. Approximately 112 teachers returned the survey and 105 were analyzed for her study. The following are her research questions and their answers:

1) What do the teachers perceive the goals of English language education at the elementary school level?

Japanese teachers emphasized listening, learning various greetings, and cross-cultural understanding. They did not empahize learning the written language.

2) Does a gap exist between the perceived and desired (English) proficiency levels (of elementary school teachers)?

Yes. "Desired proficiency level" was described to the respondents as the minimum level necessary to teach English. 85% of Japanese teachers responded that their current proficiency level did not reach the minnimum (p.258).

3) What differences exist between the perceived current and desired proficiency levels in each of the four skill domains?

The survey asked the teachers to rate their English proficiency in the following areas: Oral fluency, oral vocabulary, pronunciation, oral grammar, reading, writing and listening. The Japanese teachers rated their proficiency in receptive skill domains (reading and listening) higher than their productive skill domains. Among their productive skills they rated their oral vocabulary as the lowest. In terms of their desired levels of proficiency, Japanese teachers tended to rate listening the highest and writing the lowest.

4) What differences exist in the size gaps of the domains?

The gaps were wide, the gaps between the productive areas were greater than the receptive areas.

What does this mean?

These results are not very surprising. First, the goals of English education perceived by the teachers mirror the goals of English activities established by Monbukagasho during that period. Second, the teacher's low assessment of their own English ability probably reflects the fact that when they got their education degree, English education was not a requirement and thus they had little experience studying TEFL or using the English language. Third, the English skill areas where teachers most desire to master seemed to mirror the goals of English actitivies at the time of Butler's study; these goals emphasized the spoken language over the written language. Thus, it seems that the objectives of the national English curriculum will have a substantial impact on the areas of English that teachers want to improve in.

Study 2

Kelly, C., Ishitani, H. & Nakamura, H. (2003). Development and Evaluation of a Prototype E-Learning Site to Train Japanese Elementary School Teachers How to Teach English to Children.
Retrieved April 7, 2007 from <http://www.osaka-gu.ac.jp/php/kelly/papers/mext-report.pdf>

This is a report of a 2 year-long project funded by Monbukagakusho for desgining a TEFL e-learning website for elementary school teachers. I think that anyone who finds themselves having to assist in this kind of large-scale project should read this report as required reading. Kelly et. al's systematic and thorough approach to identifying teacher's needs and developing a website to address them is a good example on how to see a project through to beginning to end.

This report had a total of 7 research questions it attempted to answer but I will only focus on the first:

What are the educational needs, both perceived and predicted, of Japanese elementary school teachers preparing to teach English to children?

The researchers used three sources of information to answer the question:

1) Previous literature

2) Focus groups of elementary school teachers

3) Interviews with experts on teaching English to children

Some of the conclusons were

1) The teachers generally agreed that English classes are good for students (But even in a focus group, could teachers really say they thought the classes were bad. I think that it is difficult for teachers to answer truthfully to this question if their answer is negative

2) The teachers do not know what to do in their English classes

a) They did not understand the purpose of English activities

b) Teachers did not know what to teach

3) Teachers believe that their own ability in English was a key factor in teaching effective English lessons and many teachers lacked confidence in their ability to teach English. (In a pilot questionnaire conducted in Iwate, it was also found that a lot of teachers lacked confidence in their own English ability.)

4) Teachers are unfamiliar with teaching theories, methods and means of lesson planning and they are likely to use inappropriate methods like mechanical listen and repeat techniques.

5) Teachers are not being properly supported by training and do not have sufficient access to needed materials and curricula.

6) Teachers were unable to assess their own training needs.

What does this mean?

Monbukagakusho has worked hard to change education policy to incoporate English education into the curriculum but as Kelly et. al state, they have done very little to help the practitioners carry out the new currculum (The most recent reform,though, has provided an English curriculum for elementary school English teachers to follow). To be honest, most teachers are not highly proficient in English and never will be. Think about it, given that they are working full time, it is too much to ask of them to master a foreign language. Even after the new reforms, though, teachers will be teaching very basic English, English that they should know well after completing junior high school and high school English courses. Taking this into account,　I think that TEFL teacher training workshops for elementary school teachers should focus of effective teaching methods and lesson plans rather than trying to raise teachers' proficiencies.

Conversational Framing and Discussions in Japan

2008-04-01T15:52:00.008+09:00

I have just read a chapter in Framing in Discourse edited by Deborah Tannen. The Chapter is called "Cultural Differences in Framing" and the author is Suwako Watanabe.

Watanabe compared the behavior in a group discussion of a group of Japanese students studying in the USA to that of a group of US university students. I thought that the results of her study have implications for holding discussions in the Japanese EFL classroom so I have decided to write about Watanabe's study.

First, let me explain to you what a frame is. Well, before I tell you what a frame is, let me warn you that there does not seem to be a simple one sentence definition. Both Watanabe and Tannen devote a couple of pages to reviewing related psychological and linguistic theories before defining what a frame is. Skipping all the theoretical background, I frame is defined as "sets of expectations about people, objects, settings and ways to interact." In other words are past experiences in interacting with people will have a significant impact on how we approach a communicative situation. For example, Tannen (1993) conducted a study where she had Greek EFL students and US university students watch and then describe a 6 minute silent movie. The US students interpreted this as being some kind of test and tried very hard to summarize everything that had occurred in the movie. The Greek students, on the other hand, focused more on relaying the message of the movie by trying to interpret the feelings of the characters and the reasons for their actions. Thus, it appears that both groups approached the same communicative situation in different ways.

In Watanabe's study, 4 groups of 4 US students each and 3 groups of 4 Japanese students each were given 20 (or 30?) minutes to discuss the following questions:

Why did you decide to learn Japanese? (or) Why did you decide to study abroad?
For Americans, it is said that Japanese is harder to learn than other European foreign languages, do you agree or disagree?
Discuss misunderstandings that are likely to occur between Japanese and Americans and give examples.

Watanabe found the following differences in the way both groups approached the discussion:

Beginning the Discussion: The Japanese groups spent time at the beginning deciding who would speak first, second, third etc. and the procedures of the discussion. In one group, the order of the discussion was decided by age with the oldest person speaking last. Watanabe writes that members of a Japanese group are conscious of the hierarchy of the members and this hierarchical order governs the behavior of its members.
In the US group, on the other hand, once the researcher, Watanabe, left the room they immediately began the discussion by saying "OK" and talking. There was absolutely no discussion on the order of which people would speak.

Ending the Discussion: In the Japanese groups there was a consensus that the discussion should be ended. In one group, the oldest member was the one who closed the discussion. In the US group, the discussion ended when the participants ran out of things to say.

Giving Reasons for Question 1: Members of the Japanese groups tended to give detailed, chronological stories on why they decided to study abroad. Members if the US groups tended to give brief reasons about what they decided to study abroad.

Argumentative Strategies for Question 2: Members of the Japanese groups spoke once each about their opinion on question 2. Their opinions tended to be long and cover multiple perspectives: discussing the easy and difficult points of learning Japanese. There was no disagreeing among the participants. Members of the US group tended to either be on one side (Japanese is easy) or the other (Japanese is difficult). Usually, they would give a single reason and then add another later on. Thus, participants spoke multiple times, in addition there were many disagreements.

Watanabe concludes that while the Japanese participants in this study were very conscience of establishing the hierarchy of the group members and maintaining group harmony the US participants tended to see themselves as 4 individuals gathered only for the purpose of the discussion.

Implications
My experience as an American is that when I participate in discussions with people I do not know well, I do not worry so much about the other participants. Rather, I say what I want to and then listen to what other people have to say sometimes agreeing or disagreeing. In the classroom or workshops I have conducted, however, students/participants tend to exhibit behavior closer to the Japanese participants of Watanabe's study. I think that there is a danger of US teachers in Japan misinterpreting their students' hesitancy during a discussion. For example, they might believe that their students are too shy to hold a discussion or that Japanese students just don't like to talk. I think for group discussion to work in a US-teacher fronted classroom, it is important for the teacher to understand that the participant's expectations as to how a discussion should be held might differ from their own.

Let me give an example, last month at my university we held a public debate. There were about 40 people who attended, all of whom were local elementary, junior and senior high school teachers. The topic of the debate was

"English should be taught to all elementary school teachers"

One group of 5 brave students from the English department argued for and another even braver group of 5 students argued against the above statement. The audience were divided into groups before the debate began. After the "for" and "against" team made their opening statements I asked each group to take 10 minutes and prepare questions to ask the "for" and "against" team (During this time the "for" and "against" team prepared to cross-examine each other. Most groups were not able to think of questions as a group or discuss the opening statements. Beforehand, I had assumed that when I would ask the groups to think of questions to ask the debating teams that they would dive into the task as they were all teachers. However, this was probably my cultural bias. In my own experience when participating in group discussions I focus more on the task than the other group members. However, in the Japanese context, knowing the other group members and one's place within the group seems to be important. Thus, next time I coordinate a similar event, I will 1) provide time for self-introductions, 2) make sure that each group has a moderator (one of the people helping me to coordinate the event) who will be able to help the group break the ice and determine who speaks in what order etc.

Above is a picture of the debate teams and their proud advisers.

The Power of Being Organized

2008-03-28T22:42:00.005+09:00

After watching the Time Management Lecture by Dr. Randy Pausch I decided that making a serious effort at getting organized would immensely improve the quality of my life and help me work much more efficiently. It seems like every day I get some sort of important document in the mail or in a meeting and quite often a week to a year later I need that document at a minute's notice. For the past few years I thought myself too busy to worry about the little things such as filing away random pieces of paper that were pushed my way but would be frustrated when I would routinely have to spend 10 minutes or so trying to locate a lousy document I had lost.

After watching Randy's video, I spent about 5 days organizing loose documents into binders and boxes as well as reorganizing previous documents I had stuffed into binders and boxes. I also purchased about 10 sets of heavy-duty book ends to insure that the big and heavy binders would stand up straight in my book cases. I also reorganzied the books, journals and photocopied journal articles in my office. For the past week, whenever I needed or document or book I have been able to retrieve it in a matter of seconds. Everyday too I continue devote time to immediately filing documents that I received that day. I have learned that taking time to be organized from the beginning will end up saving you time. I hope that I can continue this when classed begin at the beginning of April and things get very hectic. Above is a picture of part of my new filing system.

Three Most Important Things in Life

2008-02-28T22:19:00.005+09:00

This was told to me by a friend. I think this was one of the greatest things I ever heard:

What are the three most important things in life?

1. Health
2. Family
3. Hobbies

Of course having a stable job is important, but if we are missing any of the above three can we say that we are really happy?

Update: (March 5)

Since I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago I have actually received some comments saying to be happy you need to
1) Have a job that you enjoy
2) have money

I agree with these people. Without a steady income supporting 2 and doing 3 is impossible. Depending on the health system of your country, getting medical treatment without a penny to your name would also be difficult. But, why do we work? Do we work because we want to devote our lives to our job? I hope not. I would hope that we work so that we can have a good health plan, pay for our family to live comfortably and support our hobbies. In other words, I would hope that we work to make sure that we have our 3 most important things in life.

Thank you for the comments

CCUP

2007-11-22T00:08:00.005+09:00

Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books
　　　　(絵本を活用した国際理解教育開発研究）

On Friday, November 22, I presented at the JALT conference about Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books (CCUP). CCUP is a two year project conducted by the Education Development Center (EDC) in Boston and the Iwate University Faculty of Education. The project had been sponsored by the Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership (CGP). The project uses 15 English picture books to teach different aspects of the US culture to Japanese elementary school children during the period of integrative study. The objective of the prject is to not only teach students about the US culture but to help them understand their own culture better by considering the similarities and differences between the two cultures.

In the first year of the project, EDC selected books and created teaching guides for the books. In the second year of the project, Iwate University recruited teachers across Iwate to do pilot lessons. So far, there have been about 24 pilot lessons conducted in 18 schools. In this post I am including the link to my powerpoint presentation as well as links to all 15 teaching guides which are available for anyone to use.

Here are the titles of the book and its guide in zip format.

1. Yoko (guide with lesson materials)
2. Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever (guide)
3. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop (guide with lesson materials)
4. Covered Wagon, Bumpy Trails (guide with lesson materials)
5. Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King (guide)
6. Sector 7 (guide with lesson materials)
7. Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs (guide)
8. My First Thanksgiving (guide with lesson materials)
9. Too Many Tamales (guide with lesson materials)
10. The World Turns Round and Round (guide)
11. Tulip Sees America (guide)
12. Let's Play Hopscotch, Let's Jump Rope (guide with lesson materials)
13. The Goat in the Rug (guide with lesson materials)
14. Parade Day (guide)
15. The Story of the Statue of Liberty (guide with lesson materials)
16. Tips and tricks for using the guides(ガイドの使い方について）

A Task Based Lesson at a Junior High School

2007-10-16T10:38:00.000+09:00

On October 1, I gave a task based lesson at a junior high school in an Iwate city. The following definition of "task" guided my lesson planning:

" A task is an activity in which a person engages in order to attain an objective, and which necessitates the use of language."
(Van den Branden, K. (Ed.) (2006). Task Based Language Education: From theory to practice. CUP.)

The goals of the class were the following. You can see the lesson plan here (in Japanese).

Listen to an easy speech (actually, it was more like an interview) and understand the general meaning without worrying about words that you do not understand.
Give a simple speech without memorizing every word but by using key words to recall the content.

Description of Students and Class
This was a kenkyuujugyou or open class. I taught 20 first grade students (12- 13 years-old) who I had never met before. There were also 30 English teachers watching. I was asked to do this by the municipal board of education. They asked me to teach page 55 of the New Horizon text book. It was a listening exercise where students had to listen for the nationality, age, residence and other information of 2 fictitious foreigners living in Japan. Another teacher did a demonstration class after me using the same page of the textbook with different students. The objective of the 2 open classes was to compare and learn about different teaching styles.
Before I had met the students, their homeroom teacher had told me that they were hard working and motivated to study English. They had all been studying English for about 6 months, or since entering junior high school.

The Class
I decided to make my own content for the class rather than use the textbook page, because I did not think that anybody cares about fictitious foreigners living in Japan. I decided to introduce to the students a real non-Japanese person (other than me) living in Morioka.

Task 1
The objective of the first task was to watch an interview of a researcher at Iwate University and learn 1) where he is from, 2) his occupation, 3) the languages he speaks 4) and his likes. I tried to chose someone with an interesting background: he came from a country that students did not know well, spoke 5 languages etc. After watching the interview, students were then asked to confirm the answers in English. The real world language use necessary to attain the objectives was 1) listening for specific information 2) using language that you hear in your speech and 3)confirming the answers to a problem with a partner. The interview that students watched is below. I had videotaped the interview the day before and burned it onto a DVD.

The handout that students used is here. In the handout (see exercise A) students attempted to circle the correct answer for each question. Because the students were not familiar with the a lot of the vocabulary, (Slovakian, chemistry, etc... ) the multiple-choice questions were in English and Japanese.

After introducing the video to the students, I played it for them twice. I then asked them to make pairs and confirm their answers in English. I knew that students had the ability to confirm the answers in English but they did not know how. So, before they confirmed the answers, I played them a video of a colleague and myself doing a similar task and using English that was at about the level of the students. I told students that they should watch the video carefully and write down any English they think would be useful for confirming the answers with their partner. In the video, I used subtitles so students would know exactly what was being said.
The video is below:

Overall, most of the students got all the multiple choice questions correct and 11 the 16 students who completed a simple questionnaire after the class reported that they were able to use English to confirm the answers after watching the above video. I had originally budgeted 20 minutes for task 1 but ended up using about 26 minutes. This meant that I had about 20 minutes to do task 2. This would mean that I would have to make some modifications so that class would finish on time.

Task 2
I asked the students to write a simple speech using part B of their handout. To write the speech they simply had to fill in the blanks of a prewritten speech. The objective of this task was to say a simple speech in English using keywords to recall the content rather than memorizing every single word. The real world language use was giving a monologue in front of people using key words to give. After students wrote their speech, I put the following key words on the blackboard (in Japanese):

Name (名前）
Residence　(住まい）
Age　(年齢）
likes　（好きなこと）
day (you do what you like)　(何曜日に好きなことをするか）

I asked students to prepare to give a speech in front of the whole class. I told them that when they give the speech, they should not read their speech from the handout. Rather they should look at the keywords on the board and use it to give their speech. I added that quite often when we are asked to do public speaking we do not have time to memorize a speech. So, one thing we can do is use keywords to organize the speech in our heads and then we can give a speech. I told students to take 5 minutes and practice their speech by themselves. After the 5 minutes, I had originally planned for students to give the speeches in pairs and then have individual students perform their speech in front of the class. Unfortunately, because time was limited students did not give the speeches in pairs. Rather, I called on students to give their speech in front of the whole class. A total of 8 students gave their speech in front of the class and they were all able to do it without looking at their prints.

Wrap-up of my experience: Considering how to facilitate task based language learning more smoothly and the use of the L1 in a communicative class

This was my 5th time doing this kind of "open class" in the past 2 years. My first open class was a miserable failure, my second open-class was a failure, my third open-class was mediocre, my fourth open-class went fairly well but students did not speak, and this class went well and students DID speak! The reason why my classes have improved is because I have slowly learned to put myself in the shoes of the junior high school students and imagine how difficult they might find certain activities or the anxiety they might feel. I think the key to planning good language learning tasks is to give students a task that is challenging so that they have to overcome a little anxiety to succeed but not too easy. I also think that when conducting task based language teaching, a key to having a successful class is to be able to change the lesson plan as the lesson proceeds depending on how the students' are working. In other words, to attain the learning objective of a task, teachers might have to add an activity, take away an activity or modify an activity as the class progresses. I have become more comfortable with this.

After the class, the teachers who observed me commented on how much I used Japanese. I explained the rationale of each activity in Japanese, gave tips in Japanese about how to do activities, introduced the rationale of the class in Japanese, and helped individual students who were stuck in Japanese. If I had done the class only in English we would not have been able to finish the lesson. Using Japanese saves time because you only have to explain something once or twice while in English in can take a lot of effort on the part of the students and teacher to understand one particular point. If I had not been under so much pressure to finish the demonstration task in the 50 minutes of class time, I would have used more English.

