Japanese Instruction

Hello everyone!

In today's section, we'll be talking about Japanese Instruction. This ranges from the style of teaching, teacher behavior, homework to the general classroom atmosphere. To get a clear, broad view of this topic we'll be approaching it from a few angles. First, we'll give our initial impressions of the aforementioned. Then we will elaborate on our own experiences with Japanese teaching. Since we are in different Japanese classes for the remainder of the stay, we will give you our perspectives from both of these classes (J2A from Jason and J3 from Emily). After giving our impressions, we'll share the opinions of Japanese teaching from a Japanese person. Then we will tie them all together and contrast the Japanese experiences with the Canadian experience.

First Impressions

Our first impressions of Japanese instruction is that there is not of a lot of freedom and interactivity during class time. A majority of class time is teachers giving their lessons about the topic for the day and asking random students questions. Students sit at their desk, listen to their teachers talk for a long amount of time, are assigned homework and head to the next class, or home. The only time the students are allowed to mingle and interact is during break. Of course, these impressions are derived from video games (the above picture is from a video game, Persona 5), anime and media so its legitimacy is highly questionable.

J2A Experiences

It's been a full week of classes, which is enough to derive a decent analysis of J2A, one of the four levels of Japanese Instruction that the UofC students abroad can be placed at. Because there will only be four weeks of classes, the entire curriculum is extremely condensed. In a regular day (composed of 4 hours), it is entirely possible to go through an entire lesson, which contains several grammar points, CD listening portions and pair work. There is a decent amount of homework every day (a sheet, Kanji practice and preparation for the next day). Each lesson has its own mini quiz, and there are quizzes for Kanji as well. The only major test is the final. In J2A, we have a rotation of 3 sensei's throughout the week. There are two presentations (a short speech and a larger presentation). 3 out of the 4 days we had class this week, we had actual Senshu University students come in and have a regular conversation with us about topics the sensei wanted us to talk about. There is a lot to each day, but the senseis are really nice and personally for me, I want to learn Japanese in the best way possible so J2A life is great.

J3 Experiences

After a week of class in the J3 level, I can feel myself being challenged specifically in my Japanese listening skills. The teachers will speak only in Japanese, and talk fast and expect the students to understand without the need to repeat many words. In the J3 level class there are also 3 Japanese teachers that each teach on different days throughout the week. The class is fast-paced and strict to the schedule. Also we are learning around 16 kanji (give or take a few, as we have to choose 4 new vocabulary words and learn their kanji each day), with a quiz the following day. As with the J2A class, we have a listening segment with a CD everyday and pair work practicing dialogues and conversation. J3 seems to be focusing on different forms of Japanese conversation that we could use in real life situations. For example, we are learning the casual, formal, and extra formal (keigo) way to say the same thing, such as inviting someone for dinner. The dialogue changes drastically depending on who you are speaking to. Students will have to make a presentation as well, but just 1 long one, around 10 minutes with discussion from peers. We also started analyzing graphs in Japanese and learning grammar points to tell information about graphs or pictures, which was quite challenging for me. J3 keeps students on their feet and I find that I need to expand my vocabulary to be able to comprehend the fast pace easier. All in all, I'm glad I am being challenged, for it can help me learn Japanese faster and I'm motivated to try hard.

Ryouta

This here is Ryouta, and we asked him some questions about Japanese instruction. First thing we asked him was about the style of teaching. Ryouta said there definitely was more of a "lecture style" instruction going on, but students were encouraged to ask questions and occasionally there was some in-class group work. He studied Japanese for 12 years, and he says all of his vocabulary and grammar was learned from heavy usage of the textbook. Kanji was a special case where he learned English definitions as well as the hiragana/katakana words for kanji. He studied English for 7 years, and it was similar in the case where a lot of his vocabulary/grammar was derived from the textbook. His English instructor was Japanese, but occasionally a special teacher from a foreign country would come in and teach English. The special instructors focused more on oral communication and Ryouta says he vastly enjoys that kind of teaching rather than the "textbook & teacher" style. Every week, he had 2 homework deadlines to meet. His classes had a midterm, final and quizzes but no presentations at all. Ryouta's school curriculum starts in April and ends in March, with Summer (40 days), Autumn (1/2 weeks, depending on school) and Winter (Christmas to early January) vacations in between. Lastly, he also has an exam break to focus on his final exams.

Contrast to Canadian Teaching Style and the University of Calgary

We noticed that, contrasting Japanese class in both Senshu University and U of C, class in U of C had more interaction between the teacher and students, and students with each other. This seems to come from the Western or Canadian style of teaching. The atmosphere in the classroom in Canada seems more open and there is an emphasis on trying to speak out loud to practice. In Japanese class in U of C, in every class there was time given for free speech between you and the person next to you. In the Japanese classroom so far, students have much less time to speak freely to each other.

Also in U of C some teachers tend to use only sections of the textbook that they chose themselves to be important for the students, and the class can veer away from the structured schedule. This is different from the Japanese style here which seems to try to use the text book from start to finish with almost everything inbetween, and the teachers pay close attention the timing of lessons as well.

A strong contrast between Japan and Canada is that in Canadian schools, participation and speaking one's own opinion is strongly encouraged, and students are wanted to be openly enthusiastic. A Japanese student at Senshu shared that while she was studying abroad in America, she was surprised at how the American students weren't shy and raised their hands willingly to answer questions. In Japan it seems students should be more quiet and listen carefully to the teacher speaking.

To Conclude

We are excited and appreciative of the opportunity to experience the Japanese style of teaching and Japanese university life first-hand. Since we can always be around native Japanese speakers and are constantly surrounded by the language, we believe it is the best and fastest way to learn Japanese more naturally. We think that even if there is less participation and talking in the classroom, the many opportunities to interact with the Senshu students has already helped us improve our Japanese skills and confidence. As we have only had one week of classes, we have yet to see the full effects of going to university in Japan. But so far, so good!