The way we see things

Read this article in Japanese

Japan has a rainy season. It usually begins around June and ends in the middle of July. Some people are annoyed by its warm temperature and high humidity, but I like this rainy season because mountains become greener and seem to be very lively. It is my first time to come back to Japan during this season since I moved to the U.S. 5 years ago. I am enjoying my stay a lot.

On the second day after arriving in Japan, I went to a book store and saw a huge section of English text books. I took a look at some of them and remembered the time when I was teaching English in Japan. My students were junior high and high school students. When I was teaching English to them, it was easy for me to understand their learning situation. In other words, I could easily find what problem they were having from talking with them, reading their writing and looking at their answers to questions. I was able to do this because I studied English in the same way that they did. My experience of learning English gave me intuition in teaching.

Teaching Japanese, however, doesn’t go the same way. Japanese is my native language. I have never actually studied the language in the way that my students learning Japanese do. Thus, it is more difficult for me to understand what problems students tend to have and why. There are a lot of times that I receive questions about Japanese grammar that I have never thought of. One of the examples is that we have Particles of Speech “ni” and “e”. They are used as in “Kouen (park) ni/e(to) iku (go)”, meaning “(I) go to the park.” I was asked when we use “ni” instead of “e” and vice versa. I couldn’t answer the question. I knew that I distinguished them unconsciously but I didn’t know how. After the class, I studied what governs the choice and then I finally became able to explain the difference in the next class.

When you grow up with a language and you have no trouble communicating with it, you might not “study” the language unless you are required to. Fortunately, I must study Japanese and understand it better to teach effectively. Studying expands my knowledge of the Japanese language and culture.

Through teaching your language, students will be more interested in your country and culture, and at the same time, your knowledge of your language and culture will be deepened. How nice it is to be a language teacher!

Read this article in English

久しぶりにこの時期に日本に帰って参りました。山々が深緑に包まれて、とても生き生きしている様子が心を和ませてくれます。

さて、帰省した翌日に本屋に行ったのですが、そこに置いてあった英語教材の種類の多さに驚きました。今の日本で英語の必要性が益々高まっている状況が反映されているように思いました。何冊か手に取り読んでみると、自分が日本で英語を教えていた頃のことを思い出しました。私が受け持った生徒の多くは中学生と高校生で、それぞれ高校受験、大学受験のために英語を勉強していました。英語が得意な生徒もいれば、苦手な生徒もいて、得意単元や苦手単元も生徒ひとりひとり違いましたが、彼らを指導するのに難しいと感じたことはあまりありませんでした。なぜなら、自分も受験のために英語を勉強していましたので、どういう箇所でつまづきやすいのか、どのように説明したら生徒たちに分かりやすいのかというのが自分が英語を勉強してきた経験から手にとるように理解できたからです。

しかし、現在日本語を教えていて、同じようにはいかないなと痛感しています。学校で国語の授業は受けましたが、日本語学習者のように日本語を勉強したことがありません。ですので、学習者にとって理解しにくい箇所があった時、どうして理解しにくいのか、どうやって説明したら理解してもらえるのか分からないという状況に陥ることもあります。また、自分では考えてもみたことがない文法に関する質問を受けることも多々あります。例えば、「公園に行く」と「公園へ行く」の、助詞の「に」と「へ」の違いについて質問を受けたことがあります。私はそれまで、もしかしたら無意識的に使い分けていたのかも知れませんが、どんな状況で使い分けるべきなのか説明をすることができませんでした。クラスの後で、その二つの助詞の違いについて調べて、後日生徒に説明をすることができました。

自分の母国語で、コミュニケーションを問題なく取ることができる場合、きっかけが無い限り母国語をもう一度勉強しようと思う方はあまりいないのではないでしょうか。私は幸い、日本語を教えることになり、日本語の文法や日本の文化について勉強する機会ができました。その結果、私の日本語の知識は以前よりもずっと増えたと思います。自分の言語や文化を教えることで、もっとたくさんの人々に自分の国に興味を持ってもらうと同時に、自分自身の言葉や文化についての理解も深めることができるのですね。外国語教師というのは素敵なお仕事だなとしみじみ実感しています。

Read this entry in Japanese

Do you have a favorite class you have taken? Do you remember a class that you really hated? There are probably many reasons behind your preference. But your impression of a class you have strong feelings about may be decided by the teacher’s style of interacting with the students. A number of studies have shown that the way a teacher interacts with the students can increase or decrease their motivation for classroom learning and it can also limit or facilitate the students’ achievement in the class.