An Experimental Task at a High School

2007-09-25T14:11:00.000+09:00

Next week (October 1) I will be doing my annual Kenkyuujugyou (open class) for 20 jr. high school students I have never met and then I will give a 90 minute lecture to English teachers observing my lesson about Task Based Language Teaching. It just so happens that last week I was asked to give a 90 minute lecture in Japanese about "university life" to two groups of 87 and 29 high school students, respectively. The first group consisted of first and second year students (US equivalent is sophomores and juniors) and the second group consisted of 3rd year students. As a warm-up for my task-based lesson at the junior high school, I decided to give a 20-minute "mini demonstration lesson" at the ending of my lecture at the high school.

The task that I had students do was similar to the global education activity I introduced a few months ago. After doing the task, I gave students a short questionnaire to fill out. Through giving this questionnaire, I wanted to know why students who talked to their partner and completed the task were able to do so and why students who could not communicate with their partner were not able to do so. I was hoping that identifying some factors of why students failed and succeeded in language learning tasks would help me plan my task-based lesson for next week.
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Here is what I did for the task:
A. Pre-Task: (Preparation for the Main Task)
Step 1. Students were given page 1 of the following document. In the document the world is divided into 11 regions. It asks students "if the world only had 100 $1 bills, how many dollar bills would be in each region? " The teacher explains in English to students what they should do.
Step 2. Students individually write the number of dollar bills that each region should have. (5 minutes)

Step 3. Students watch a video of the teacher and a colleague doing the Main Task (see below)
B. Main Task
Step 4. Students compare their answers with a partner and agree on how much dollar bills should be in each region They do this in English. (7 minutes) . The outcome of this task is a completed chart whose figures both students can agree on.
C. Post-Task
Step 5. The teachers calls an pairs to give their answers and ask why they gave such answers. (5 minutes).

I knew that step 4 would be very difficult for students to do, so I had them watch the below video of me and a colleague doing the same task before doing pair work.

For the first group of 87 students, we had little time to do the task but for the second group we had more time and also the number of students, 29, was much fewer so I was actually able to help students that were in trouble. Anyway, after the task I asked students to write whether they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the below statement. I was interested in learning why students were either able or not able to interact with each other in English for the Main Task (Step 4).

I talked to my partner about how many dollar bills should be in each region.

In the first group, 25 students wrote that they either strongly agreed or agreed while 3 wrote that they disagreed.

In the second group, 45 students wrote that they either strongly agreed or agreed while 35 wrote that they strongly disagreed or disagreed. You can see all the data here. I was surprised that so many students were able to do the task successfully.

I then asked students to give reasons why they agreed or disagreed. I organized the responses into categories. Below are the categories, the number of responses that fell within a category, and a description of the category.

Categories for Responses of Students who were able to communicate in English

(Please click on the above link to see the actual responses)

Attitude (10 responses): Respondents were positive about doing the activity and did not feel any anxiety.
Effort (10 responses): Respondents communicated meaning by any means possible: gestures, words etc.
Fun (2 responses) : The activity was fun and the respondents wanted to participate
Knowledge (11 responses) : Respondents were able to use the English that they knew.
Motivation (3 responses) : Respondents had a strong desire to speak in English
Pre-task (13 responses) : The video demonstration of the task was helpful
Teacher (4 responses) : The teacher's explanation was easy to understand or the teacher helped individual students

Teamwork (17 responses): Respondents were able to work well with their partner to complete the task.
Japanese (1 response): Respondents used Japanese to complete the task.

Categories for Responses of Students who were not able to communicate in English

Attitude (1 response): Respondents were not positive about engaging in the task.
Cannot understand the activity(19 responses): Respondents did not understand the English directions, the activity was generally too difficult, they had no idea what to do, or the chart was confusing.
Knowledge・ability (8 responses): Respondents felt that they lacked specific knowledge or ability to do the task
Performance Anxiety(9 Responses): Respondents were embarrassed about speaking English or just shy in general, they did not know how they should speak during the speaking activity.

My Analysis
The Successful Students
Students who successfully communicated with a classmate to fill out a chart were able to do so because they did not feel much anxiety, had a good working relationship with their partner, communicated their thoughts by any means possible, were able to use the English knowledge that they had, or took advantage of the video demonstration to help them do the task. These students were able to accomplish the task with their friends, using clues, relying on their own knowledge or communicative strategies. In other words, these students found a way to get the job done by themselves in a variety of manners rather than relying on ad nauseum explanations from the teacher. I think that an effective task enables students to use the knowledge that they already have but also try to experiment and use new language like the language that they saw from the video. It is ideal for students to be interested in the task, have enough confidence in their English ability to use it, have a good working relationship with their peers, and be willing to use communicative strategies.

The Unsuccessful Students
Most students reported that they were unable to do the task because they were lost from the beginning. Students also reported that they were not successful because they lacked the abiltiy to do the task or felt nervous or awkward using English with a peer. It was my impression that many of the unsuccessful students froze and felt very anxious from the beginning. They felt awkward asking for help or asking their peers what they should do. In the second group, I was able to help some students who were in trouble and they were able to complete the task. In the group of 87 students, I was too overwhelmed.

Many of the students wrote that they were not used to this kind of activity and I believe that a lot of students who have been able to do a similar task if given the opportunity to try again. Usually, the first time you try a new activity with students, many do no understand what is going on. When they have the opportunity to try the task again, though, they usually do much better the second time. Thus, I think that experiencing success can help relieve students of the anxiety and stress they feel when doing tasks that require them to follow directions in English and work with a peer in English.

Concerning group work and pair work, I think that the teacher has to a little careful in putting students with peers who they will be comfortable working with or whose diverse abilities or personalities would make the group dynamic and exciting.

When I teach my class in the junior high school next week I have decided that I am going to take my time introducing the task and making sure that students understand what they are supposed to be doing. Last week, I rushed through the task because it was just supposed to occupy the last few minutes of a lecture. I think that if I do not hurry learners they will do better and be able to overcome the anxiety they feel.

Lastly, a lot of students answered "I just didn't know how I should speak English" during the communicative activity even though I showed them the video beforehand. I think that many students are not familiar with using communicative strategies. so, when I teach at the jr. high school next week one of my goals will be to help students learn communicative strategies.

Doing Task-based Teaching: A Book Review

2007-09-20T22:10:00.000+09:00

I recently read Dave and Jane Willis's "Doing Task Based Teaching" and found it immensely helpful in getting me to generate a lot of different kind of language learning tasks. They divide tasks into the following categories based on a classification of cognitive processes
1) Listing
2) Ordering and sorting
3) Matching
4) Comparing
5) Problem solving
6) Sharing personal experiences
7) Projects and creative tasks
and also give concrete examples for each kind of task.

So far, I have found this taxonomy helpful for planning tasks with advanced learners (high school and university). In other words, I think that their tasks will work well with learners who have some linguistic knowledge but do not know how to use it.

I have even found this taxonomy helpful in planning workshop discussions in Japanese. Today, I went to a high school and gave two 1.5 hour workshops in Japanese to 87 and 29 students respectively about "University life". We had a discussion about effective language learning methods where I had the high school students do a listing task and then discuss the results with each other. I think discussions work best when participants have some kind of concrete outcome to attain (for example an individual makes a list, he then compares his list to another person's list, they then make a new list and then share their results with the rest of the class).

I also found their suggestions for how to facilitate certain tasks as well as accounts of real tasks from teachers across the world to be very helpful. For example, one thing that I learned is to always have students do a task individually at first and then work with others after they have made some progress by themselves and understand the task.

For me, one drawback of this book is that Dave and Jane Willis fail to show that their teaching methodology can be used with beginning learners in EFL contexts who have very little knowledge of English or exposure to English outside of the classroom.

Cycling from Morioka City to Kuriyama, Hokkaido (Part 4)

2007-09-15T06:23:00.000+09:00

Day 4: Oshmambe to Date (60 Kilometers)

I woke up at about 6AM, had breakfast with the family which had given me dinner the night before, played badminton with the daughter of the family and left Oshamanbe Park at about 8:30 AM.

Before I left I met a university student who happened to be camping next to me. He was in the university cycling club and took a keen interest in me and my trip. He had arrived to Oshamanbe by train from the main Island and was planning to cycle Hokkaido for the next month with his college buddies. I marvelled at the guy's state of the art equipment and wondered how much it had cost him. It seemed like he had spared no expense in preparing himself for his trip. He was surprised that I had gone such a far distance on such a crummy bicycle while carrying a backpack. I told him that when you become 30, you become careless, start doing any kind of endeavor haphazardly and stop caring about whether or not you have the right equipment. He told me that my trip would have been much easier if I had used smooth-surfaced tires rather than the rugged mountain bike tires and I agreed with him. Here is a picture of Mr. Tour-De France. What I learned from him will help me in my next bicycle trip.

The first 10 kilometers after Oshamanbe were easy riding but the pain that I had been feeling in my right knee was starting to become a little more acute and I was not able to ride this section in the time I wanted to. Why did I want to ride the first 10 kilometers so fast? After I had cycled the 10 kilometers I would have to tackle 45 kilometers of mountainous road between Shizukari(静狩) and Abuta (虻田). The greatest challenge would be traversing the Shizukari Mountain Pass (静狩峠) and the Reibungei Mountain Pass (礼文華峠). To the left is a picture of the mountains that I would be cycling through.

Surprisingly, once I started ascending the first mountain, my body responded to the challenge and my knee felt fine. Of course, I felt physically tired but I did not feel any other kinds of aches and pains which made the ride rather enjoyable. I had driven this route by car many times but never imagined that I would some day be cycling it.

One thing this route had was many tunnels, a total of 7. The longest tunnel was almost 1 kilometer. To the left is a picture of one. Before I went on this trip I looked on the Internet for rules of etiquette on how to go through a tunnel on a bicycle but could not find anything. Going through tunnels can be a little intimidating. First, although there are lights in the tunnel, it is still dark. Second, most tunnels do not have a walk way wide enough to ride a bicycle on with confidence and do not have any kinds of breakdown/bicycle lanes. In other words, at any given part of the tunnel, if the 2 lanes from both directions have cars there is no room for a bicycle on the road. Third, the noise of a vehicle is greatly magnified in a tunnel so that even a mini-car sounds like a bullet train. Lastly, the wind generated from a passing vehicle in a tunnel is quite strong and when you are riding in limited space it can be a little daunting. Anyway, I don't want to scare you too much. Going through a tunnel really isn't that bad. My advice would be to not do anything you are uncomfortable doing. For example, if you are uncomfortable riding your bicycle on the road, don't do it, walk it. Most of the times I rode my bicycle through the tunnels but there was one tunnel that had very heavy traffic and I walked my bicycle half the way. When riding through tunnels cyclists have the following options:

1) Ride your bicycle on the walkway if it is wide enough or you have enough confidence to ride your bicycle on a narrow space while withstanding the wind from the cars.
2) Ride your bicycle on the road.

3) Walk you bicycle on the walkway.

4) Walk your bicycle on the walkway when there are cars and ride your bicycle on the road when there are not cars.

Anyway, my experience riding on the roads of the tunnels was that the cars respected me. However, at one point when the traffic was very heavy I did decide to walk my bicycle and not test the etiquette of the drivers.

At the Reibungei Mountain Pass, I decided to take a detour, get off the mountain pass, and cycle along the Reibungei coast. I am glad that I did it. Cycling through the Reibungei town felt like riding through a ghost town. Although Reibungei is still inhabited I did not see a single person. I saw no food stores but several beauty salons which made me wonder about the priorities of the Reibungei folk. Of course, there were a few farms; maybe that is where they got their food. Reibungei also had a beautiful beach which was packed with people and tents as the beach also served as a camp site. If anyone is interested in camping for the night on a beach I recommend the Reibungei beach. I think you should keep in mind though, that there are probably very few food stores near by. However, if you would like to get a perm before or after you camp this would be a good site for you.

I took a rest on the Reibungei coast and took the above picture. It was at this point that I decided to meet up with my wife in a town called Date and go back to Kuriyama that day rather than spend one more day riding. Past Date, I did not think the ride would be so interesting as I would follow the coast for about 50 kilometers through Muroran and Tomokomai, two major industrial cities, and then go about 60 kilometers on rt. 234 inland from Tomakomai to Kuriyama. My body also ached, but the primary reason was that I missed my family and wanted to see them. So, at this beautiful spot where I took the picture, I called my wife and asked her to pick me up in Date. From Date, I would put my bicycle in the car (this is where the expensive bicycle bag came in handy) and we would drive the 120 kilometers back to Kuriyama.

When I was cycling to Date, I realized I had made the right decision as my pace was slow and my back and knee were really starting to hurt. On my way to Date I met someone who was cycling the perimeter of Japan on a 3 speed Mama-chari (Japanese basket bicycle) and felt embarrassed to be complaining about my aches and pains as I had only been cycling for 4 days and on a 21 speed bicycle. At about 3:00 PM I arrived at the Date michi no eki which also featured a "History Village" rekishinomura and waited for my wife to pick me up. To the right is a picture of me at the ending of my trip.

To give one last final reflection on my trip, I was a woefully inexperienced cyclist/camper and had I known what I was doing and been properly prepared I probably could have made it to Kuriyama. Nevertheless, traveling Northern Japan by bicycle enabled me to see that part of the country and interact with the people like I had never done before. I think that a heavily accented, smelly, sweaty and funny-looking guy such as myself must have been an intimidating sight for those who encountered me. Nevertheless, I was treated with respect wherever I went and also received help when I was in need even when I did not ask for it. This trip made me appreciate greatly the relative safety of Japan and also the generosity and thoughtfulness of so many people. Frequently Japan receives a lot of criticism from ex-pats (including me) for its treatment (particularly policy) towards foreigners, but this trip served as a reminder to me about how open-minded and hospitable so many Japanese people are.

Cycling from Morioka City to Kuriyama, Hokkaido: Part 3

2007-09-06T22:37:00.000+09:00

Day 3:Hakodate (Ono) to Oshamanbe (75 Kilometers)
After arriving in Hakodate on August 11, where I lived for 2 years, I spent the day eating and relaxing. My friend Bill let me stay at his place and was a great host. In the morning I ate at the morning market. I then took a nap and in the afternoon I ate a huge burger at Lucky Pierrot, a fast food chain that can only be found in Hakodate. After lunch I went to a hot spring and then appeared in one of Bill's English classes as a guest. The class was for children from one-parent households and Bill taught it as a volunteer. The night of the 11th, Bill and I went out and I was able to catch up with another old friend, Rintaro. The next day, I would regret staying out so late the night before. On the morning of August 12, Bill and I went to his in-laws' house in a town called Ono which is right outside of Hakodate (I actually lived in Ono for two years and not Hakodate). Bill rode my bicycle out to Ono and I drove his car. (Bill is riding my bike in the picture below to the left. The picture below that is a picture of Hakodate Mountain.)

Bill and I ate breakfast at Ono and then Bill's father in-law and brother in-laws were nice enough to oil my bicycle chain and give me a tire pump that would work for both woods or American valves (see my last post for a discussion of bicylce valves). Bill's father-in-law used to have a bicycle shop and was extremely generous in giving me some of his unsold merchandise.

At the time, Hokkaido was in the middle of a rare heat wave. The temperature was about 32 degrees celcius (90 fahrenheit). At about 11AM, Bill and I put my bicycle in his car and we drove about 7 kilometers North of Ono (there was a nasty hill and a long tunnel that I wanted to avoid). At about 11:30 I was back on the road. My destination was Oshamanbe (長万部)where I planned to spend the night at the campsite in Oshamanbe Kouen (Park). When I started, I was about 75 kilometers from Oshamanbe and, despite the heat, I was feeling fantastic. The breeze I felt while coasting on my bicycle kept me cool. I knew that there would be no mountains to travel over or serious hills before Oshamanbe. I looked forward to an easy ride. Unfortunately, after about 20 minutes my knee started to hurt and as I approached the coast the wind got stronger and I had to pedal against it all the way to Oshamanbe. Again, my pace slowed down and it was not an easy bicycle ride.

Despite not feeling my best physically, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Unlike the first day, I was in no hurry. My goal was to make it to Oshamanbe before dark (75 kilometers) and I knew I could do that easily. I was traveling down a road, route 5, I had driven by car many times when I lived in Ono and would visit my in-laws in Kuriyama. Route 5 runs along the eastern coast of the Oshima Penninsula. When driving down route 5 to Oshamanbe, the bigger towns that you pass through are Mori and Yakumo. There are also a lot of fishing villages in between.

When I used to drive to Kuriyama, I would take route 5 from Ono to Oshamanbe and then get on the express way at Oshamanbe and drive to Kuriyama. Going from Ono to Oshamanbe, I would drive as fast as possible because I thought that there was nothing but lonely fishing villages, small towns, and barren coasts in between. This time, though, on my bicycle, I was excited to see what actually lied between Oshamanbe and Hakodate. (Above is a picture of me in Yakumo with Mt. Komagatake in the background).

One of the interesting things I discovered was a place to get natural water from its source for free in Yakumo (see the picture to the left). I also stopped at a store in a small town called Kunnui which was about 11 kilometers from Oshamanbe. Kunnui consisted of a post office, a general store and houses. I sat on a bench outside the general store, drank a soda, talked to the clerk of the store, and watched some people walk out of their houses and greet each other. I know this seems strange, but I felt very happy to actually be able to meet and observe people in this small town I had driven through so many times and ignored. I realized that when we drive cars quite often we are completely oblivious to everything between point A and point B. Traveling Hokkaido by bicycle made me appreciate the towns, sights, places, houses, stores and people in every kilometer of the road.

I arrived in Oshamanbe, a town of approximately 7000 people, at about 5:45. As I am a terrible navigator, I struggled to find the Oshamanbe Park campsite. When I reached the dead end of a rural road, I knocked on the door of a house and asked a surprised elderly woman if she knew where the park was. She instructed me to go back the way I came, take a left, cross a bridge, take another left, and then knock on someone else's door and ask. I did as she said and eventually found the park at about 6:30.

The park was beautiful, I was surprised. (To the left is a picture of my bicycle, Sheila, at the campsite). There was a river running through it, a nice green lawn for tents, bungalows for renting, hiking trails (I think), a place to have a barbeque, a playground for kids, and most importantly clean bathrooms and nice sinks which were outdoors. It cost 500 yen per person to use the campsite for the evening.

