I have read a few studies into how different Japanese system of writing and communication and lived here for a long time, I understand that the Japanese don’t really compute supporting paragraph structure in the same way. I’ve decided to hit my youngest levels with explaining the why behind why it’s desirable in English writing in the hopes that it will improve their efforts later on.
I teach at high school level with some university classes here and there, but even the uni students struggle with coming up with any reasons for any of their thoughts, even if I ask them to first complete their ideas in Japanese.
Is this just a high school level thing or does it go further? Coming from western approach where it’s drummed into us from an early age to come up with supporting reasons all the time it’s really puzzling.
I’m not trying to say one way is superior to the other, it’s not like Japanese society is crashing all around for the lack of this system, but what do people supplant it with? How do you sell a product? Review an album? Anything that requires a reader to believe something is the way it is.
I should probably take a break!
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I used to think it as the structure taught in my JHS then I noticed it in my SHS and I am still perplexed after all these years. Despite trying to explain the writing process used in Elementary schools outside of Japan. I get head nods but no change.
I likely don’t know as much about Japan or especially teaching, but Junior Highschool is a complete waste of time for students’development after the second year for tests. I am assuming highschool’s last year is much the same. The government here has incredibly old tests that are formulaic and worthless for testing actual proficiency. And everything has to be based off of the MEXT guidelines which continue to suck immensely for English.
Basically, what Japan teaches is TOEIC exclusive English, even if they have an ALT or private teacher. I got a TEFL certification before arriving and besides planning lessons and creating activities it has been largely worthless since they aren’t even learning at a TEFL level.
I taught senior high for 6.5 years.
In my experience, students have ideas, but are searching hard for “the right answer” and are terrified they’ll put “the wrong answer” even for things that are subjective. This causes many students to just freeze and write nothing instead.
I liked using Eiken interview questions. Practice books often give points to help the student think about possible answers.
The points were generally: money, time, health, environment, etc.
This helped quite a bit. Have them practice with points like this first, then slowly wean them off of the support by giving them similar questions and saying something like, “this is similar to a topic we wrote about before. Can you remember?” And see if they can recall and make connections.
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My experience for writing is you have to start with the basics, brain storming, organizing ideas etc. probably good to do a few reading exercises before where kids analyze readings (circle main idea, underline support etc). Then move into puzzles where they reorder writing, finally have them write on a similar topics to things they read. Brain storm, fill in outline, write etc. Add some discussion and content sharing in Japanese and English to fill out ideas.
For speaking tests it basically teaching them to glue together chunks. If you taught the kids with comprehensible input, task based, or communicative approaches they normally have better automated implicit knowledge stores to speak/write but if they learned through normal Japanese schools methods you are going to have to be very deliberate.
> How do you sell a product? Review an album?
I mean, have you seen advertisements and reviews here? Advertisements basically rely exclusively on cute mascots, famous people, comedy bits, catchphrases, and jingles. Which is true of advertisements anywhere, but I feel it’s even more true in Japan than anywhere else I’ve been. Reviews are hardly even what I’d consider reviews – they’re moreso just information pieces on the thing being reviewed, most of them hardly give any opinions or criticism.
It’s definitely frustrating when it comes to English writing and interviews, but it’s generally quite difficult to get the students to volunteer opinions or even their own ideas – the former is often discouraged in society in general, the latter is difficult to elicit in a school setting because they’re used to always having a right answer and/or following formulas and guidelines for tests. You’re more likely to get *something* out of them if you do it on a group basis rather than individual so that they can discuss with each other and give a group answer rather than take responsibility for a potentially wrong answer individually.
In general, it’s good to be aware of the differences in communication styles and educational practices and do your best to work with those in mind – trying to teach like it’s not a Japanese classroom will only lead to frustration.
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First off, this is just based on my experience for what it’s worth. I’ve been teaching writing and translation at SHS for almost twenty years to students aiming for universities all over the board but mostly 難関大.
Students do have thoughts and ideas but have few chances to express them in education here unless they belong to a debate club. Things are slowly changing with the new curriculum but until the university entrance exam system changes I wouldn’t expect much. I’m not sure it will even change to be honest.
When it comes to English education everything is based on rote memorization so students are looking for the sentence to remember to get points on a test. When SHS students are doing translation from Japanese to English, answer books typically have only a few options. Ten plus years ago there was usually one answer so I guess things have improved in that regard. Most Japanese teachers aren’t good enough at English to teach students different possible expressions or the nuances involved. I really feel for my students when they have written an entirely acceptable sentence but the answer book has nothing like it at all. How can you build confidence with that?
