Next Meeting: Sunday, March 11th, 2012 - 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Place: Hamamatsu Zaza City Palette 5F
Members: Free - Non-members: ¥1000A Look at English language learning throughout the Japanese school system”: Open forum discussion. - PDF Available here!
Darryl Mellows, Dan Frost, Eri Genma, Gregg McNabb - Moderated by Adam Jenkins
Four
speakers will introduce their perspectives on EFL issues in the
Japanese school system followed immediately by open, moderated
discussion. Audience participation is most definitely encouraged. Topics
will progress according to school-age group (i.e. children, Jr. high
school, high school, university). Each topic will be allotted 30-40
minutes for presentation and discusssion.
Darryl Mellows - "Realistic goals for teaching children"
Students at the elementary age are largely being failed by the low
expectations being placed on them compounded by the poor curriculum
provided by MEXT. Obscene amounts of time and resources have been
allocated to “expose”, almost exclusively, grade 5 and 6 students to the
English language. I believe a new and much more challenging mindset
must be adopted in the approach to teaching young learners in order to
effectively utilize the technology and resources being provided.
QUESTIONS TO BE DISCUSSED - What should we expect for children's English
abilities? Have the new policies for English at Elementary schools
effective? What realistic goals should we set for our students?
Dan Frost – “In Japanese junior high schools, how important is grammar for learning English?”
The traditional roles are for the Japanese teacher (JT) to teach
grammar, and the native-English speaking teacher (NT) to focus on oral
communication. However, in recent years JTs in junior high school are
trying to use the communicative method of teaching with less explicit
emphasis on grammar. This discussion will look at how JTs and NTs might
work together in teaching both communication and grammar. QUESTIONS TO
BE DISCUSSED – To what extent should grammar be taught implicitly or
explicitly? Should there be a division of roles for NTs and JTs?
Eri Genma - "What's Yakudoku and why is it so popular for Japanese teachers?"
Yakudoku is a translation method that focuses heavily on the specific
rules of English grammar, directly translating words and
phrases from English into the student's native language using vocabulary
lists and rote memorization. In this method, the written literary
English is more important than spoken English, with reading and writing
taking top priority, and with accuracy in grammar taking precedent over
fluency. QUESTIONS TO BE DISCUSSED - What are the strengths vs.
weaknesses of this method? Does "yakudoku" need to be revisited?
Gregg McNabb - "English for University - The divide between students' needs, instructors' beliefs and students' expectations.” This topic will be a brief examination of the current status and outlook for Japanese universities. QUESTIONS TO BE DISCUSSED -
Is the central entrance examination system really so awful? Concerning
changes in the schedule, good for some, unnecessary for most?
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Ċ ď Adam Jenkins, Feb 18, 2012 7:34 PM
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