I was excited to use the tent that a colleague at work had lent me. He told me that he had not used the tent for about 10 years but that it was very easy to set up. I unpacked the tent and checked the contents of the bag. There was the tent canvas, a cover for the tent, and a plastic sheet to put under the tent. There was also a long poll, there was a shorter poll, and there were many pieces of what seemed to be for a third poll. Here, I got a little confused. I was not sure if there were supposed to be 2 polls or 3 polls. Also, I was not sure if the shorter poll was missing some pieces and supposed to be the same size as the longer poll. I struggled to set up the tent for about 15 minutes when I noticed that it was almost dark. Near my tent was a family of 4 who were getting ready to have a barbeque. They had pitched two very nice tents and had a lot of nice camping equipment; they looked like they were very experienced campers. I was tempted to ask for help but was too proud. When it was almost dark, the father and eldest son approached me and asked me if I needed help. I swallowed my pride and said yes. We worked out the problem with the polls and set up my tent in about 10 minutes.

After we had finished, the mother of the family told me that I could bring my dinner to their area and eat dinner with them if I wished. I told her that I would be very happy to do that but would have to go to the local convenience store first and buy dinner (it was about 2 kilometers away). I think she felt sorry for me and invited me to eat dinner with them. I said yes and was treated to a wonderful barbeque with a wondefully nice family from a city North of Oshamabe called Muroran. The son was a high school student and the daughter was an elementary school student. The son had a girlfriend and spent much of the dinner text-messaging her on his cellphone. When he was not talking to his girlfriend, he was very social and a lot of fun to talk to. I drank beer with the father and mother and learned about Muroran, camping, and the son's girlfirend. After dinner, we went to a hot spring in the family's car and enjoyed a bath. That night I slept very well. In the morning, I ate breakfast with the family and played badminton with youngest daughter. (To the left is a picture of the family.) Throughout the trip, every time I had experienced a problem such as a flat tire, getting lost, or a defective tent, I was fortunate enough to get help. I was one lucky guy.

In my next post I will talk about my last day as well as my experience cycling through tunnels.

Cycling from Morioka City to Kuriyama, Hokkaido: Part 2

2007-09-03T21:54:00.000+09:00

Day 1: Morioka City to Aomori City: 200 kilometers (August 10)

There isn't actually so much to write about this day. I rode 200 kilometers in 16.5 hours. It was brutal and I did not do anything very fun, I just rode and rested. I am writing about this so any novice cyclist can learn from my experience or any somewhat experienced cyclist can laugh at me.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had originally planned to go from Morioka to Aomori City in 2 days leaving Morioka on August 10 and arriving on August 11. From Aomori I planned on taking a ferry to Hakodate. Because the ferries were going to be completely booked from August 11 and I would have a very difficult time getting my bicycle onto the ferry I decided to get to Aomori city on August 10.

I planned to leave my house at 3:30AM on that day and figured I could do 200 kilometers in about 12 hours averaging about 20 kilometers an hour and using 2 hours for rest. I imagined myself arriving in Aomori at about 4PM and being in Hakodate that night drinking beer and eating sushi with friends. Boy, was I wrong.

I got out of bed at 5 AM and it took me about an hour and half to get ready for the journey. I left my house at 6:30 without eating breakfast. My plan was to take route 4 all the way from Morioka to Aomori. In a little over an hour I had gone about 20 kilometers. I was not going as fast as I wanted but I was happy with my progress I stopped off at a Daily Yamazaki convenience store and ate breakfast and then was back on my way. In not so much time I was in Iwate-cho, 40 kilometers from Morioka. Soon after passing through Iwate-cho I experienced the 奥中山高原　or the Okunaka Mountain High Plains. The sign on the right marks the highest point on route 4, 458 meters above sea level. At this point I thought that I had overcome the hardest stretch of the trip. That was not to be the case.

After passing through Okunaka Kougen I arrived at 一戸 or ichinohe. "Ichi" means one and "he" means "door". Interestingly, there also exists a "2 no he" a "3 no he" a "5 no he" a "6 no he" a "7 no he", an "8 no he" and a "9 no he". I would have the honor of passing through all the "no hes" except for "8 no he" and "9 no he". Throughout the day, I wondered what the founding fathers of Iwate Prefecture and Aomori Prefecture were thinking when they were naming the towns. There must be some interesting history there.

At Ichinohe, the rain changed from drizzle to downpour. Because I was in a hurry to get to Aomori, I decided to go on in the pouring rain. As I was cycling up a hill I saw a cyclist standing under a tree waiting for the rain to stop. We made eye contact and he looked at me as if I was an idiot for cycling in the pouring rain. In this pouring rain, my feet and undergarments became soaked and would remain damp the rest of the 16 hours. When cycling, bring good water-resistant apparel as well as wear water resistant shoes or avoid cycling in a downpour.

After Ichinohe I passed through Ninohe (2 no he). As I was leaving Ninohe, I had gone about 80 kilometers and it was 11AM. I was feeling confident that I would be in Aomori city by 5PM. Unfortunately, 5 kilometers outside of central Ninohe I had a setback. As I was cycling up a hill, all of a sudden the back of the bicycle felt heavy. I looked down and realized that I had a flat tire. I got off my bicycle, tried to pump up the tire and realized that the hole in the tube was too big for any air to stay in the tire for a period of time. I took my spare tube out of my bag but soon realized that the valve of my spare tube was incompatible with my pump. According to the Japan Cycling website, most bicycles in Japan use a "Woods valve" (in Japanese the notation for this is 英) while the international standard is a "French" (仏）or "American valve" (米). The tube on my bike was an American valve so I had bought a pump compatible with that kind of valve. The lesson I learned is that when cycling in Japan bring a pump that can do Woods as well as French and American valves.

I was closer to Ninohe than Sannohe (3 no he), but did not want to walk in the oppostite direction so I decided to walk towards san no he and pray that I find a bicycle store along the way. After walking about a kilometer, I came across a gas station in the middle of no where. I explained to them my predicament and they told me that the nearest bicycle store was 10 kilometers away. Of course, they did not sell bicycle pumps. I asked them if they could pump up the tire and they said yes. I then asked them if they change the tube and they said yes. So I got to sit in the waiting room of the gas station and have a coke as the attendants fixed my bicycle tire. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I saw the cyclist I saw under a tree in Ichinohe pass the gas station. They also patched my tube for me and informed me that it had been punctured by a nail. Getting my tire fixed cost me 1050 Yen. It was money very well spent as I felt well rested and ready to cycle the remaining 118 kilometers. Later, when I recounted the story to a Japanese friend he said that the reason why the gas station helped me was because I was a foreigner and they might have blown off a normal Japanese. I don't know, though, these people acted like cyclists had come to them before when they were in trouble.

I left the gas station at close to 12PM. About 45 minutes later I was leaving sannohe (3 no he) when it started to pour. I was fortunate enough to see a michinoeki or "road station" which is similar to a highway rest stop. I stopped in the michinoeki, parked my bicycle and saw the cyclist who I had seen in under a tree in Ichinohe and pass me at the gas station between ninohe and sannohe, sitting under the porch of the rest area house sipping tea. I sat next to him and introduced myself. He lived near Morioka and was on his way to Hachinohe, a city about 30 kilometers from our present position. When I told him my destination and plan he called it 無謀 (mubou) which means foolhardy. A woman working at the rest area house overheard our conversation and gave me a cup of green tea. After about 10 minutes the rain stopped, and I felt good and ready to go the remaining 95 kilometers. It was about 1:30 PM.

After 10 minutes of riding the sun came out. I soon left sannohe and entered gonohe (5 no he). There is no 4 no he because the pronunciation for 4 sounds like the character for "death" and thus it is considered bad luck. At gonohe I encountered hills and mountains that went on for many kilometers. It was at about this time that I started to feel extremely fatigued. It seemed like everything was uphill and it never ended. I could have stopped in central gonohe but decided to continue. I thought that I could make it to Towada city which was about 20 kilometers away. The hills, though, became mountains, and my progress became agonizingly slow. At about 3PM I pulled into the Towada michi no eki barely able to stand. I ate a quick lunch and fell asleep for an hour. I woke up at 4:15 PM and left the michinoeki at 4:30 PM. I still had 80 kilomters to go to Aomori City. Between 6:30 AM and 11AM I had manage to cycle 80 kilometers. Between 12PM and 3PM, though, I had only managed 40 kilometers. My pace was slowing down and I was feeling tired even after my hour long nap. I had 80 kilometers to go, it was 4:30 PM and it would be dark before 7PM.

To make a long story short. The remaining 80 kilometers were hilly but not mountainous. I had to rest about 10 minutes for every hour I rode. Also, once it became dark my pace slowed even more. I made it into Aomori City at about 10:30 and then got lost. Route 4 approaching Aomori City is not bicycle friendly and I would recommend that cyclists try to find an alternative route into the city if possible. After asking for directions at a police box I was able to find the ferry terminal at about 11:30PM.

I had made a ferry reservation for early morning (5AM) for myself on August 11. They told me that I would be unable to take my bicycle so I had bought a bag (輪行 - rinkou）to put my bicycle in so that I could carry it on the ferry as luggage. When I got to the ticket booth at the ferry terminal I asked the agent if I could change my reservation and ride on the 1AM ferry. He looked at me as if I was crazy and informed me that the 1AM ferry was completely booked and that all the ferries leaving the next day and the day after were completely booked. He told me that if I wished they could put me on the wait list for the 1AM ferry and that I should go to the "waiting list" line. When I spoke to the agent at the waiting list line he told me that I could ride on the 1AM ferry with no problem. I asked him if I could also bring my bicycle on the ferry and he said no problem, I could put it together with the motorbikes. At that moment, I wondered why in the hell I had spent 12,000 yen for a bicycle bag. (The bag turned out to be very useful when I packed the bicycle in my car.)

Boarding the ferry was pretty interesting. I boarded the ferry together with the motorcycles, pedaling my bicycle into the ferry while the other bikes motored in. My bicycle, Sheila, was tied to the wall of the garage as the picture to the right shows. Disembarking from the ferry was a little unpleasant. About 20 minutes before the ferry docked, all drivers, bikers and cyclists were instructed to go into the garage and wait in their cars or on their bikes. When I got into the garage, all the cars and trucks had their engines running and I felt like I would die from carbon monoxide poisoning. I took a picture of the scene and you can see it on the left. Eventually, the garage doors opened and I pedaled off the ferry between one big white truck and one dark one. I had made it to Hakodate. It was 5AM and my friend Bill was there to greet me. I decided the first thing I would do was go to Hakodate's Morning Market and eat sushi.

To be continued....

Cycling from Morioka City to Kuriyama, Hokkaido: Part 1

2007-08-21T22:49:00.000+09:00

Ever since I moved to Morioka (Iwate Prefecture) from Hakodate, Hokkaido, I had wanted to bicycle from Morioka to my wife's hometown Kuriyama which is right in the center of the Island of Hokkaido. After 4 years of putting it off, this year I decided I was going to do it. My wife and son went to Kuriyama ahead of me and I was to meet them there. My plan was to bicycle from Morioka to Aomori City (200 kilometers) take the ferry from Aomori to Hakodate. Cycle from Hakodate to a town called Oshamanbe (93 kilometers) and then from Oshamanbe to a city called Muroran (about 90 Kilometers). Lastly I planned on cycling from Muroran to Kuriyama (about 100 kilomters). In Kuriyama, I would stay with my in-laws and then put my bicycle in our car and drive/ take the ferry back to Morioka with my wife and son.

I left Morioka on August 10 and had made it to Date, Hokkaido, a town 30 kilometers from Muroran city by August 13. In Date, I called it a trip and had my wife come pick me up. I was about 120 kilometers from Kuriyama. Although I did not make it to my final destination, it was a fantastic journey and I would recommend traveling around Japan by bicycle to anyone who is game for it. In the following posts I will talk about my journey and I hope that anyone interestecd in taking a cycling trip in Japan will be able to learn from my mistakes.

Preparing for the Trip

On August 1, I had asked a local cycle shop, Nakahata Cycle Shop (サイクルショップナカハタ）, who I was friendly with whether or not they could find me a bicycle that I could use to go on a long road trip. At the shop they only had the prototypical Japanese urban basket bicycles (Mama chari) but the proprietor asked me what my budget was and said that he would make me a mountain bike out of a used frame he had in the scrap yard at his house. By August 5, I had a mountain bicycle complete with a bell/compass, rear blinking light, front light, front basket, a rear mount which I could tie a tent and sleeping bag onto, and a speedometer. I had originally told the repairman that my budget was 20,000 yen but when I saw the bicycle I assumed that it would be more because they had thrown all these accessories onto it. I was surprised when they only asked for 20,000 yen. Here is a picture of my bicycle resting at a campsite in Oshamanbe Hokkaido. As you might tell, I became quite attached to it. As it was originally a women's mountain bike, I think I will call her Sheila.

On August 8, I bought the Touring Mapple (ツーリングマップル） map of Hokkaido and Tohoku (Northeast Honshu). These maps also provide information about road conditions, restaurants, camp sites, youth hostels, rest areas and tourist sites for their regions. They proved to be immensely helpful.

On August 9, a day before I was to leave, I borrowed a tent from a colleague and intended to go shopping for gear that I would need for the trip. Here are two web pages that recommend what kind of gear to bring for a long cycling trip: Adventure Cycling Association: "How to pack and what to take"; REI: "Cycling Expert Advice".

Before I left my house to go shopping, I suffered my first setback: I learned that the ferries from Aomori city to Hakodate were completely booked on August 11! My original plan was to take two days and one night to go to Aomori city from Morioka. The people at the ferry terminal told me that I, myself, could ride the ferry but it would be impossible for me to take my bicycle. Bicycles are classified as motorbikes and must ride with the cars on the ferry. Although they are classified as motorbikes they only cost 900 yen to bring on the ferry which is considerably less than a motorbike. When I was told I could not take my bicycle on the ferry I panicked because my trip to Hokkaido was now in jeopardy. In the midst of my panic, I remembered that I had read something about a bicycle bag called a rinko (輪行) on the Cycling Japan website and immediately called the ferry company asking them if I could carry my bicycle on the ferry if it was put in a bag. Their answer was yes and my next challenge was to find out where I could find a rinko in Morioka.

I decided I would kill two birds with one stone and buy my camping goods and rinko together. A friend of mine recommended that I buy my camping gear at either Homac, Takeda Sports or Sunday. Homac and Sunday are big home amenity stores that sell everything from hardware to wood to bicycles to camping gear. I ended up buying a 1000 yen sleeping bag at Homac and a flashlight. At Takeda Sports I bought running shoes and something close to cycling shorts. Takeda Sports also had almost the exact same camping gear as Homac for the same prices. I learned that you can get a lot of cheap camping gear at big stores such as Homac or Takeda Sports. I was disappointed, though, to find that these stores had a very poor selection of bicycling gear and I worried that I would not be able to find a decent cycling helmet or the rinko. I asked the clerk at Takeda Sports what the biggest bicycle shop was in Morioka and he told me that it was Sasaso Cycle Shop (佐々宗輪店) on chuuou doori (chuuou road). When I went to the cycle shop, I was happy to find a rinko and a good helmet (Although combined they cost more than my bicycle!). With the rinko, sleeping bag, tent, and bicycle I was now ready to begin my trip!

Because the ferries were going to be so full on August 11, the beginning of Japan's Obon holiday, I decided I should make it to the ferry terminal in Aomori by August 10. There were 200 kilometers between me and Aomori city. I thought that if I left my house at about 3:30 AM, August 10, I should make it to Aomori city by dusk (about 7:00 PM). I had cycled 50 miles with my father with relative ease when I was in high school. I reckoned that 200 kilometers was about 125 miles and I thought that if I could cycle 50 miles with ease then adding another 75 miles would not be so bad. Of course, Japan is a heck of a lot more mountainous than my home state of Massachusetts, and I would soon learn that mountains are much more difficult to tackle than long distances.

The night before I was to leave I was awake until about 1AM trying to take care of some last second work and did not get out of bed until 5AM. Along with my tent and sleeping back which was tied to the back of my bicycle, I had originally planned to take a small backpack, place it in the front basket of my bicycle and tie it down with a cord. When I attempted to put my belongings (a change of clothes, rain gear, maps, spare tubes, a bicycle pump and tools for my bicycle) into my small backpack I soon realized that it would not all fit. So I abandoned the small backpack idea, took out my big camping rucksack, stuffed my belongings into it and strapped it on my back. I knew that it was not wise (very dumb) to carry such weight on my back for a 200 kilometer trip, but I was in a hurry to get out of the house and any more delays would prevent me from reaching Aomori city that day. Besides, the rucksack was designed for trekking and had all kinds of straps that kept most of the weight off my shoulders. To the right is a picture of me wearing the rucksack and standing by the bicycle with an empty basket in Yakumo, Hokkaido. It was a big mistake not buying side carriers for my bicycle but I did the best I could carrying the backpack.

At 6:30 AM I left Morioka for Aomori city. In my next post I will talk about my 200 kilometer adventure and what happened to me along the way. Stay tuned.

Getting Strict: Changing my teaching style

2007-08-17T11:48:00.000+09:00

It has been a long time.

I got a little burned out from sitting in front of the computer and reduced my computer time. For the past couple of months, I have used the internet only to keep up with my beloved Red Sox. At work, of course, it seems like I spend the majority of my day writing e-mails and when I get home at night I prefer not to look at a computer screen.

Well, a couple of months ago I had a very shocking teaching experience which has affected my teaching and personality in the classroom. First, let me give you a little background. I teach full time at one institution, a teacher's college, and part-time at a liberal arts university and a nursing school. At the teacher's college and liberal arts university I am pretty much myself in the classroom: I don't get angry at my students for not doing homework or skipping class and sometimes will share things about my personal life such as news about my son, what I did over the weekend etc. I find that this approach works well and for the most part the students are very diligent. If I was a tougher teacher who got angry at students for falling asleep in class (I tease them instead), punished students for being late or missing homework, or did not flash a smile in class I do not think I would get any more effort out of these students.

I had tried this approach at the nursing school where I teach a class of 40 students. About 25 are girls and most students are either 18 or 19 years old. A couple are in their mid twenties and one or two are close to my age. The content of this class is English for nurses. We study some medical English and dialogues to use with English speaking patients. I started teaching this class in April of 2007 for 1 and a half hours a week and the first few months went well. The students seemed interested in the class and always participated enthusiastically. Their quiz scores were also decent which meant that they were studying outside of class. There was one student who openly rebelled and went out of her way to show me that she was not going to try but I was confident that she would eventually change because I knew that she was better at English than she was pretending to be.