Foreign language learners need to experience socio-cultural norms of the target language as well as its grammar and vocabulary. Students can learn the appropriate usage of the language by observing their teacher, who is most likely a native level speaker of the language. This creates a dilemma; on one hand, teachers are encouraged to apply their culturally preferred conversational style in the class. However, on the other hand, a problem arises when the teacher’s interactional style is something totally unfamiliar to the students. For example, schools in Japan usually require students to sit and listen to the teacher, but do not give the students many opportunities to present. When Japanese students study abroad in the U.S., they become overwhelmed by how much they are required to talk in class, as well as by the frequency of discussions, debates and presentations. Teachers often ask students if they have comments and questions. Most Japanese students keep silent or limit their verbal presentations.  Sadly, some teachers consider this behavior as the Japanese students being “unmotivated” or “not-serious”. However this is not true, they are participating in class by actively listening in the way they do in school in Japan.

It is widely understood that as foreign language teachers we must obtain sophisticated language knowledge and know how to teach language effectively. In addition to this, I believe that we should understand the students’ cultural background in terms of interactional style (and in many more ways, I am sure). Only then, we can find ways to balance between introducing our socio-cultural aspects and keeping the classroom as a relaxed as possible and a comfortable place to learn. Through conducting this research, I learned what the typical classroom interaction in U.S schools is like. It was actually the opposite from how I had been teaching Japanese to students here. Since then I always keep in mind that when I teach Japanese to students in the U.S, I try to create many opportunities in which learners can speak and share their opinions as they normally do in U.S. schools. At the same time, I also try to involve them in attentive listening activities, which teach valuable Japanese conversational manners.

I have written about foreign language teaching and socio-cultural interaction in three blog posts. I pay great attention to how we can teach students effectively through interacting with them. How about you?  As a language teacher, what do you consider as the most important in teaching? If you are a language learner, is there anything you wish your teacher did differently to successfully integrate the target culture’s teaching methods as well as a learning style that works well in your own native culture?

Read this entry in English

学生だった頃を思い返してみて下さい。好きだったクラス、嫌いだったクラスはありますか？みなさん、それぞれの理由があると思いますが、中にはそのクラスを担当していた先生がどのように生徒に語りかけ、発言を促したかで、クラスを嫌いになったり好きになったりした方もいるのではないでしょうか。実際に、学生の勉強への意欲や結果はクラス内での先生と生徒の相互作用で決まってしまうという研究結果もでています。

外国語学習者は、文法や単語に加え、外国語教師との直接の対話や他生徒との対話を観察することによって、その言語が話されている場所の社会文化的規範も学ばなければなりません。ですから、外国語教師は自国の会話作法などをクラスに積極的に取り入れるべきとの意見もあります。ただ、学習者と教師の間で対話作法が大きく異なる時には注意が必要です。例えば、アメリカの学校へ留学をなさったことがある方の多くは、日本とアメリカの授業形態の違いに驚かれたのではないでしょうか。日本では、授業中は専ら先生の話を聞いているというように、情報が一方向に流れるのが普通です。反対にアメリカの学校では、討論、議論や発表の場もたくさん設けられているように、学生にも積極的に話す機会を与えていますね。最初のうちから、先生に意見を求められたときに、自分の意見をはっきりと主張できたという方は非常に少ないのではないでしょうか。私は言語のクラスではありませんでしたが、同じような経験をしました。徐々に慣れていきましたが、やはり最初の頃は居心地が悪かったのを覚えています。

