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

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!

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)

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

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

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

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

1. 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.
2. Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with Children. OUP.
3. Ur, P. & Wright, A. Five Minute Activities. CUP.
4. Ellis, G. & Brewster, J. (1991). The Storybook Handbook.
5. 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
6. 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

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

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

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

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)

1. "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.>>
2. "It helped to have a Japanese translation" <<Jimbo's note: I don't think this is a problem.>>
3. "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."
4. <<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."
5. <<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."
6. "We have to study very hard about the country [which the book is discussing]."
7. "If there are not more opportunities for seminars teachers will [not feel confident in reading the book in English] and [CCUP] will not spread."
8. "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

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

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

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

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

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:

1. Why did you decide to learn Japanese? (or) Why did you decide to study abroad?
2. For Americans, it is said that Japanese is harder to learn than other European foreign languages, do you agree or disagree?
3. 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

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

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

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）