Well, last July after a few bad weeks I had one terrible class with this group and it changed the way I conducted class with them. Because I had missed a previous week's class, the nursing school asked me to teach two consecutive periods (about 3 hours). I thought that this would be a great opportunity to focus on speaking because it seemed like our speaking activities were always rushed. I designed a slightly redundant speaking activity that was supposed to take about an hour where students would do a role play. One student would play a clerk at a registration desk in a hospital and the other a patient. The clerk had to ask the patient about her insurance policy, etc. and write the information on a form. For these students the grammar for asking questions in English is incredibly difficult. Most of the students can ask questions using the be-verb (ex. Are you sick?) but struggled to ask questions using the do-auxiliary (Do you have a fever?) or wh-questions (What is your temperature?). I had designed this task so students would be asking a lot of do-auxiliary and be-questions so that they could get used to the difference. I has planned the pair work so that each student would do the role play about 5 times with a different partner. I realized that 5 times to do the same role play was a lot but I thought that students really needed the practice and that changing partners constantly would make the activity more fun for the students. I planned on giving the students 5 minutes to do the 1st role play and then to reduce the time limit for each ensuing role play. I was hoping to build on students' fluency. Before the task we reviewed how to make questions in English and had done some exercises. Let me tell you what happened.

From the very beginning about half the students acted like doing such an activity was about as exhilarating as a colonic exam. Like after you have run 15 kilometers and every step is a burden, for these students every time they opened their mouth was a tremendous effort and every time they moved their pencil on the paper to write a piece of information required extraordinary strength. As I have to wake up at 5:30 AM every Monday morning to catch the train to go to the city where this gosh darned nursing school exists and I had not had much sleep the night before so I could plan the day's activity, I was ready to throw these miserable students out the window and relieve their suffering (I am just being literary). To make a long story short, most of the students did not do a damn thing. The class became more like a social hour and after 40 minutes I called on a couple of random pairs of students to perform the role play in front of the class. The students who were called on looked at me with an expression that said, "How dare you?!" Their effort and performances were pathetic. I called on a second pair who did an even worse job. I stopped the second pair and told everyone in the class to shut up. At this point I was very frustrated. I told the class that I could not bear to watch them any more. I added that I considered them adults and not children. I told them that I am a busy guy and did not want to waste my time being their baby sitter. I then said that I was very disappointed with them and if they were not going to give me any effort I would not give them any effort. Then, I left the class (there was 20 minutes remaining).

I departed the nursing school as fast as I could. The nursing school teachers asked me how class was and I lied and said fine. If I had told the teachers what had happened, I am sure that they would have disciplined the students severely but I wanted to keep this matter between me and the students. I returned to my full time place of employment and was surprised that day to receive a class from the homeroom teacher of the nursing school students. She apologized and told me it would never happen again. One of the students had told the teacher.

The next week I had a class at the nursing school which would then be followed by a month-long summer vacation. I went to the class and did not prepare anything. Usually I had students use name cards in the class and I would call them by the nicknames written on their name cards. For this class, I did not use the name cards. Rather I used the seating chart to identify students and called them by their last names. For boys, I added the suffix -kun onto their last names and for girls I added the suffix -san. I did not smile once. I entered the class and told them to open their textbooks. We did the textbook and a handout I had made for that chapter a year before. I did 95% of the class in Japanese. I only used English to read the textbook. I called on individual students to translate certain sentences from English to Japanese or from Japanese to English. The class was quiet and everyone worked hard. Even the perennially rebellious girl had brought her textbook and was actually writing in her notebook. In this class there was no pair work, it was a teacher-centered class and English was not used communicatively whatsoever. Also, there was a great distance between the student and teacher in this class. Instead of me being Mr. Hall, the father, husband, wanna-be sportsman and diehard Red Sox fan living in Morioka, I was Mr. Hall, the teacher. The students were also just the students I did not care about who they were individually; I just looked at them as names on the seating chart. At the end of the class I asked students to write what kind of class they liked better. Did they like the style of the previous classes or did they like the style of today's class?

15 students said they liked the style of that day's class. 10 students said they liked the old way better. 15 students said they wanted a combination of both lessons. I was very interested to read the reasons of the 15 students who like the strict class the best. One student wrote that she liked the strict class better because she did not have to worry about working with other students or fighting with other students. Another student wrote that she felt nervous in that day's class but she liked that feeling of nervousness. Yet another student wrote that she felt that day's class was best because all her classmates could pay attention. Even one of the more energetic students wrote (in English) "I am sorry. I like today's class the best."

What does this mean? I interpreted this to mean that most of these students preferred to have a stricter teacher. They want to be taught more and want everything explained to them in Japanese. Many of them don't care about me or my personal life so I should not talk about it. Also, I should probably not ask them questions about their personal life.

Before I end this post, let me just say that I had been already using a lot of Japanese in this class and this class already included a lot of metalinguistic explanations (grammar rules) in the students' native language. I also felt that interaction, listening to a lot of English, and experimenting with using what you have learned was important for learning English. So, I had tried to make a class that gave students 1) a lot of exposure to English, 2) the opportunity to use English and a comfortable environment to use it in, and 3) the support they need in Japanese to be able to use and understand English.

Well, I did not succeed in doing the above. From now on I have decided to be an all-powerful teacher when I step in the classroom and forget who I really am for an hour and a half. I will use more Japanese and provide more explanations. I will do mostly the textbook and make supplementary handouts but not spend so much time planning activities. Perhaps for 10 minutes in each class students will have some kind of very controlled pair work activity where they have to read a dialogue or translate something into English or Japanese. For this class, I think it will work the best. I do not think it is the best way for these students to learn language but it is better for them to learn something than nothing at all.

A Simple Lesson Idea for Showing Students the Living Conditions of our World Inhabitants

2007-05-02T17:57:00.000+09:00

This is a lesson that can be done in small or large classes. I have done this lesson in the cross-cultural understanding class I have taught the past 2 years. The goal of this lesson is to get students to think about how their standard of living compares to other of people's standard of living and also to teach them vocabulary related to global studies. This is a rough outline of the lesson.

Time: 90 minutes

I Introduction
Today we are going to investigate the different levels of standard of living that we can find on this earth. >
II <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Excercise 1: How much money do people have?
Using the following map for reference, students fill out the following worksheet (Answers are on the second page). In the worksheet, students guess how much money each region in the earth would have if there were only 100 dollar bills, how many people each region would have if there were only 100 people, the number of dollars per person in each region, and what the area of each region of the world would be if the total area of the earth was 100.
This is based on a lesson from a Japanese Global Education group.

III Exercise 2: What is the standard of living of people on this earth?

Part 1
Students fill out the following worksheet (html version) (pdf version). This worksheet is taken from the popular "If the World were 100 People" book. The work sheet looks something like this:
If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

There would be:
____________ Asians
____________Europeans
____________ from the West Hemisphere
____________Africans
____________ from North America
____________ from South America and the Caribbean ____________Africans
____________from Oceania
___________ non-white*
___________ white*
etc... There are a lot of items.
Depending on how much time you have, students can guess the number for each item or you can have students read the items in groups and confirm that they understand each item (there are some difficult ones). The teacher goes over the meaning or explains difficult words.

Part 2
Students watch a movie called Miniature Earth which presents the "If the World were 100 People" data. It can be viewed freely on the internet or you can download it onto your computer for $5. Students fill out the blanks in the worksheet. Some of the items in the worksheet are not in the movie. You can have students guess these items and then tell them the answers. The answers for the worksheet can be viewed here.

Part 3
For homework students write what about the movie surprised them and how representative their country is to the global village of 100 people.

New English Teaching Methodologies Blogging Project

2007-04-19T14:07:00.000+09:00

My English Teaching Methodologies Class and I have started a new blogging project.

The class consists of 30 students; some of them plan on being English teachers, others plan on being elementary school teachers, and others plan on entering the private sector. Above is a picture of some of them doing a practice elementary school English class last year.

We started this class on April 12 and we will finish the first week of August. AStudents will be blogging about their experience as language learners and teachers as well as be using these blogs as a means to exchange ideas and opinions about teaching English. Please check out the class blog for links to the students' individual blogs. We hope that you can join us.

My Advisee makes an Elementary School Teacher Blog

2007-04-18T17:28:00.000+09:00

One of my advisees who graduated last March, Olive, was employed as an elementary school teacher this year and is currently writing about the challenges and rewards of teaching at elementary school on her blog. It is a good reference, please check it out!

The Importance of Being Organized and Singing the Burnt Out Blues

2007-04-18T14:31:00.000+09:00

It has been a long time since I posted. The past month and a half have been perhaps the busiest of my up to now not so busy life and I had a difficult time keeping up.
There were some good things: Last month I was promoted from lecturer to asscociate professor(准教授). It was an overwhelmingly time consuming task to apply for promotion as I had to submit every single paper I ever wrote as well as write and abstract in Japanese for each paper. I also summarized each presentation I had ever done and provided evidence that I had done the presentation. In addition to this I had to submit 4 other documents. What made this task phenomenally time consuming was my complete lack of organization. I literally spent days going through all kinds of documents etc. that had been collecting dust in the corner of my office for a couple of years. I also spent quite a bit of time tracking down those journals and short articles I had wrote that I had misplaced. Thanks to some good friends who are highly organzied people, I was able to submit everything I had to. My advice to anyone interested in working in a Japanese university is to make a concious effort to hold onto every paper you write or any artifact of a presentation you made (not just to throw everything into a space in your bookshelf). Also, I recommend that you write an abstract of your paper in Japanese or presentation soon after you finish it. One of the reasons the application process took me so long was I had to write abstracts in Japanese for some papers that I had written years ago and whose content I had forgotten about. Also, writing a concise abstract in English is not easy for me so writing one in Japanese is extremely challenging and usually has to be proofread. Somehow I was able to get everything together by the deadline, but I hope that this encourages people not to follow in my haphazard footsteps.

I was also involved in a couple of fairly big projects in February and March which included helping to produce a textbook (I primarily managed the accounting side), redesigning the Faculty of Education's website, contributing a few short essays to a book and a non-academic publication, grading tests and reading papers and writing reports for a few trips I took (Thailand & China). I also try to devote a lot of time to my family. So, I was feeling a little overwhelmed in February and March. The end result was that I did not do as well as a job with my classes as I would have liked and was not able to finish two papers about using vocabulary notebooks. I have realized that I cannot be an administrator and an educator/researcher at the same time. Unfortunately, this year administrative work took too much time and I have been left feeling a little inadequate as an educator/researcher.
Classes started tow weeks ago and I still had a backlog of administrative work form the previous academic year that I just finished. I like to try new things in my classes but this was the first time I had not been able to plan anything new before classes began. The past week, I have not felt my normal amount of energy when getting ready for the new semester. However, I am not completely impervious to the excitement that comes with the beginning of a new academic year; new students, and a rested, refreshed and enthusiastic returning student body. Also, reading the Autono Blogger and the Japan Action Research in EFL today gave me some new ideas and rekindled my motivation a little. Once the weather warms up I think I will be more back to normal and back to feeling like an educator/researcher.

Seminar with Paul Nation

2007-02-28T21:27:00.000+09:00

On February 27 and 28 I attended a two day seminar with one of the world’s foremost experts on vocabulary acquisition theory and pedagogy. The seminar was held at an Onsen(hot spring) outside Sendai and coordinated by Sendai JALT. I had felt absolutely overwhelmed by work and completely burnt out but the seminar managed to reinvigorate me. At the beginning of the seminar Paul talked about 4 essential strands that should compose a foreign language class syllabus. Teachers should devote 25% of class time to each of the following strands:

Strand 1 - Meaning focused input: There is overwhelming evidence that comprehensible input with a few unknown items to the learner is essential for language acquisition. Paul recommends that the learners understand 95% - 98% of the words in the input with 98% being preferable. Meaning focused input can be accessed through extensive reading, communicative activities or listening to stories.
Strand 2 – Language Focused Learning: This denotes a focus on grammar and vocabulary as well as training in vocabulary strategies and intensive reading (reading involving translation).
Strand 3 – Meaning Focused Output: This is output in which the learner is trying to relay a message and is not worried about accuracy. Learners should use some unfamiliar items (at least 95% of their speech should consist of familiar items) to help them learn them.
Strand 4 – Fluency Development: Learners should read, write, listen, speak language that they already know (they should understand 99% of all items). The purpose of this strand is for learners to learn to use the language that they already know. Many Japanese, for example, know a lot of language but do now know how to use it.

For me, these 4 strands offer a good framework to use to plan English language courses. These days my mind is so jumbled that getting back to the basics and looking at the big picture of course planning was just what I needed.

Paul, of course, talked about the 4 strands in much more detail and offered many concrete examples for activities in each strand. If you are interested in learning more, please go to his website.

In the seminar, Paul also talked about learning words from cards, ways of giving quick attention to words, good and bad language learning tasks, teaching vocabulary, and word frequencies. I am writing this post on the bullet train on my way back home. I have another few deadlines coming up next week. When or if things settle down, I would like to write about using vocabulary notebooks versus using word cards and what Paul revealed about the vocabulary size necessary to read a novel in English.

How to Give a Speech in a Foreign Language

2007-02-24T22:36:00.000+09:00

I was asked to write an essay for freshmen students about how to give presentations in English. The essay will appear in the university class guide book for freshmen. I tried to write it in as simple English as possible so that students might actually be able to understand it. Nevertheless, I doubt anyone will really read it so decided to copy and paste it into my blog. Would anyone out there give any different advice that what I have given?

How to Give a Speech in a Foreign Language

Giving a speech in a second language is not easy. When we speak in our native languages we can sometimes improvise while we are speaking and add information or reduce information. When we speak in a second language it is much more difficult to improvise because a lot of our attention is devoted to the language itself. Since it is more difficult to improvise, it is important to prepare thoroughly before giving a speech in a second language.

How should you prepare? First, write out what you will say in your speech or take notes of what you will say. When I first started giving speeches in Japanese, my second language, I would write out everything I planned to say. After the experience of a few speeches though, I started giving speeches from notes. I recommend that you do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable. If you do not have much time to prepare, I think that giving speeches from notes is the most efficient method.

When writing out the speech, remember that the speech should be in your own words. The worst speeches in English I have seen were when students wrote their speech in Japanese and then used a translating program to put it into English. When they gave their speech, they simply read the computer translation. In these cases, the audience and even the speakers themselves did not understand the speech! When you put your speech in your own words, your personality is revealed because you have ownership of what is being said. Regardless of whether or not you are advanced in the second language, your personality and interest in the subject will maintain the listener’s interest in your speech.

Also, when preparing your speech consider who your audience will be. Will your audience be familiar with the topic of your speech? If your audience is not familiar with part of the topic, for example the fall of Ayutthaya in a topic such as “The Effect of the Historical Fall of Ayutthaya on Present Day Thailand-Myanmar Relations” you will have to explain about the fall of Ayutthaya.

The second part of preparation is practicing the speech. Even though I am fairly experienced at speaking publicly in a second language, I would never speak without practicing and always find the time to practice. Do not feel embarrassed about speaking out loud when no one is in the room or when other people not related to your speech are in the room. I have practiced for speeches in such places as my car outside the speech venue, a bullet train, a plane, a hotel room, a hotel lobby, a park bench, my office, and, of course, my house. In all these cases, the speeches I gave were successful because I took the time to practice.

When you practice speaking remember that maintaining eye contact with the audience during a speech is essential. If the speaker is staring at his manuscript or notes the whole time he is speaking, it will be harder for the audience to concentrate on the speech. Thus, when preparing for your speech, stare at a wall pretending that it is your audience, and try to say as much as your speech as possible to the wall while occasionally taking quick glimpses at your notes or manuscript.

Another thing to keep in mind when practicing is time. Time limits for a speech can be from 5 to 30 minutes. Even 5 minutes can seem very long, but when you practice you will realize that you do not have enough time to finish your speech! Usually when I practice, I find that I have to remove a third of the content from my speech to finish in the allotted time. Finishing on time is extremely important. For example, when a speaker finishes his speech in 20 minutes when it was supposed to be 15 minutes, it is rude to the next speaker who is waiting and the listeners find it annoying too because it extends the time of the event they are attending.

Although finishing on time is important, your speech should not be hurried. Let’s say that you have to speak as fast as you can to give what should be an 18 minute speech in 15 minutes. If you do this, I can guarantee you that your audience will not understand what you said. If you have 15 minutes to speak, make sure that you can finish your speech within those 15 minutes speaking at a moderate pace that is not too fast or too slow for your audience.

Lastly, when you are preparing for a speech it is a good idea to have someone look at your manuscript/notes or listen to the speech. The person could be your teacher, a classmate or a friend. The feedback that you receive from this person will help you give a better speech.

In conclusion, to give an effective speech, prepare thoroughly and, regardless of your ability in the language, give the speech in your own words. Enjoy yourself while you speak and your audience will enjoy listening to you!

Demonstration Test

2007-02-07T10:16:00.000+09:00

Dear English A Students,
Next week is our final test. Here is what you will need to do for next week:
Part I: I would like each pair from 2/7 to select three of the startling facts (see the list we made here.)we took from the United Nations Human Development Report that you think represent the biggest problems the world faces. You and your partner will then talk about the following with another pair:
a) Why do you think these problems are so big?
b) What can we do to solve these problems?
To successfully do this task, you should
1) be able to speak without reading from a piece of paper.
2) be able to pronounce the words correctly.
3) speak with passion.
4) give the listeners time to ask questions
5) be ready to explain the meaning of unknown words.
When you are listening to other people speak, I will expect you to ask questions.
Part II: There will be a written test containing reading, writing, and voacublary from the following chapters of the textbook: Synchronicity, Alternative Medicine, Nightmares, Bizarre Foods, and Startling Facts. The best way to study for this is to study the word entries in your vocabulary notebooks. To do well on the test it will be particularly important to know the derivations of the words we have learned, know how the words are used, and be able to use some of the words. You can view a test I gave in the past here. The written text next week will be a similar style.
Attention: Tomorrow's test will be in room G19 of the 学生センター and not in room 203 of the Faculty of Education.
JH

Studying about Education in Japan

2007-01-31T14:12:00.000+09:00

Recently, I held a two-week seminar about education in Japan with 2 American students and 2 Japanese students. The first week, we learned about the school system in Japan: pre-war education, post-war education, compulsory education, laws governing elementary schools, junior high school and high schools. The second week we read an article about discipline in junior high schools and had a discussion (Fukuzawa, E. (1995). The path to adulthood according to Japanese middle schools. In T. Rohlen & LeTendre, G. (eds.) Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge University Press.)

