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@Learning is lost in the translation
@@@iEducation AgeFWednesday July 26, 2000j


@@JAPANESE STUDENTS are confronted with linguistic, cultural and sociological problems in the classroom. In addition, they are hindered by traditional methods of studying English strictly through grammar and translation -- grammar that is often misunderstood even by native speakers. The students usually have a large passive knowledge of English but their active usage (oral/aural skills) is limited.
@@Teachers have to encourage students to overcome their fear of making mistakes. Their performance anxiety has to be witnessed to be believed. Students often think there is only one correct answer to any question and are afraid to speculate as to what else might be correct. The endless repeating of a teacher's question rather than answering it, and the response "who, me?", can be very frustrating.
@@Japanese elementary and secondary schools cram a great deal of knowledge into students in order for them to gain entrance to high schools and universities. Knowledge gained through cramming is easily forgotten. Japanese high school education often contributes almost nothing to the development of one's thinking ability. In science classes, experiments are often left to the bare minimum so as to leave more time for rote learning.
@@Scoichi Kobayashi, professor emeritus of international relations at Aomori University, noted, in the Japan Times of August 3, 1999, that the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language tests administered by the UN put Japanese students 181st among the 189 member countries of the United Nations.
@@Like all statistics, these cry out for a deeper look. Represented as a percentage of the overall population of college-age students, the number of Japanese who take the test is significantly higher than in other countries, thus distorting the result. Either way, the results are depressing, particularly given the amount of time, money, effort spent on "teaching" English.
@@ESL (English as a second language) instructors should be aware of typical student problems. Aside from the ones mentioned above, the most common problem areas are:
@@1. I believe that many Japanese have a poor command of their mother tongue. How can students who cannot handle their mother tongue acquire a second language, particularly English, which is so different from Japanese?
@@2. Few Japanese English teachers are fluent in English (LOTE teachers here often have similar problems). To make matters worse, many Japanese teachers of English started teaching as soon as they graduated from university --- where they never really studied how to teach.
@@3. Difficulties with:
@@-- word order (syntax): eg, "man coffee drinking." (In Japanese, the verb is always at the end of the sentence.)
@@-- word choice: eg, saying "I exciting" rather than "I'm excited."
@@-- countables/uncountables: eg, "they are many rices", "they saw much cars".
@@-- pronunciation: particularly with l/r, b/v, ci/si, shi/she, etc.
@@4. Stress and intonation: English is a timed/stressed language whereas Japanese is a syllabic/sometimes pitched, unstressed language.
@@5. Listening comprehension: students have difficulties in hearing English properly and detecting differences between singular and plural words as well as other sounds.
@@6. There is either a complete lack of use of prepositions and articles or a massive over-use of them.
@@7. Confusion exists between the North American version of English and the "Queen's" English.
@@8. The adding of "o" to many words, eg, hott/o, sett/o, dat/o.
@@9. Japlish: A mixture of Japanese and English that is hardly conducive to learning English. For example, you can read on the side of a bread package:
@@"Our little friend 'TOMTE' use magical secret power for delicious BREAD that. Well enjoy in next morning. Children who living in NORTHERN EUROPE tell us secret that just baken BREAD. Yes TOMTE's secret."
@@A new system of teaching English conversation lessons, currently being tested, will be introduced in public elementary schools in 2002. The question needs to be asked: Do all Japanese need to speak English? And will they?
@@Yes, said an advisory panel to the then prime minister, Keizo Obuchi, which recently outlined Japan's goals for the 21st century.
@@The panel urged all Japanese to acquire a working knowledge of English before they became adults and called for a national debate on making English an "official second language".
@@The lack of proficiency in English will be a "national crisis" in the 21st century, says Tadashi Yamamoto, executive director of the prime minister's panel and president of the Japan Centre for International Exchange.
@@At international conferences, Japanese leaders' lack of influence is apparent because many other Asian leaders have a good command of English, Yamamoto says.
@@"Japanese leaders must be able to speak directly with their counterparts without using interpreters otherwise Japan will be even more under represented in the inter national community."
@@Yoichi Funabashi, a member of the prime minister's panel and chief diplomatic correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun, has been one of the most vocal advocates of making English an official second language.
@@"The time has passed when only a handful of elite people explained Japan's stance to the world," he says, adding that Japan's "critical mass" must be able to communicate in English given both globalisation and the Internet, where 80 per cent of information is in English.
@@It must be noted that I tried to learn Japanese twice in Melbourne but failed. Another problem for Australian students of language occurs because of current educational trends which mean that their knowledge of grammar rules is even worse than that of the Japanese. This is a feat that I would have thought impossible.

@@Marcus L'Estrange, a freelance writer and a Victorian teacher, is teaching English in Japan. Email: Marcusle99@yahoo.co.uk