I find it amusing that most of my coworkers go on and on about how important 国語力 is when it comes to translation from English to Japanese. There are many ways to explain a concept in any language whether it’s your native one(s) or not.
I shouldn’t complain I suppose, the fact that my coworkers have too much pride to actually learn how to translate from Japanese to English themselves keeps the yens coming into my account every month.
If your Japanese is good enough you should be able to reach your students. It will just take time to build some rapport and break through the rote memorization brainwashing.
Sorry for the rant. I can’t be bothered to read what I’ve written again.
I’ve been here too long, read too much butchered English, and spent too much time translating things that don’t go smoothly between English and Japanese. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
I’ve taught mostly adults and adults struggle without a framework.
In addition, many adults start with a long background information before getting to the point.
The textbook I am required to use , recommends using PREP.
Point
Reason
Example
Point
You can also ask them to give more information (supporting details) when they state something. For example the what where when etc .
I tell them this beforehand so we set expectations right at the beginning. My example is always…
“What’s your food?
“Ramen .”
👎
Maybe in my case it’s different because they are adults …but frame it to appeal to younger learners.
To encourage more “why” thinking I like to do debates with my kids and choose a light but dividing topic. “Summer is better than winter” or “Cats are better than dogs” will get them riled up. I give them sentence starters like “I agree/disagree because..” or “That’s a good point, but…” to make their answers.
I taught for almost 10 years so my experience comes from that and all of my Japanese friends and coworkers, especially juniors under me when they mess up and I have to ask them questions about why things happened.
I don’t want to say Japanese students aren’t critical thinkers, I think they are, they just DESPERATELY do. not. want to give a “wrong” answer. It’s almost depressing. I’ve sat in on 道徳 classes and even taught a few and the silence and hesitation on open ended questions that literally do not have a correct answer was deafening. Hanging out with some of the kids individually later on, they gave thoughtful answers that gave extra insight to how they think. Following up on why the couldn’t say that in class the answers were:
I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
I didn’t want to say something different from the majority.
I didn’t want my answer to be ridiculed when the teachers aren’t around.
This was across multiple classes from multiple grades. With my friends, talking about current events and the like, they do the same thing. And their answers are
I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and seem I knowledgeable.
I didn’t want to say something possibly inflammatory.
I didn’t want people to say something about what I said on social media.
So pretty much the same exact thing the students said.
That’s wherein the problem lies. Your biggest problem is not generally “teaching students English” – most of the ones you’re teaching writing to will be able to translate what they see into Japanese.
The biggest problem is getting them to express themselves without worrying about what others – even me, as so many of them think matching their opinion to mine is what will give them the most points – think.
Mind you, then you get the horrible foreign teachers who come here and reinforce that idea. One teacher who worked at my private school asked a student for their opinion, and they said that the Sea Shepherds (an anti-whaling group) should be banned from coming close to Japan.
That “teacher” (an Aussie) made a whole class of students afraid of foreigners in one fell swoop. They never really recovered, and would often try to make eye contact with me to determine what the “right answer” was, even though that teacher was long gone.
Like, make a counterargument and teach them about debating. Don’t make them think you’re going to assault them.
I’ve taught both STEM and humanities students in university.
What I’ve found is that you need to treat them like Chat GPT. Tell them **exactly** what you want. “Write a paragraph about ___. Your paragraph should have 12 sentences. Use ‘because’ in the topic sentence. Use ‘on the other hand’ three times in your paragraph.” Like, really really explicit direction.
>“Shopping at a convenience store is convenient. For example, it’s convenient.”
If this is what they’re giving you, you should be asking them leading questions.
>”Is it convenient because it’s close to your house? Is it convenient because it’s cheap? What is ‘convenient’? I don’t know what that means. Your idea of ‘convenient’ and my idea of ‘convenient’ are different. My idea of ‘convenient’ is that I can use my credit card. Is that your idea of ‘convenient’? Tell me what your idea of ‘convenient’ is.”
I think giving them an example of a poorly written paragraph and correcting it together is a good exercise.
It’s not the system here. The system here is to memorize a set of acceptable/expected responses for a given topic or scenario. If the topic is ‘caring for the planet’, SDGs provide a stock answer. Etc., etc. The role that these answers play, rhetorically, as “reasons” is usually not made clear to them.
I taught college students who didn’t understand the process of showing reasoning or sharing opinions based on evidence. They were not lazy or stupid–they had just never been (explicitly) taught those things, much less their importance. You have to teach argumentation from the ground up. What is an argument/thesis? How do you construct one? Why is one argument sounder than another? If you can’t teach that in a way they can access, you have no business complaining about how they aren’t giving you what you want.