Some of the highlights of the discussion are below.

(Note to the Reader: As I started to write the highlights of the discussion, a lot of my opinions started to come out and are thus half of the content below are my personal rantings rather than highlights of the discussion).

The Difference between elementary school, junior high school and high school: In elementary school, learning is less teacher-centered and more learner centered. Students do projects and are encouraged to participate actively in class. In junior high school, learning is more teacher-centered and teachers are more authoritarian. One of the reasons is high school entrance exams and teachers must complete the curriculum in limited class time. The primary goal of elementary school and junior high school are to socialize children in to becoming good citizens of Japan. Education is compulsory up to high school. Although high school is optional 97% of all Japanese young adults attend some kind of high school. High schools, for the most part, are more focused on academics and less on character building. Students must study, study, study to get into the university of their choice.

Cram School: In junior high school and high school many students attend cram school after their normal school. In my opinion can be good. For example, if a child does not understand something in his class, he can get extra help at cram school . Considering that teachers have to move at a fast pace, cram school can be very helpful. However, perhaps one of the drawbacks of cram school is that a teacher can too a very mediocre job in his class but it will not matter because the students can learn what their teacher failed to teach effectively in cram school. Thus, there is no pressure on teachers to improve their teaching. Another drawback is that students can afford to sleep through class because they might study the content later at cram school. I think the overall drawback to cram school is that it minimizes the importance of the traditional school class.

The Difference in Workload Between High School and University: MM, sitting in the back left, said that in high school she studied from early morning to midnight but at university that was not the case. It is common knowledge that in Japan to get into an excellent university students must study incredibly hard for the entrance examinations. After getting into university, perhaps some students want to take a well-deserved rest. MM, though, happens to be a hard worker.

Writing Diaries: Many junior high school students write a "self discipline" diary (see Yoneyama, S. (1999) The Japanese High School: Silence and Resistance. Routledge.) called a 修養日誌(shuuyou nisshi) which they have to hand into their homeroom teachers. In their diary they report how much they studied, what they did in a day, and any problems that are bothering them (sometimes they must color-code particular routines). They receive comments from the teachers either praising them, encouraging them to use their time better, or anything else. These diaries serve as a means of private communication between the students and teachers (Yoneyama, 1999, p.62). MM and AK, front right, said that in their cases they wrote these kinds of diaries (my wife, who is Japanese, had never heard of them). The American students and teacher asked whether MM and AK felt that this was an invasion of privacy to which MM and AK answered no; it was just something that everyone did.

Junior high school students being punished for bring snacks to school: In the book we read, there is a story of a teacher hearing that his students were chewing gum in school and interrogating a student to find out exactly who were the offenders, calling all the students into the staff room using the school PR system, thoroughly scolding the students, and calling the parents in for a meeting. These students had broken the school rule of bring gum into school. MM told a story about when she was a JHS student. She and her friend ate snacks in the bathroom. Somehow,her homeroom teacher found out and called the offending students together for a meeting, the called a homeroom meeting, and lastly the issue was brought up in the all school meeting. To the American students (and teacher) this seemed a little severe. On the other had, compared to the U.S., it is probably safe to say that less students in Japan are smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and doing drugs (I have no statistics and cannot support this and am making this assumption through my experience as a student in the US and my experience as a teacher in Japan). We wondered, could these kinds of severe enforcements of school rules steer children away from even worse temptations such as cigarettes or alcohol?

Homeroom Teachers visit the homes of their students: This is called 家庭訪問 (katei houmon) in Japanese. As students in some schools must write a journal, teachers in Japanese schools are interested in the students' lives outside of school because that has a big effect on the students' performance in school. For example, if a student is continually late for school, it could be the reason is that he is going to bed too late at night so a teacher might talk to the student's parents so that the student will go to be earlier. As a student in the USA, if I was late to school or class, I was just yelled at or punished. No teacher ever thought about why I was late and tried to work with me to fix the problem.

From visiting a student's home, a teacher can learn about the student's environment outside of school. This, of course, can be beneficial to the teacher and both J (front left) and AB (back right) appreciated that teachers in Japan work hard to try to instill in the children good habits. However, J mentioned that sometimes a teacher who worries about a student's habits can cross a line and actually be invading the student's privacy.

There was more that we discussed, but I am too lazy to keep on writing. I would like to add one more thing . As a teacher in Japan, I have been amazed at how good students can be at listening and following directions. Perhaps, I have their teachers to thank for that. On the other hand, students come to class with a very serious look on their face, never seem like they are enjoying themselves and are reluctant to participate. It is as if they are socialized to believe that learning is necessary but has to be boring and come to class with that mindset. Sometimes, I think I have their teachers to thank for that too.

--------------Resources-----------------

Below is some useful information I have found about the Education System in Japan on the Internet.

An Outline of the Education System of Japan in Japanese: (日本の学校制度の内容）：私はこのドキュメントを筑波大学のウェブサイトからダゥンロードしました。このドキュメントはとても、分かりやすく日本の学校制度を紹介します。

National Clearing House for United States - Japan Studies: An excellent site with an abundance of resources for teaching about Japan.

Educational Statistics from Japan

Worldwide Comparative International Education Statistics (In Japanese) 教育指標の国際比較: 日本，アメリカ合衆国，イギリス，フランス，ドイツ，ロシア連邦，中国，韓国等における教育の普及，教育諸条件，教育費等の状況を統計数字によって示したものである。

A Pages with Lots of Links about Education in Japan: I was too busy to click on any of the links and investigate, but this site looked like it could be promising.

Here are some books I have read about education in Japan:

Our Earth is in Trouble

2007-01-31T02:14:00.000+09:00

The picture with snow was taken outside of the Faculty of Education last year. The picture without the snow was taken at about the same time this year. Climate change is starting to really scare me, and I hope that we will be able to make the changes necessary in our daily lives to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

This January, I went to Bangkok, Thailand to see how schools and universities are practicing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). You might not know this, but we are currently in the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD)which was declared by the United Nations. The objective of the DESD "is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning." (I will blog about this later). For those of you unfamiliar with the term sustainable development, I would define it as national development that does not overuse natural resources or do irreparable damage to the earth.

In my university, I teach a class of 40 engineering and agricultural students. Maybe many of these students will be pioneers in creating new sustainable technologies in their fields! Since these students might be called upon to help solve some of the world's problems, I decided that we should learn what some of the world's problems are. I have asked students to go to the United Nations Human Development Report home page, find a world development statistic they find most startling, and report it as a comment to this post.

I have written the first comment to serve as an example.

About Ferries in Northern Japan

2006-12-31T16:59:00.000+09:00

Every New Years my wife, son and I go to Hokkaido from Iwate. Usually this entails driving from Morioka to Hachinohe (about 2 hours) and then taking a 6 hour ferry from Hachinohe in Aomori to a city called Tomakomai. We then drive from Tomakomai to my wife’s hometown, Kuriyama. We always take our car to Hokkaido.
This year, because of bad weather our ferry from Hachinohe on December 28 was cancelled. So we decided to take the ferry from Aomori City (about 2 and a half hours by car) to Hakodate (about 3 and a half hours) and then drive from Hakodate to Kuriyama (4 hours). We made a reservation for December 28 and it seemed as if the ferries were running. On December 27 we received a phone call saying that the days ferries for that day had been cancelled because of bad weather so they were canceling all reservations for December 28. Instead, we could show up to the ferry terminal on December 28 and take a number. When our number was called we could go on the ferry. They predicted that there would be a bout 100 cars ahead of us ( a ferry could take about 50 cars). Because the weather was scheduled to get worse we decided to leave on the 28th before the weather got really bad. We got to the ferry terminal at about 6:40 AM on December 28 leaving our house at 4:00 AM. We were told that there were 110 cars ahead of us and that we would not be able to board the ferry until after noon. My wife and I estimated that we would be able to board a ferry between 3 – 5PM. The ferry parking lot was full and there were trucks parked on the street. There were also a lot of people sleeping in their cars as they had probably been waiting for a ferry from the previous day. Most passengers on the ferry our truck drivers carrying goods from the main Island to Hokkaido and vice versa. The ferry terminal reeked of cigarette smoke as many of the truck drivers were drinking and smoking. Everywhere we went there seemed to be cigarette ashes and ash trays. Outside, most of the hundreds of cars and trucks had their engines running so the people inside could keep warm. So the air outside the ferry terminal wreaked of automobile emissions while the inside of the terminal smelled like a bar. This was no place for a 2 year old to hand out so my wife and I went sightseeing around Aomori city.
We went to a beautiful hot spring (onsen) at a hotel called Jogakura (城ヶ倉) in Hakkouda Mountain (八甲田山). My son and I went into the bath together. The hot spring had an outdoor batch and my son and I sat in the bath with me staring at the snow covered trees and falling snow and my son playing in the bath. It was one of the most serene and peaceful moments I had experienced in years. Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and we decided to go back to the terminal to check on the ferry. We arrived at the terminal at about 1PM. There were no fewer cars, people were still partying in the ferry terminal, and it seemed that few numbers had been called since we departed for the mountains. So, we decided to go into Aomori City and eat lunch. For lunch we went to a big shopping mall. In the restaurant, the waitresses were very impolite, my son was crying and refusing to eat, and everyone around us was smoking. It seems like there are a lot of smokers in Aomori city. We saw a grandmother and a mother with her infant daughter enter the restaurant. They sat down and then the grandmother and mother lit their cigarettes up. The food was not so good either. It was a pretty lousy lunch but my son cheered up and ate so the lunch ended well. The shopping center also had a children’s play space where my son could entertain himself.
We got back to the ferry terminal at about 3:30 PM. Few numbers had been called and some of the truck drivers were starting to get a little restless. In the span of 20 minutes there were two outbursts directed towards the ferry ticket clerks. While the truck drivers insulted them, the ticket clerks bowed their heads and said “moushiwake arimasen” which translates roughly to “How can you ever forgive us.”
I took my son on a 30 minute walk and we observed to boats and the trucks. I put him on my shoulders and ran along the edge of the dock. My lungs started to burn a little and realized that it probably was the result of the exhaust coming from all the trucks (please see the picture). My son saw a ferry docked and insisted that we go on. I had to explain to him that it was not our turn. I do not think he understood the specific reason but he accepted the fact that we could not go on the ferry for a while.
We spent the next two hours hanging out in our car and going into the ferry terminal to see if their were any other developments. At about 5:30 PM we drive to a super market to buy dinner. When we got back to the ferry terminal at 6PM I realized that out number had been called and our ferry was boarding. I drove the car to the ferry as fast as I could and we were the second to last car to board. Once we were on the ferry, the voyage was fairly pleasant. We were in the economy cabin which consists of a carpeted floor and some pillows. Every passenger stakes their own territory and then tries to sleep. We staked our own territory, my wife and son slept, and I read in peace. It was very nice. The ferry arrived at Hakodate at about 10PM and then we arrived at Kuriyama at about 3AM. Altogether, it was a 23 hour trip. That is about as long as it takes us to go to Boston. The moral of the trip was that if you can avoid waiting at a ferry terminal do so.

Learning Styles of Japanese JHS and SHS according to the Teachers

2006-12-26T13:46:00.000+09:00

Today, I held a two day workshop on Task Based Language Teaching with 2 junior high school English teachers and 5 senior high school English teachers. For one of our activities we read an article by Jerry Call called "Expanding the Learning Styles of Japanese Analytic Learners" in the book Understanding Learning Styles in the Second Language Classroom by Joy M. Reid. As a task, we made a list of the characteristics of learning styles Call had given for Japanese learners and then discussed whether we agreed or disagreed. We ended up discussing about not only the characteristics that Call gave but also many other characteristics the teachers themselves gave. It was an interesting discussion. The main reason why was that each teacher worked with learners of differing learning characteristics. This reinforced my belief that it is difficult to make generalizations about a society of learners; even one as homogeneous as Japan. Below, I have written some of the characteristics Call and the teachers gave as well as the teachers' opinions.

Characteristic 1: Japanese learners are quiet

Opinion: The teachers were not sure about this characterization. Teacher M, a junior high school teacher, said that her students were not quiet and were especially enthusiastic about speaking English with foreign teachers (ALTs). She added that girls at her school tend to be good at writing but they cannot speak well while boys tended to be stronger at speaking.
Teacher C, a high school teacher, said that her students were quieter but it depended on the situation. In interview test students are very quiet but in class they are very noisy and like to imitate the ALT’s or Ms. C's English.
Teacher Min, a high school teacher, thought that Japanese learners, especially young learners, are very energetic to learn English. However, she said that in Japanese settings, students are supposed to be quiet and listen to the teacher. So, she believes tha that Japanese think that they are supposed to be quiet in class always.

Characteristic 2: Japanese learners are reflective, not impulsive (They tend to think things through carefully before they speak.
Opinion: Teacher K, a high school teacher, reported that an Canadian ALT at his school understood the phrase “The noisy whale gets the oil” but not "The peg sticking out gets hammered"(出るくいが打たれる）. He added though, it is hard to know whether Japanese students are really quieter than western students because he has never been to the west to compare.
Teacher R, a high school teacher. said that her school divides their English classes by student ability. In the higher level classes, students are more reflective but in the lower level they tend to be more impulsive.
Teacher Min concluded that Japanese people try to avoid risks, especially in public. They do not want to be embarrassed.

Characteristic 3: Group work tendencies - boys and girls in JHS and SHS do not work well together (Thought of by us)
Opinion: When Teacher E, a junior high school teacher, makes pairs she makes either boy/boy or girl/girl pairs. She said that to communicate fluently, boys cannot talk to girls and girls cannot talk to boys. I, JH, added that I have had similar experiences. Teacher MI, a high school teacher, said that she is very careful when making groups because the wrong combination of learners can have bed consequences for the class.
Teacher K said that in his school he has not seen such problems between boys and girls (except for one class). Teacher Min said that there was not so much tension between boys and girls at her school. She said that one reason could be is that when teachers read classlists or take attendance in some schools, they call boys names and girls names together. In many schools, boys are called first and then girls are called (or vice versa) when attendance is taken.
Teacher C said that she teachers a class where there is only one girl. She commented that the boys behaved differently when the girl was present compared to when she was absent. When the girl was present, the boys tended to be more reserved.

Characteristic 4: Japanese learners are Reticent
Teacher M (JHS) said that she does not think so, because students at her school like to speak English. In JHS, the like to play games. They speak English naturally when ALT comes to the classroom. But, in writing they don’t try to write. I don’t think they are good at making sentences.
Teacher C (SHS) said that her students like to read English or repeat after her but when she gives them activities where they have to write about themselves they do not want to do it. She concluded that students can write about other things but not about themselves. She added that maybe JHS students are not reticent but as they become older they become reticent.

Teaching Debate to Adults

2006-12-13T17:26:00.000+09:00

At the beginning of this month I was asked to teach a class at a "correspondence university". This is a university in which most of the classes are done through viewing lectures on-line or reading books and sending reports via the mail. Students also have occasional "intensive lectures" which last for about 10 hours over the span of 2 days. I was asked to give one of these intensive lectures and decided to do a class on debating. Of course, I was planning to create my own mini-curriculum and eventually do a debating class at the university. Unfortunately, I was so busy that I had very little time to actually prepare for the 2 day class. I found a great article on debtate by Daniel Krieger and it really saved me. The article proposes gives a six-class unit plan for debate. I used Krieger's curriculum as the outline for the course and then filled it in with my own activities. I recommend that all those interested in teaching debate read the article.
About the class, there were only 6 students. To my surprise a few of the students could not really read or write English so the first hour I was very worried that the class would be a total flop. I then reminded myself that the focus of the class was learning about debate rather than learning English. We would be doing debate in English but I thought that with a little translation here and there and support from the learners who were very skilled at English all the students could learn a little about debate and experience it. In the end, everyone participated, worked hard and had fun. These learners were all adults ranging in age from 25 to about 70. They had little inhibitions and the difficulty of the task did not deter them from trying. I think that is one of the differences between teaching adults and adolescents. In my experience, adolescents tend to give up a little faster when they think a task they have to do is too difficult or requires too much effort.
By the way, we ended up debating about the following resolution:
"Japan is not a good place for foreigners to live."
A summary of the argument can be seen here.

Problems Encountered When Reviewing Vocabulary

2006-11-18T13:57:00.000+09:00

Last Wednseday, I had my English class consisting of 40 agriculture and engineering unversity freshmen majors. The title of the course, "English A", peaks the students interest and curiosity (I am being sarcastic). The class meets once a week for an hour and a half. Last week, I had a class that did not go so well and I would like to write why:

First, for warm-up I displayed some questions using key vocabulary from previous classes using powerpoint (the file can be viewed on-line here). Students made pairs (every week, students are put into pairs randomly) and one student faced the screen and asked his partner the questions displayed. The partner was not allowede to see the questions. They then switched roles.

The previous week we had read about nigthmares so last week we reviewed the key words from the reading. Students' homework was to write the words in their vocabulary notebooks and do a vocabulary exercise.

To review the key words I wrote the base words and their derivations on the blackboard. For example, I wrote the word terror (the reading was about nightmares) on the blackboard. Students in the vocabulary section of their textbook had two sentences with blanks where they would have to write the correct derivation of terror (answers in parentheses):
Terror
1. Jemilia was _______ of being alone in her large house at night. (terrified)
2. The most __________ experience I've ever had was in an airplane. (terrifying)

Next to terror, I wrote terrified, terrifying.

The other base words were decribe, recur, fortune, analyze, neglect and imagine so the blackboard looked something like this:

Terror: terrifiying, terrified
Describe: descriptive, description
Recur: Recurrent, recurring
Fortune: Unfortunate, fortunately
etc...

After we finished the vocabulary review, to review the pronunication of the words, I would point to a base word and have the students repeat the derivation. After we practiced the derivations for the seven words, I erase the middle parts of each derivation (e.g. desrcibe: d____ve, de______ ion) and had the students repeat the derivations. Lastly, I erased all the derivations and had the students repeat the derviations for a base word after I reported it.

In the next activity, I used powerpoint again. Students were shown 5 slides for about 15 seconds each (Please see sheets 1 - 5 here). Each slide consisted of the day's base words/ derivations and base words/ derivations that they had studied previously. Also, the words were displayed in various styles. Students were asked to write down as many words as they could remember and then share their list with their partner. (The idea came from Morgan, J & Rinvolucri, M. (2004). Vocabulary. Oxford, p.93)

After making a new list with their partner, students were asked to write as many sentences for as many words as possible in 10 minutes. I told them they could not use a dictionary. I thought that this would be difficult but possible because students had
1) been exposed to the different ways of using words through the vocabulary exericises and reading
2) had studied the words before and should have understood what they mean.

Before this actitivity, I envisioned that the students would work together actively in pairs to write as many sentences as possible in 10 minutes. However, of the 34 students who came to the class that day, the majority of them struggled monumentally with this activity. Many students just stared blankly at their notebooks, other students wrote but completely ignored their partners. After students had written as many sentences as they could, I would say a word and asked if anyone had written a sentence for the word. I decided to pose the question to the entire class because I did not want to call on a pair and embarrass them if they had not written a sentence. None of the students volunteered to give a sentence. After about 3 minutes of uncomfortable silence which seemed like an eternity, a student volunteered to give a sentence. (In retrospect, I have taught in Japan in 8 years and know that most students will hesitate to volunteer answers, but I am stubborn and cantankerous.)

So, the activity did not go well. After the activity ended, I commended the students on their fantastic listening ability and also how impressed I was with their reading ability. I then told them that to learn how to use words, you actually have to try to use them. Making mistakes is important and part of the learning process. That is why I has tried to do the activitiy. I asked students before they left the class to write me some advice on how this activity could be done better. These are the answers I got (They have not been edited but some have been translated into English). I have categorized the answers into Advice, I don't Know, Overall Reflection of the Activity, and Postive Responses:

Advice (20 students)
practice reading, writing and talking
Make sentences in homework. And next time, speak sentences. The time to make sentences need.
To write sentences is difficult. Call on one person. Don't call on all of person.
Take more time memorize words.
I think we me talk more naturally. I think you should increase talking in groups.
Everyone read aloud textbook and homework
It's difficult for me to write sentence. I think better that teacher show us example sentence.
I think that we feel nervous still now. So, it is important to be friendly with each other.
You should call on people once at a time.
I think for one word, I want to know more about derivative and how to use. I enjoyed this class.
Choice and ask to a person. I can't understand how to use a word.
Difficult to remember the mean of words. I want to use dictionary.
How about make group? Not pair.
I think something like game contain in class.
I think more understanding lots of words meaning a person.
I think if we see some example. We can make some sentence. Ex) prevent + O + from doing = I prevented hom from going to school.
Because Japanese people are shy, we give paper that we write sentence.
Almost pair partner have never met before. So we don't get along well with each other.
I think we should understand the used of the words well.
Nominate (= call on somebody)

I don't know (5 students)
I'm sorry I don't know
I don't know good idea.
I'm very difficult problem.
I'm sorry, I don't know.
I can't think of good way.

Overall Reflection of the Activity (4 students)
Today's lecture is difficult for me. But I want to study fun English .
I don't good thinking sentence in short time. So today's class is hard.
It's difficult to make sentence.
Word review is difficult for me.

Positive Responses (5 students)
I think we should write English sentence more. And we will understand English more.
Today's class was good.
I want to do this type of activitiy again.
Today's word review was not difficult for me. Because I understood words.
English game or CD listening or use PC? The class is fine like it is.

What I learned:

I thought I had given the students plenty of exposure to the use of the words, but many disagreed with me. Perhaps when we do vocabulary exericises I should tell them don't just fill in the blanks but pay attention to how the word is used and write your observations in your vocabulary notebooks.
Students think that they have to write a perfect sentence. I just want them to write something. I have a 2 year old son who knows a lot of English and Japanese. He uses a lot of words incorrectly, but the more he uses certain words and phrases, his usage evolves and becomes more and more standard (meaning grammatically and pragmatically accurate). When students tell me their sentence, I want the sentence to be incorrect because the feedback will help them realize how the word is used and their classmates will benefit from the feedback. Nevertheless, this is a source of great anxiety for students and I have to be more considerate to this.
Here is an idea on how I could do the activity without causing so much anxiety. A lot of students wanted to work in groups. Maybe is I had the students work in groups and gave each group a more concrete goal it would have worked better. For example, "Each group has 10 minutes to write the most sentences they can. The group that writes the most correct sentences will have to be sung to by the rest of the class next week." Then, I would collect the sentences, read them and announce the winner the next week. The next week, I could also highlight some gramattically incorrect or semantically/ pragmatically awkward sentences and ask students how they would correct them. I could also highlight some well-written sentences and congratulate the group.
Questions directed to the whole class do not work. Learners prefer being put on the spot (being called on) to volunteering an answer. The problem is I prefer the latter and not the former.

Using Jeopardy to Teach Relative Pronouns

2006-11-07T10:20:00.000+09:00

Last week I went to the same junior high school I went to last month for a demonstration lesson in front of 30 English teachers and officials of the city I was visiting. I was asked to teach page 60(?) of the New Horizon Textbook. My students were 35 third graders (9th grade). I was supposed to teach the nominative use of that relative clauses (The word being modified is the subject of the that clause, in Japanese this is　主格のthat). For example,

This is the dog that ate the cat.
The country that hosted the world cup was Germany.

I was not supposed to teach the objective use of that relative clauses (The word being modified is the object of the that relative clause, 目的格のthat).

The above explanation makes the class sound more difficult than it actually was. This class went better than the last one because I decided to flood students with input and encourage them to learn the new grammatical pattern that way rather than force them to speak a grammatical pattern that they did not need to use so much. I also had a graduate student, John Wang, and an undergraduate student, Monchichi, come and help me by joining the various students groups during the activity and providing support. Here is what we did:

---------------------------------------------------

Goal:

Use jeopardy to help students learn how to use "nominative that relative pronoun clauses" through input flooding
Do 95% of the class in English
The students experience group work and speak English within the group

Class:
Warm up (Materials: computer, projector)

Plan: Students make pairs. Using MS powerpoint, I display 10 questions. One member of a pair is looking at the screen and asking questions to the other member who is turned away from the screen and cannot see the questions. Then, the members switch.
What happened: Students were nervous at first but did this activity.

Introduce the Key Sentence: (Materials: sentence cards (made by some nice graduate students) to put on the blackboard)

What I did and how the students reacted:
I put the following two sentences in the blackboard:
1. Mr Hall is an Iwate University teacher.
2. He is nice.
I asked students to make the two sentences into one sentence. Most of the students knew how to do this but no one volunteered an answer as I had anticipated so I simply reminded students that the sentence would be:
Mr Hall is an Iwate University teacher who is nice.

I asked students, "Why do we use 'who'?" Of course I had no answer so I asked a student, "Is Mr. Hall an animal?" The student, after an initial period of uncomfortable silence said "no." I then asked is "Mr. Hall a thing?" and asked a student for an answer. Unfortunately the student answer, "yes". I then said that I was not a "thing" but a "human" and that we use "who" to add information about humans. (The students had studied "who".)

Next, I then put the following two sentence cards on the board:
1. Kobe is a city.
2. It has great beef.

I then combined these two sentences to make
Kobe is a city that has great beef.

I asked students if Kobe was a human to which they replied "no." I then told them that we used "that" to add information about "things" or "non-humans" and asked them to make a sentence out of the following two sentences:

1. The Nile is a river.
2. It is in Africa.

As a class, students made the sentence
The Nile is a river that is in Africa.

I did not call on a student because I knew that no students would answer in such an atmosphere where they were being taight by someone they did not know and were being watched by 30 or so other strangers. Nevertheless, students seemed to understand so we went to the next activity.

Jeopardy (Trivia) (Materials: computer, projector, name tags)

Preparation:Before we started jeopardy, students made groups. The groups were pre-determined by the homeroom teacher. Each group had 6 people and each person in the group was assigned a letter from A - F.
(Side note: ALTs who teach the same students only once a month, if you are going to do group work (more than 2 members per team) I recommend that you have the HRT determine the groups in advance and tell the students before the class they will do group work. The homeroom teachers knows best which students work best together and how to make the groups about even in ability.)
Students also wore nametags. Before class, students wrote the name they wanted to be called, their group number, and their letter(A-F). The nametag looked something like this:

Group 4
Letter E
Jimbo

The Game

How it was played: I explained that "that" and "who" sentences could be used for trivia and then demonstrated (not explained) how to play jeopardy by practicing a few questions. I told students that jeopardy meant 質問コーナー in Japanese. The rules were that each group would have one leader and that only the leader could answer the question. Of course, the other group members could tell the leader the answer but only the leader could raise his hand. However, the leader would change after every question. For the first question, the leader was student A from each group. After the question, the leader changed. I used powerpoint to display the jeopardy game and questions. The jeopardy template came from EFL Geek and I added the questions. The file that we used to play jeopardy can be downloaded here.

Each question and answer had a nominative "who" or "that" relative clause sentence. When a group answers a question correctly, they were able to rest. The other groups would have to repeat the answer which had the target structure. After they repeated the answer, I would remove the target structure and students would have to repeat the sentence without the target structure.

Ex.
Question: This is a man from Iwate who played on the Japanese Soccer Team.
Answer: The man who played on the Japanese Soccer Team is Mitsuo Ogasawara. (All the groups except the group that answered correctly repeats.)
Answer without target structure: The man is ^^^^ Mitsu Ogasawara. (Students say the sentence adding the omitted target structure).

How the students reacted: On their evaluation forms, most students said that they understood the "that" construction and they enjoyed the class. Many also said that they had made the effort to speak English in their groups. I owe that to John and Monchichi who worked with each group and helped motivate them to speak English.
During the game, students struggled to repeat the sentence without the target structure.

Overall Reflection

I have learned a lot from my last 3 experiences teaching at a junior high school and senior high school. I am finally understanding the students and what they will or will not do in the classroom. This is good because the next time I teach jr high students I can have a class with activities I know that they can do so that the students remain confident and feel secure but also mix these secure activities with more demanding ones that will force students to challenge themselves without overwhelming them.

I also understand what kind of groundwork has to be done in advance for the students to be able to do group work (This is only if you are a visiting teacher and will only teach the students a few times a year.).

My Worst Date Ever

2006-10-20T16:42:00.000+09:00

This is an assignment for a university English class that I teach. I am going to tell you a story about the worst date I ever had. The story is not finished though. I would like you to finish this story in about 100 words. You can finish the story by writing a comment to this post. We will discuss your endings to this story and what really happened next class. Please try to finish by 6PM on Wednesday. Also, please try to use as many words as you can from the story we read, "wedding customs" and some phrases from the "Meet the Father" dialogue on page 41.

My Worst Date Ever

I was 15-years-old when I met her. I was the time-keeper at a junior high school lacrosse tournament. I was keeping time for the final match and it was extremely thrilling. It was so thrilling, in fact, that I forgot to start the stopwatch after a time-out in the second half. I realized this when the referee asked me how much time was left in the match and the time on my stopwatch was not moving. A girl, the manager for one of the teams, happened to be keeping the time and kindly told me how much time was left. I told the referee and a crises was avoided. After the match, the girl, Debbie, asked if she could have my phone number. I was very thankful that she had saved me from a lot of embarrassment and gave her my telephone number without thinking.

A few days later I received a phone call from Debbie and she asked me to go to the movies. Although I was not interested in having her as a girlfriend, I appreciated how she had helped me at the tournament so I said yes. I told her, though, that I was going to bring a friend and she said fine.

The next week my friend, Tim, and I took the train to Debbie's house. We met Debbie and her friend, Wendy, in front of her house and then started to walk to the movie theater. As we were walking to the movie theater, I noticed that Wendy looked very unhappy and she was not talking to Tim. I also really did not have anything to say to Debbie. I realized that although she was nice, I had nothing to talk to her about: We could not even become friends (which I hoped that we would) because we had nothing in common.

We continued to walk in an uncomfortable silence. A car with 4 noisy high school kids drove by us and I heard one of the kids shout something out the window. A minute later the same car drove by us again. A minute passed again and the car approached us one more time and stopped. A small guy got out of the car. Although he was small for a high school kid, he was bigger than me as I was puny little junior high school kid. His 3 friends in the car were big though. The small guy, looking very angry, approached me and said "Are you the guy who is dating my sister?"

What happened next? Please write a comment to this post.

Doing a Cross-cultural Understanding Class at a High School in Japanese

2006-10-17T14:44:00.000+09:00

Two days ago, I went to a high school in a medium-sized city in Iwate. I gave a class to 40 high school students (from different homerooms) interested in my university. The high school requested that I give a "university lecture"for about an hour and then take questions from the students for a half-hour. I did a lesson about culture and talked in Japanese. This is what I did:
Ice Breaking: Students line up by birthday. They cannot speak nor use their hands. They can communicate by winking the months and blinking the days. After students made a line, I planned on putting them into groups of four with 2 boys and 2 girls in each group (this was essential for the main activity).
What actually happened: This activity proved to be difficult for the students. They felt embarrassed to wink and blink at each other and the line was never created. This activity is usally works well at the university, but high school students are a little more self-concious. After I put students in groups of 4, we had another problem: there was a lot of tension between the boys and girls in the groups.
Introduce the Topic: I said our goal today was to learn a little about what culture is and investigate some of the problems and understanding that might occur when people of different cultures meet. After defining "national culture" and "microculture", I talked about the different nationalities in Japan and the very high school I was visiting as examples of a microculture.
Examining our own culture: I gave the following scenario to students: "A group of aliens from Mars has just come to your high school. They are friendly people and have been across the universe researching the culture of other planets. They have come here to learn about the culture of your high school. Remember they know nothing about high schools on earth. Please brainstorm what you would tell them. For example, What do you eat?; What do you wear to school?, What do you do in school?, What do you do outside of school?". I gave the groups a few minutes to brainstorm some things they would tell the aliens and then called for volunteers to give some ideas. After some coaxing, 7 students gave ideas. The most frequent response to the aliens' inquiry was "we work hard", so I told the students that the aliens might consider the students of the school to be very busy.
I believe if I had done the following this mini-activity would have worked better:
Have each group choose a person to present before the activity started and tell each group that they have 5 minutes to come up with at least two ideas. I realized that brain storming is supposed to be a stream of ideas expressed freely, but students who are not used brain storming probably need to have it more structured at first.
The Anbura and Leba Activity:
Students formed two cultures; the Anbura and Leba. The Leba culture was very outgoing while the Anbura culture was much more reserved. Half the students received Anbura description sheets and the other half received Leba description sheets. I then asked students to read the sheets and gave them some questions to answer about their respective cultures with their groups. We then had an "Anbura, Leba Exchange Meeting" where students pretended to be the other cultures.
Students seemed to understand about their cultures. However, when the role play started most of the boys decided they were too cool to participate but many of the girls were really into their roles.
After the exchange, I asked the Anbura what they thought of the Leba and vice-versa. Some students answered in jest calling the other culture "sexy". Other students gave serious answers: one Leba called the Anbura "shy" while another Leba called the Anbura "cold". I then had the Anburas read their descriptions to the Lebas and vice-versa.
I told the students the point of this exercise was the following:
The descriptions of each culture written on the paper students read was objective and positive. However, a lot of students impressions of the other culture they met was negative. The Anbura were seen as cold by the Leba but the Leba did not know that the Anbura had a protocol for interacting with other cultures. Thus, we should not be hasty in making negative judgments about other cultures. I completed my "sermon" with some personal experiences I had in Japan where I made hasty judgements about people which I later regretted.
Conclusion of the class
The ending of this class should have had a period of reflection for the students but I had already used up an hour and ten minutes.

My Overall Impression of the Class:
Like my previous experience at the junior high school, it is not easy to go to a school and give a class to children only once. I need to be more conservative in my planning and compromise more of what I want to do to what the reality of the situation is. However, I do not want to compromise too much or I will be giving the students a typical lesson and there will have been no reason for me to come and visit the school.
It is exciting to do a class in Japanese, but I realized that the class is a little drier; it is easier for me to make jokes and be more of a performer when I do a class in English. When I speak Japanese, I sometimes have to devote most of my cognitive resources to producing the language and do not have enough left for spontaneous humor or entertaining performances.
Also, when I make a mistake in Japanese, students sometime laugh and lose their concentration.

Trying a Task-Based Lesson at a Japanese Junior High School

2006-10-13T16:48:00.000+09:00

This week I was invited to a junior high school in rural Iwate to give a demonstration lesson (a 50-minute lesson). I taugtht 35 second graders (8th grade US - 14 years old) and there were approximately 30 local teachers and officials wathcing the lesson. I had never met these students before and had not developed any kind of working relationship with them. This was also my first time going to this school. To top it off, the students seemed a little nervous about having 30 onlookers watching them.
I was asked to teach a page of the textbook. Below is the text of that page. I have changed the content slightly. The students had not studied this page before

"A New Parking Area for Bikes "
Lincoln Park will become a parking area for bikes.
People complained when a bike fell on a little girl (Jasmine Kuroda) near the station. They asked the city for a new parking area.
But some people are against the plan. They think we should keep the park.
A park or a parking area - that is the question.

New Words

become, complain, little, girl, boy, against, for, should, ask...for

Key Sentence

People complained when a bike fell on Jasmine.

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I am now going to write the Task I decided to try, how I went about doing it, and the successes and failures of the lesson:

Here were my goals for the lesson.
1. Do 95 % of the class in English with the students understanding.
2. For the students to experience and enjoy group work.
3. Reading Strategy: Students make use of their background knowledge (what has happened in the chapter up until " a new parking area for bikes") to understand the text.
4. Reading Strategy: Students use the outline of the text I gave them to understand it and put it together.

The task I picked for the lessons was an "ordering and sorting task". I divided the above text into 6 parts (sentences) and gave each part a letter (A - F).

A: They think we should keep the park.
B: Lincoln Park will become a parking area for bikes.
C: But some people are against the plan.
D: People complained when a bike fell on a little girl (Jasmine Kuroda) near the station.
E: A park or parking area - that is the question.
F: They asked the city for a new parking area.

The Task
For the lesson, I printed each sentence onto a small piece of paper and placed them in an empty classroom (Click here). The objective of the task was to go to the empty classroom, find and memorize one of the sentences, go back to your classroom, write down the sentence, and then recreate the whole passage with their group.

Preparing for the task
The class of 35 students was divided into 6 groups. Each group had 6 students (one had 5). Before the class, I asked the teacher who usually teaches them to made sure the students were sitting in groups. Each student in each group was assigned a letter(A~F). I asked the teacher to make sure that each group would have 2 students who were very good at English, two students who were average, and two students who struggled with English. Students who struggled with English were assigned sentences C or B. Students who were average were assigned sentences A or F, and students who were advanced were assigned D or E.
These students had little experience with group work so I brought 4 graduate students from my university to help the different groups because I imagined each group would struggle mightily with the task.
Students also wore nametags which in addition to their names had their sentence letter and group number. By the letter on a student's nametag, I could tell whether or not she struggled with English or was pretty confident in it. I still called on students indiscriminately because I do not believe on only calling on the "good" students. However, it is nice to have an idea beforehand about the likelihood that a student will respond to a question.

Doing the Task and the Class
Here is what we did for class:
Note: When the class began, students were already sitting in groups of 6.

1) Greeting and Review: The guest teachers introduced themselves. I then asked students "How're ya" (intentionally using a strong American accent) and told them they could answer by saying "Great", "Good", "OK", "Not so good". I then had all the A students from each group stand up and ask "How 're ya" and answer around in a circle. I called some other letters too. I did not plan this but the atmosphere was so tense that I wanted to try someting to loosen things up.
For review, I reviewed what had happened up until "A New Parking Area for Bikes" reading. Usually, I would ask the students questions but I knew in such a tense environment students would not want to raise their hands so I summarized what had happened. The purpose was this was to get them thinking about what "A New Parking Area for Bikes" was about

2) Task

Pre-Task
I told students our goal for the day was to write the newspaper article from the text titled "A New Parking Area for Bikes". First, I said that we would have to learn the new words. I introduced the new words using word cards the graduate students made. I first used the new word in a sentence and then asked the students what they thought the word meant. I wrote the sentences on the blackboard before class to save time (Please click here to see what the blackboard looked like). Of course, the students did not answer and I should have known better. Afterwards, a teacher advised me that I give the students a multiple choice answer. That would have been much better rather than directing a question to the whole class.

Task
After introducing the new words, I gave students the instructions for the task. I spent a lot of time thinking exactly how I could give them instructions in such a way that they would understand. Below is what I told them:

We are now going to make the newspaper article. The article is divided into 6 sentences. Sentence A, sentence B, sentence C, sentence D, sentence E, sentence F. Each sentence of the text is in room _________, but it is in a secret place. Each of you has a letter on your name tag. The letter is your sentence. People with sentence A, please raise your hand. Each person with Sentence A will go to room _____ and fins sentence A. When you find Sentence A, please memorize it. Then return to your group and write your sentence on Sheet 1. After your group has written all the sentences, use the sentences and make the article. The sentence order is not A, B, C, D, E, F. （文書の順番はA,B,C,D,E,Fではない）. Use the hints, to help you put the article together.
You have 20 minutes to finish the task. In other words, you have 20 minutes to make the article.

Students quickly found their sentences and were able to write their sentences on their respective sheets (Sheet 1).
I had written an outline of the article on the blackboard to help them put the sentences together:
1)There is a plan.
2)Why?　
3)There are some problems with the plan.　
4)The conclusion.

Time started to run short and 4 of the six groups were unable to put their sentences in order. Students were confused by the outline and they had not learned the phrase "There is" to my chagrin.

I realized that had I written the outline as below maybe the students could have put the article together:
Hints
1) A plan
2) Why? (2 sentences)
3) Problems (2 sentences)
4) The conclusion

Post Task:
We read the actual article in the textbook out loud. I made the mistake of calling on a group who had successfully put together the article to read their version out loud and they were too shy to do so.
I gave students the following evaluation sheet. I wanted to know which of the words we had studied that they understood. I also wanted to know which parts of the task they could do and which they could not do. The purpose of this task was to think of the main ideas of the sentences and how they fit together. One teacher told me that perhaps my evaluation sheet was a little ambiguous. Maybe I should have written something like this:
(1 = Strongly Agree; 5= Strongly Disagree)
1) Today I understood the main point of the sentences 1-2-3-4-5
2) Today I understood how the sentences fit together: 1-2-3-4-5

My Reflection: Doing a research class in front of many onlookers is an incredibly humbling experience. It would have been nice if I had known the students beforehand but oh well.

Good points: I did a class in mostly English and it almost worked. Students understood the task and the new words.

Bad Points: Students were unable to put the sentences together and perhaps thus the lesson did not accomplish its main goal. Furthermore, the evaluation was a little ambiguous.
When I gave a question to the entire class, it was never answered. This is common in Japan; I should know better than to direct a question to an entire class of students that I do not know, but I cannot help it, it is my nature and the way I was educated.

Overall: Unfortunately, I fear that a lot of teachers watched my class and it might have reinforced their belief that English classes in English only do not work and children must be spoon fed everything to learn. My opinion is that doing something new in the classroom never goes smoothly the first time. As time progresses and the students and teacher get used to the new activities and working with each other, the class will go smoother.. For students to become good English learners, they have to learn how to read English by themselves. On November 7, I will have another opportunity to go to the junior high school and teach. To be honest, doing this on top of my university work is incredibly burdensome, but I will give it another try and hopefully do better. Trying new ideas at the junior high school level has given me the opportunity to understand the students better. I must further think about how to adjust the class plans to be more suitable to the needs and abilities of the students. I have a feeling that no matter what I do though, classes in this kind of high-pressure setting will never go smoothly. The reason is that students will be trying something for the first time and they need the opportunity to get stuck on a task or make mistakes. This will help them learn how to do the task in the future, I believe.

My Lecture about Vocabulary Learning in Xinjiang

2006-09-25T01:41:00.000+09:00

I spent the past week in Xinjiang, China visiting two universities with which my university hopes to have exchange.

In one university I was fortunate enough to be able to observe a freshman extensive reading English class. The day I observed the class, I also gave a lecture to 200 English majors about learning vocabulary, it was a very exciting experience.

One of the things I talked about in my lecture was the different information we need to know about a word to be able to use it and understand it completely. In a nutshell, the different kinds of knowledge are
Form: Know the pronunciation and spelling of a word as well as be able to pronounce and spell it.
Meaning: Know the meaning of a word instananeously after reading or hearing it. Have a concept of a word: For example if the word is bicycle you might have such concepts as "healthy" "good for the earth", "better than cars in rush hour". Understand how a word is composed: For example bicycle = bi + cycle, tricycle = tri + cycle. Understand other words associated with the word. For example bicycle: handle bars, seat, wheels, etc. Know other ways of expressing the word: For example, bicycle = bike.
Usage: Know which words are commonly used together with the word you know: For example, "ride a bicycle", "a bicycle ride", "get off a bicycle" etc.. Know how the word is used grammatically: Bicycle as a noun it can be used as the subject of a sentence: My bicycle is pink. As a direct object: I crashed my bicycle. After a preposition: I go to work by bicycle. Lastly, one should know any social restrictions of use on the word: For example, usually people do not use such language as "wanna" and "gonna" in a job application.

There is so much information about a word we eventually will have to know to master it that a lot of teachers (including myself) sometimes lecture too much about the words they want their students to learn. So introducing ten words to students can take up to 20 minutes. Although teachers are just trying to be helpful, I think that this is too much information for students and frankly quite boring for them. We need to help students learn this information by themselves rather than try to spoonfeed them it. I wish I had mentioned this point to the English majors, many of whom are aspiring English teachers.

In China September 15 - September 22

2006-09-16T19:18:00.000+09:00

I have gone to China to go to Sheheiz University . I will be giving a lecture to students about how to study vocabulary. I am still recovering from my 20-day trip to the USA but I am happy to be here. Today I am in Beijing and tomorrow I will be going to Urumichi, Xinjiang. Here are some pictures:

Tiananmen Square

Lunch

In the USA August 21 - September 11

2006-09-16T19:09:00.000+09:00

I visited my family in Boston, Massachusetts and Berkeley, California. Here are a couple of pictures.

Sailing on the Charles River, Boston

Walking in the hills of Berkeley

Two Japanese Movies: "Nana" and "Moyuru Toki"

2006-08-15T22:15:00.000+09:00

私は、8年間日本に住んでも日本の映画をあまり見たことがありませんでした。私は、新聞や学術的な論文の日本語は読んでだいたいわかりますが、日本の漫画や映画の日本語はあまり理解できません。このため、私は日本の小説をもっと読んだり日本の映画をもっと見ることにしました。私は先週の週末、二つの映画を借りました。私はどの映画についても聞いたことがありませんでした。一つ目の映画はとてもよかったですが、二つ目の映画は製作した会社に抗議の文書を書きたくなるぐらい酷かったです。
では、一つ目の映画について話します。
その映画は「Nana」という映画でした。この映画の始まりは、二人の二十歳の女子が新幹線で始めて会う。二人とも上京をしています。しかも、二人とも「Nana」という同じ名前があります。しかし、一人のNanaはロック歌手の夢を追っている一方もう一人のNanaは彼氏を追って上京した。映画をまだ見ていない方がいるかもしれないので、私はこれ以上ストーリーについて話しません。
私はこの映画を見るまで、日本のポップ音楽があまり好きじゃなかったが、漸く気に入った日本のポップを聞きました。この歌はロック歌手を演じる中島美嘉の「Ｇｌａｍａｒｏｕｓ Days」です。このビデオを下記に載せます。

二つ目の映画は「燃ゆるとき」という映画でした。この映画はアメリカのカリフォルニア州でカップラーメンを生産している会社の話をします。私は、この映画が日本とアメリカの文化の違いを超えて成功した会社の話をするというように予想していたが、間違いました。この映画はアメリカの悪いステレオタイプと日本のいいステレオタイプだけを見せて、つまらなかったです。私は2時間がとてももったいないでした。しかも、この映画の演技のレベルが非常に低かったです。例えば、ラーメン工場で働いていた南米系の方が多く出演していました。しかし、この人達がスペイン語で話したとき、けっこ外国の訛がありました。これは、スペイン語は話せない人が南米系の工場職員を演じていたということを意味すると私は思います。

About Using Blogs in English Teacher Training

2006-08-08T14:28:00.000+09:00

From April to the ending of July, I used blogs together with my 英語科教育法 III class (English Teaching Methodologies 3). Our class blog as well as links to the learners' blogs can be viewed here or on this very page. In the last class I gave the students a questionnaire about their blogging experience. Below are the questions and the students answers. For questions 4, 5, and 6 students wrote out answers rather than circling an answer. I have put students answers for these questions into categories.

Question 1: How often did you write in your blog?

Every time and we had an assignment and when I wanted to - 7 students
Every time we had an assignment - 7 students
Sometimes - 3 students
Rarely - 2 students

Question 2: Overall, I would say my blogging experience was:

Very interesting - 12 students
Interesting - 5 students
Hard to judge - 2 students
Not so interesting - 0 students
Bad - 0 students

Question 3: I would like to continue to blog in the future:

Strongly Agree - 3 students
Agree - 9 students
Neither Agree nor Disagree - 6 students
Disagree - 1 student
Strongly Disagree - 0 students

Question 4: Please write what was good about your blogging experience

Answer Type 1: Being able to communicate with or learn from other people:

Expose my own ideas and communicate with other people who perhaps thousands miles away from my place
I can receive response from other people and there are many things what I notice first time. And I can read other people's ideas.
Good point was to have some comments from others and they were nice to think over my ideas.
I learned a lot because I was able to study English, various people read my blog, and I was very happy when people commented on my blog.
We can exchange our thoughts through it.
We can share own opinions and I learned a lot from them.
It is difficult to write English blog, but when I wrote itm some people were commented so I was very fun!
We ETM3 members can know other idea through reading blogs.
I could know the statement of another people.

Answer Type 2: English improved

I could write my own thinking in English every time. It is hard word, but I think my ability of English improve.
I think I could improve my writing skill. I enjoyed sharing opinions each other.
I could improve my English writing skills.
I had chance to considering story in English that I want to tell people.
Blogging improved my English level.

Answer Type 3: Other good points

I learned how to make a blog.
It was said that we could write what we wanted to write and I enjoyed being able to write freely.
I had good experience.
I can review the lesson.

Question 5: Please write what was good about your blogging experience:

Answer Type 1: Difficult to write in the blog regularly (Note we wrote in the our blogs almost once a week):

When I was busy, I can't write my blog and I don't access to internet from my home. So I can't write in when I wantr to.
I noticed that 3rd year students were very busy, so it is difficylt to write a blog every time.
I sometimes didn't do blogging assignments by the deadline.
It is difficult because I have no PC at my house.
Sometimes I wrote in late time.
It was hard to write my blog, for I have no computer which can use the internet. So the time is limited.
I can't write blog every day.

Answer Type 2: The topic was decided by the teacher too often:

I wanted write in the blog not for the sake of doing homework but to write about what I was interested in.
At the beginning, it was decided what we would have to write so it was difficult for me to write.

Answer Type 3: The Nature of Blogging

It is hard for me to write blog. Blog is so public, I felt shame.

Question 6: How do you think that JH can improve the use of blogs in the future?

Answer Type 1: More free writing

More free writing
I think it is very good thing. In blog, I can express my opinion and receive responces. The blog gives me many good things.
I think you should ask students to write about every things.
[My translation] If students were able to write freely in their blogs, I think there would be a lot more enthusiasim about blogging.

Answer Type 2: Class Management and Blogging

I think it would be better if blogs were brought up more in the classes.
Make the homework deadlines earlier.
[My translation] How about students meeting the deadlines?

Answer Type 3: Various suggestions:

Put a PC in [the English students' room] because sometimes we cannot use PC in [the computer room].
I think if students are more careful about the blog which are viewed by others it would be nice.

Answer Type 4: Do not change anything

Very good! It is the good opportunity to write my opinion in English.
It's difficult question. I think you don't have to improve the use of blogs for ETM3.
I should use blogs for ETM3 in the future.
It's good! Keep this style!

My Conclusion on my second blogging project:

What does this all mean? One, I should consider more free writing... There is much more that I could write but it is time for me to leave work and go home! The swings are beckoning my son and I. I have to start working on another project tomorrow, so I will not be able to finish writing this until next week. Stay tuned.

New Webpage on Vocabulary Notebooks

2006-08-08T10:37:00.000+09:00

On August 4, I made a presentation at the All-Japan English Education Conference titled "An Investigation on How Vocabulary Notebooks can be used Effectively in EFL Contexts in Japan". The train from Morioka to Kochi city took almost 12 hours! First, I took the bullet train from Morioka to Tokyo but we were delayed 50 minutes because some dummy ran onto the train tracks. As a result of this, JR (Japan Railways) stopped all the bullet trains and searched the tracks for 50 minutes to make sure that there was no one else out there (I think). After I arrived in Tokyo station, I took the bullet train from Tokyo to Okayama and finally a normal train from Okayama to Kochi City. The highlight of the last train ride was crossing the 瀬戸大橋 or the Seto Bridge. (See the picture I downloaded from Wikipedia below:)

As I had been so busy with work at the university, I was not able to prepare for the presentation until the last second. I did not start practicing my presentation until I had arrived at Kochi and eaten dinner. The presentation at the conference actually did not go so badly but there were some thing that I wanted to say that I did not. I have made a webpage which outlines all the research I have done on vocabulary notebooks these past few months. Eventually, I will write two papers from this research:
1) A proposal on how to use vocabulary notebooks in class - grounded on theory and practice

and

2) What effects can the use of vocabulary notebooks have on the word learning strategies that students use?

I hope that the webpage I have put on the internet will be of service to teachers interested in vocabulary learning. The webpage can be accessed here.

Vocabulary Notebooks Revisited

2006-07-21T22:27:00.000+09:00

This year I introduced vocabulary notebooks into two of my classes (A university freshman English class and a Nursing School English class). As I wrote before, the primary reason for doing so was to encourage students to learn the words they encountered in class and also learn how to use them. Last year, I had observed that many students' notebooks for the classes consisted of a pile of handouts I had given them throughout the semester and some scriblings. These students received 10 and 20 percents on tests and one of the primary reasons was that they had no idea how to review for a test. I realized that I should be trying to help these kids develop study habits so I introduced vocabulary notebooks.

For one entry students can write the following information about a work:
1. the L1 meaning
2. A keyword or key picture.
3. the L2 word
4. Phonetic transcription
5. Part of speech
6. Derivations
7. Collocations
8. Sample sentences

To see an actual word entry from a student, please click here. In two weeks I will be presenting about this project at the zenkokueigokyouikugakkai or the Japan Society of English Education Conderence in Kouchi. There has actually been very little research done to investigate how students record words in their notebooks. At the conference I will be talking about the following:
1. Did the students use new word learning strategies develop through using the vocabulary notebooks?
2. Did students actually use the vocabulary notebooks, if so, how?
3. Through this experience, what tips can be given to teachers about the use of vocabulary notebooks?
4. What further issues of investigation have arisen from this study?

To prepare for this presentation, I will be periodically posting to this blog in the next two weeks. I hope I can finish by the time the conference roles around!

Tests that Encourage Students to Learn

2006-07-21T21:53:00.000+09:00

As I have written before, I teach an English class at a nursing school (Please see the worst dialogue ever made for nurses for reference). This is my second year teaching the class. One of the problems I had last year was that about 10 of the 40 students consistently got 10 and 20 percents on tests and quizes. As a teacher there is nothing worse than having to mark a blank test page. I would always wonder why the student gave up on the class and what I could have done differently.
This year, although I have not stopped tests and quizes I have stopped marking them. Rather, I have the students mark them. After the students mark their tests and quizes I ask them to give them to me and I write comments on them. I have also told the students that I will not record their grades. The tests and quizes are designed to record how much they are improving and I want them to study hard so that they will improve.
The other day in the nursing school class we had a mid-term examination. The exam had 4 parts. I gave the students a time limit to complete each part and then we went over the answers together with the students correcting their own tests. Students then evaluated their own performance on the test and wrote about how they might be able to improve. A handful of students left one or two parts of the test blank. When we went over the answers, they did write in the answers and wrote in the comment section of their test that they did not study for the test and that they would study harder next time. Although not ideal, this is much better than receiving a blank test from a student.
I remember when I was studying Japanese. Whenever I was returned a graded test I would look at the score and never the teacher's corrections. The only time I would look at the comments/corrections of the teacher was if I had a good score. Because I usually studied hard for a test, and test scores were very influential on my course grade, a bad score was like a slap in the face. Now, I regret not looking at the tests because I had absolutely wonderful professors who wrote very helpful comments on the tests.
The point of a test should be to help the student determine how much of the class he/she had understood and to understand his/her progress. With grades, I believe, tests lose their value.

The Danger of Focusing too much on Cultural Differences

2006-07-06T22:16:00.000+09:00

This time of year is always very stressful for me. Although it is a busy time of year as I have a full courseload, research to present in August right after the semester ends, university committees to serve on, a 21 month son at home, and a trip to the US to plan after my presentation is finished, this is not a source of my stress. The source of my stress lies in the two weeks I devote in my "Meeting of Multicultural Educators" class at university to studying the "national values" of other countries. Professor Geert Hofstede, classifies national values into five dimensions: power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masuculinty vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long term orientation vs. short term orientation. Approximately 76 countries/ regions have been ranked on the degree to which they show characteristics of each dimension. For example Uncertainty Avoidance is defines as reflecting "the extent to which a society attempts to cope with anxiety by minimizing uncertainty. Cultures that scored high in uncertainty avoidance prefer rules (e.g. about religion and food) and structured circumstances, and employees tend to remain longer with their present employer."(from Wikipedia (2006). Geert Hofstede.)
Many of my students, who are of course Japanese, seem to prefer structured situations to unstructured situations and hesitate to ask open-ended questions. Conversely, when I was a student in the USA it seems that a majority of the questions I was asked were open-ended. Furthermore, when a teacher asked a question to the class I would raise my hand and try to guess the answer even if I was only 50% certain that I knew the answer. In terms of uncertainty avoidance, Japan scores much higher that the US. Although Hofstede's theory is not without its critics and problems, I find it a fascinating way to look at the national cultures of various countries and also helpful. If a teacher knows that the students he will teach are more likely to handle open-ended questions differently than the students from his home country, he will not put his students in uncomfortable situations as frequently nor will he feel frustration when a student does not answer his question.
Nevertheless, when I study Hofstede's national values I start feeling melancholic; I am ready to jump on the boat and cross the Pacific to the U.S. Why? I think the reason is that I start to think too much of the differences between the U.S. and Japan and start feeling culture shock. My surroundings become unfamiliar and I develop the urge to be back in my familiar environment where peoples' behavior makes sense to me. After the two weeks with Hofstede end, I seem to get reaccustomed to Japan and stop thinking about the differences between it and my home country.

To ALTs Coming to Japan

2006-06-23T11:02:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, in my English Teaching Methodologies (ETM3) class a teacher from a junior high school in Morioka, Mr. M, came and talked to us about working at a junior high school. I would like to give you some important information based on Mr. M's talk and my own experience:

Greetings (in Japanese they day aisatsu) in the morning as you come to school such as ohayoo gozaimasu or greeting a student in the hall way such as saying "konncihiwa" are very important. Mr. M said that students like teachers who greet them. When I was an ALT at a junior high school I was very surprised that everyday I came to school there would be 2 students and a teacher at the entrance saying "good morning" to everyone that came　in.
One of the main reasons why ALTs are asked to come to Japan is to make students better communicators. Mr. M said that communication is not only speaking; writing and reading are also forms of communication. When we write we are trying to communicate something to the reader and when read we are trying to understand what the writer is trying to say and then consider how that applies to our daily lives. So, it is important to remember that their reading and writing also play an important role in communication.

There is a lot more useful information I can give you, but I want to see what the learners from ETM3 say! You can also read their blogs, they are listed to the right. They will finish by Wednesday, June 28.

My Son Proves that Error Correction does not Work

2006-06-19T19:08:00.000+09:00

My son has been getting the word "daddy" confused with "doggy". I tried to correct him but it did not work. To listen, click here.

The way I see the current state of teacher education

2006-06-10T14:21:00.000+09:00

Background: What has made me re-examine teacher education?
Lately, I have been feeling a little down. Here is the reason why:
Last week I watched a television show in Japanese titled "If the world were 100 people". At the beginning, the program mentioned that if the world were 100 people, 50 people would suffer from malnutrition and 14 would not know how to read. Then the program documented the lives of two brothers, aged 9 and 6, from Ghana, who were working on a chocolate plantation, a 12 year-old HIV positive homeless boy in the Ukraine, and a 15 year-old single mother of two children in Argentina. These children were without a family, adequate shelter, and education. It was one of the most heartbreaking stories I had seen (on television, at least). The program reminded me how blessed I have been for receiving a good education and having a supportive family.

How I see the current state of teacher education
After watching this program, student apathy really started to bother me much more than before. The Japanese Teacher Education Curriculum requires that students take certain classes in certain subjects and undergo a 3-week teaching practicum to receive a teaching license in their field of interest. Students can get a teaching license to teach all subjects at an elementary school, or a license to teach specific subjects (for example, English, History, Math etc.) at a secondary school (there are no separate teaching licenses for junior and senior high schools).
Students take from 9 - 14 classes a semester. As you can imagine, because students take so many classes a semester and also have part-time jobs as well as club activities, the amount of work they can do outside of class is limited. It seems to me that students seem to be taking classes not because they are interested in the subject but because they need the credit for their license. So, students sit through 15 - 22 and a half hours of lectures per week (if they go to all their classes), and if they do the bare minimum to pass their classes, they can get their credits and their licenses. Classes are seen more as a burden a students has to undergo to get his/her license than learning opportunities.

Why this bothers me:
What concerns me the most is that aspiring English teachers these days are not showing any intellectual curiosity. Education for students seems to consist of sitting through classes they are not interested in and doing what is asked of them. How can you become a teacher if you are not curious about anything? How can you become a teacher if you think that learning is just doing what is asked of you? To me, learning is not a passive activity where you listen to someone speak for an hour and a half. To me, you learn through a combination of experience, interacting with your classmates, interacting with your teacher, listening to presentations from your teacher or classmates, reading, and analyzing all of the former through writing or speaking. I work very hard to stimulate learners' curiosity in the subjects I teach. I know that my classes could be a lot better; I am disorganized and a little inconsistent in my approach. Nevertheless, I try my best. I think back to the two boys in Ghana working from dawn to dusk on a chocolate plantation and who dream of having an education and I think that maybe I am not where I should be.

Concluding on a Positive Note:
Although I believe everything I wrote above, I also think that the students I teach at this university do a commendable job of doing everything they must to become teachers. I do not think I could handle 15 (or even 10) different classes as well as a part-time job, club activities and out-of-class study. Overall, I am lucky to work with the students I work with. However, sometimes I worry that students' busy schedules make them forget that they want to be teachers because they are interested in their subjects and want to show their students how interesting their subjects are.
In the English Teaching Methodologies Class I am teaching this semester, we are writing blogs. Recently, I realized that I might have been giving the students too many detailed blogging assignments and the blogs became more of something that students just had to "get out of the way" rather than an interesting means to express their thoughts about English education and their own education. This week, I asked students to write about anything they wanted to. Pinch Hitter , who majors in junior high school English education, wrote about his experience teaching English in a city called Kitakami. Happy Days, who majors in Elementary School education, wrote about her once in a lifetime chance as nursing home volunteer (a requirement to get your teacher's license) . Happy Days also has asked for some advice on how she should prepare to teach all subjects for her elementary school teaching practice. Maybe some students who have already done her elementary school teaching practice can give her some advice!
Reading these two blogs have given me some hope for teacher education. Despite the problems, we have many dedicated aspiring teachers who will some day make wonderful contributions to education in Japan.

The Problem with "Open Classes" in Japan

2006-06-06T23:52:00.000+09:00

An "Open Class" is my translation of the term kenkyuujugyou. An open class is where a school makes a class available for teachers from other schools to watch in an education conference that it holds. In my experience, there are usually 30 to 60 observers of an open class and after the open class there is some kind of mini-conference between the teacher of the class and the observers.

There is something that bothers me about the meetings that take place after an open class. In these meetings, the teachers (if there was more than one class per subject there will be multiple teachers) present about their class, they then open the floor for questions, and lastly an "advisor" who is either an official from the Board of Education or a university professor gives feedback. These kinds of post-class conferences usually last an hour and a half to two hours.

The other day I attended an English class at a junior high school. In the meeting afterwards there was a lot of questions I wanted to ask and parts of the class I wanted to discuss but could not because I was one of 40 people and I did not want to take away someone else's opportunity to ask a question. Also, there were questions I wanted to ask to clarify the questions some of the participants asked to the teachers of the open classes. There were even questions directed towards the open class teachers I wanted to answer. I also wanted to ask the advisor a question about his feedback but was unable to given the format of the meeting. I left the meeting with a lot of questions unanswered and also with no real idea about what the other teachers thought of the class and their opinions about how applicable the teaching methodology shown that day (Task Based Language Teaching) was to their respective teaching contexts.

If I was in charge of such an event, I would divide people in small groups and have the open class teachers circulate and talk with each group. I would also give each group a topic to pursue or come up with a list of questions they want to ask the open class teachers.

Someone said that "Japanese teachers would find it difficult to participate in small group discussions." I agree, but if I were to facilitate such an event I would try it anyway because I am stubborn about the necessity of small group discussion. Why? Because it is more difficult to speak out in front of 40 people then it is to speak out in a small group.

I would like to note that even taking into account what I wrote above, the meeting was interesting, the advice was informative, and the atmosphere was nice. I just believe that these kinds of meetings need to be devised in a way so that teachers can interact more with eachother.

Vocabulary Notebooks and a Tip for Learning the Order of Hiragana

2006-06-06T23:36:00.000+09:00

In a recent post I wrote about my experimentation with vocabulary notebooks in two of my classes. Through the notebooks, I encourage learners to use mnemonic techniques (a technique to help you remember something) to help them remember difficult words, to write derivations of new words(for examlpe derivations of register are registration, preregister etc..) and write collocations or sentences for new words.
This week I collected 40 vocabulary notebooks but realized that I was kidding myself if I thought that I could actually go over each notebook in detail this week. However, I did learn through a quick perusal of the notebooks that the learners were not using mnemonic techniques and had a difficult time understanding the concept of derivations. I have decided to reintroduce the technique of mnemonics and give learners the opportunity to think of some keywords to remember words by working in pairs. I will also introduce some common prefixes and suffixes in class.
By the way, here is a mnemonic technique for remembering the order of the phonetic characters in the Japanese Hiragana alphabet. To remember the order, just memorize the English sentence below.
あ a
か killer
さ　said
た to
な　Nancy
は hey
ま man
や you
ら　rap
わ well

Tips for doing Role Play

2006-05-29T23:36:00.000+09:00

Doing role play is not easy because I find that it is very difficult for a lot of adolescent learners in Japan to adlib in English or play the role of someone else. A few weeks ago I tried to do a role play in an English class of 40 students I teach at the nursing school. The role play went well. I made pairs by matching students with high scores on a quiz I gave on vocabulary which was to be used in the role play with students who got low scores. Those students who scored in about the middle were matched with eachother. The thinking behind this was that the students who understood the chapter we were studying would help the students who were struggling.

Today, I tried a role play again but this time I paired the students randomly. Role play did not go well and some groups were absoluetly lost. I realized that in a class with students with a range of abilities and degree of motivation in English that random pairings for a challenging task might not be a good idea. Let the learners teach each other, don't try to be a superhero.

The Problem with Translating Programs

2006-05-24T22:12:00.000+09:00

In a freshman English class that I teach, I asked the students to write a paragraph about a coincidence that happened to them. Over half of the students used a translating program to do the assignment and their writing was impossible to understand. I asked my English Teaching Methodologies 3 students in our Issues in EFL in Japan blog to explain why so many students felt that they had to use a translating program when they could have done a better job writing the short essay themselves. I received some very interesting comments. To read the post and the students' comments please click here.

Using Vocabulary Notebooks in English Class

2006-05-21T22:43:00.000+09:00

This year, I have started using vocabulary notebooks for two English classes I teach outside of Iwate University. In this post I will talk about the vocabulary notebooks I use at the nursing school I teach at.

Last year in a class I taught at a nursing school, I gave vocabulary quizes every week that our class met. The main reason why I gave the quizes was because it was the way I had been taught Japanese and it was very successful in getting me to memorize many Japanese words. Although most of the words I learned were in my "receptive knowledge" and not my "productive knowledge", I slowly learned how to use the words after hearing them multiple times and trying to sue them myself. In the nursing school, I found that weekly quizes were effective for about 20 out of 40 learners in that they understood the words and could use them in writing. However, there were about 5 students who routinely got zeroes on the test and 15 students who would maybe get 1 or 2 of 5 words correct on a quiz and had very limited command of the nursing vocabulary we studied. I realized that some students in the class knew how to study words and others did not. So, this year I decided to introduce vocabulary notebooks to encourage students to develop strategies for learning words and to help them keep track of their own learning.

At the beginning of the year I asked students to purchase a binder and I created sheets with the kind of layout I wanted them to use to record their vocabulary (Click here to see what a blank sheet looks like). The idea for this layout came from an article I read by Schmitt & Schmitt (1995) in the ELT Journal and the Word Surfing Technique developed by Will McCulloch.
In the left column of the Front Page (Click here to see a sample), learners write the translation of the word they want to learn in Japanese. In the right column they write a key word or key picture which will help trigger their memory of the word.

On the corresponding section of the back page (Click here to see a sample) learners write the following in the left column:
1)The word they want to learn in English.
2) The pronunciation of the word in using the phonetic alphabet.
3) The part of speech of the word
4) Derivations of the word
In the right column learners can write a connecting word which is a word that is used often with the word they want to learn as well as a sentence containing the word.

Here are some ways we have used the vocabulary notebooks in class:

Students write dialogues referring to their vocabulary notebooks
Students create vocabulary quizes for each other using the sample sentences in their vocabulary notebooks.
Before we start a chapter in the textbook, I give students a list of words that I would like them to write into their vocabulary notebooks.

Right now, students are only writing words that I tell them to write in their vocabulary notebooks. Once we all get used to them, I will encourage students to write other English words they encounter into their notebooks and would like to learn. We will also probably start organizing the pages in our vocabulary notebooks in the near future.

Next week, I will collect the nursing students vocabulary notebooks and see how have they been used. I will teach this class once a week for 23 weeks this year, and we have already had 6 weeks of class. I want to encourage students to use the vocabulary notebooks but I do not want to overwhelm them to the point where they become discouraged. For this reason, I am moving very slowly with the vocabulary notebooks and not trying to suddenly force them completely on the students. I hope that by the end of the semester some of the students who seldom wrote down words before the class or were at a loss as to how to study vocabulary will think that making and mainitaing a vocabulary notebook was a good way to help them learn nursing English.

My Son's Language Acquisition after 1 year and 8 months

2006-05-12T21:10:00.000+09:00

In the past month and a half my son's vocabulary has increased at an absolutely explosive pace. He seems to be saying something new every day. My son says both English and Japanese words, but he has yet to say more than one word in one sentence unless it is a fixed phrase. I thought that I would list the words I think he knows and approximately which month he started saying them. The words in italics are Japanese. He will actually repeat a lot of what he hears but the below words are what he says on his own. You can listen to some of the words by clicking on them.

September/October 2005
Daddy (His first word!)
Dog

November/December 2005
achi (=there!)
chizu(=cheese)
baba (=granny)
jiji(=gramps)
bye bye
anpanman(= beanpaste man - a popular cartoon character)

January/February 2006
What's that?
atta (A Japanese verb he uses when he finds something he was looking for.)
denki (light)

March 2006
atsui (hot)
one, two, three
wan wan (= bark bark or doggy)
mama
oishii (= delicious - he said this once in November but did not say it again until March)
apple
duck
juice
deta (Can be translated as "It went out". My son says this after he poos.)

April 2006
ba-gu　(= hamburger)
ball
hi!
slide
baby
happy
pee pee
poo poo
flower
eye
bunny
mommy
car
okataduke (=let's clean up)
owl
how are you?
doggy
kitty
issai (=one-year old)
swing
clock
bath
momo (The name of his Japanese grandparents' dog)
ojiji (Great grandfather)
obaba (Great grandmother)
paipai (breast)
mimi (ear)
owl
clock
pizza
pasta
tea
douzo (It means "here you are" but my son uses it to say "give me this!"
pooh (Winnie the Pooh)
stereo
hat
banana (he says "ba")

May, 2006
densha (train)
Raliegh (The name of the daughter of a friend)
sensei (teacher)
tissue
newspaper
this way
possessive s his first grammar!
shoe
no no san (the mother of a friend)
mao kun (a friend)

Skills necessary for Teachers and Students for Effective Group Work

2006-04-22T17:28:00.000+09:00

I just read Jack C. Richard's 1987 TESOL Quarterly Article titled "The dilemma of teacher education in TESOL". Citing Tikunoff (1985), he implies that for teachers to lead effective language learning task they must consider the following:
Order of tasks: In what sequence should tasks be introduced (to lead to one goal).
Pacing: How much time should learners spend on tasks?
Products (of the task): will it be the same for all students?
Learning strategies: What learning strategies will be recommended for particular tasks?
Participation: Will all learners be assigned the same task?
Materials: What materials will be available for completing the task.

Still citing Tikunoff, he writes that learners of limited proficiency in the second language need the following competencies to do a language learning task:
Participative Competence: The ability to respond appropriately to to class demands and to the procedural rules for accomplishing them. (I interpreted this as meaning the ability to follow directions.)
Interactional Competence: Interacting appropriately with peers and adults while accomplishing class tasks.
Academic Competence: The ability to acquire new skills, assimilate new information, and construct new concepts.

This made me reflect on the way I hold language learning tasks in the classroom. Pacing for me is the biggest challenge. Sometimes, a task will go much slower than I anticipated. I think a good teacher should challenge the learners to attain a challenging but attainable goal in a limited time. To do this a teacher has to conceive of an appropriate language learning task to match the skills and interests of the learners. The moral of this is that you should never do a language learning task exactly how it is written in a book because it was practiced with learners other than your own. A good teacher always adapts tasks to the students.

Call me an over-critical teacher, but I also think that sometimes language learning tasks have not gone well for me because learners have lacked Interactional Competence and Academic Competence. Namely, groups of 3 or more learners cannot cooperate to accomplish a task in the target language, and sometimes learners do not actively try to develop new skills such as skimming, scanning or learning convenient phrases for writing and reading. It is not that the learners are trying to rebel, they just look lost and uncomfortable.

My opinion: If you want to try things such as group learning in an apprehensive EFL class, start with very simple tasks that they can accomplish so they can build confidence. Also, hold langauge learning tasks where the goal is to learn to interact in the second language (one example of such a task is a fishbowl) or tasks that focus more on developing learning strategies rather than encouraging learners to use learning strategies they do not have.
Sources:
Richards, J. (1987). The dilemma of teacher education in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 21, pp.209-226
Tikunoff, W.J., (1985). Developing Student Functional Proficiency for LEP Students. Portland: Northwest Regional Education Labratory.