外国語教師は言語への深い理解と、それを効率よく教える技術の他に、学習者側の文化的背景も知る必要があると思います。学生たちが普段どのような形でコミュニケーションを取るのか、公の場ではどのように振舞うのが一般的なのかを理解することで、学習者として知っておいてほしい会話作法の紹介をバランスをとりながら導入していくことができると考えます。例えば、現在私はアメリカで日本語を教えています。こちらの学生は自分の考えを話すのがとても好きです。私はこの積極性を尊重し、学生が話せる機会をたくさん設けるように心がけています。そんな中で、日本社会には不可欠な「聞く力」を育てるべく、私の話や他生徒の発言をしっかり聞く活動も行っています。

三回に渡って、外国語教育とクラス内コミュニケーションにおける社会文化的理解の必要さについて書いて参りました。授業中の生徒との対話のあり方というのは、私が普段日本語を教えている時に一番気をつけていることです。同じく言語を教えていらっしゃるみなさんは、授業を行うときに、どんなことを大切に考えていらっしゃいますか？また、学習者のみなさんは、先生にどんなことを望みますか？

Read in Japanese

If you are a language teacher, have you ever recorded your class while you are teaching and analyzed the video? The results can be surprising and enlightening! I recorded my Japanese class once when teaching in the United States. The recording was for my final project in a course I was taking. As a first step, I watched the video and transcribed it. I still remember feeling nervous about watching myself teaching. There were many things that I didn’t notice while I was teaching: I misspelled some Japanese words on the blackboard, I misunderstood a student’s question and my voice became quieter when I had to speak in English. Analyzing your own teaching is a great way to identify your own shortcomings, and understand how and what your students have been learning from you. By analyzing my own recording, I learned that I was unconsciously introducing Japanese discourse manners to my class.  

In the last post, I made the claim that it is important for learners to experience socio-cultural standards of language in a classroom. I also mentioned that there are (but are not limited to) three preferred conversational styles in Japan. Do you remember them?

1. Ask for the listener’s agreement with one’s speech using “ne” (similar to “right?” in English)

2. Speak in relation to the previous speaker, showing that one’s comment is related to the previous speaker’s utterance

3. Nod frequently to show that one is actively listening to the speaker

As you may have realized, there is a common requirement for these manners: listening to the speaker attentively. It may sound like an easy thing to do, but we all know that it is not always easy to be an attentive listener. However, Japanese society values listening skills more than speaking. Thus, the ability to listen carefully is an indispensable skill to obtain by a sophisticated language user of Japanese.

When reviewing my recording, I noticed that I was showing the importance of attentive listening implicitly. I was performing those three mannerisms all the time when I was interacting with my students. Also, I was creating classroom situations in which all students need to listen to others’ presentations carefully. For example, I asked one student to present and then directly asked another student “what do you think of that?” before I gave my feedback to the original presenter. To give a comment to the presenter, all other students had to listen to what was said. One may wonder if implicitly introducing conversational manners is actually effective. My study had some positive results.

I also realized that the way I was teaching was very similar to how I had been taught in schools in Japan. Other than the observations I mentioned above, I witnessed more instances in which students listened rather than spoke in class, which is a normal scene in Japan. Thus, I was very surprised to learn from studies conducted by others that some students feel uncomfortable in foreign language classes that have a different interaction style from what they are used to. Perhaps some students in my class have been experiencing difficulties if I use the Japanese style of interaction? If so, this presents an interesting dilemma, which I will talk about next time. See you in 2 weeks!

Listening to music is one of the best ways to learn a language.  In the midst of conversation, you might hear part of a phrase you once heard in a song, and the tune in your head helps you complete it. But, what happens when a song is mistitled? That’s perhaps all the more reason to remember it!

Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki by Knightrdr

We are all familiar with Kyu Sakamoto’s hit song “Sukiyaki”, which topped the American billboard charts in 1963 and has been covered by countless musical artists since. The original Japanese title was 上を向いて歩こう(Ue o Muite Arukou), which literally means “I look up when I walk”. “Sukiyaki”, on the other hand, is actually a mouthwatering semi-sweet Japanese stew made of thinly sliced beef and vegetables and cooked in a cast-iron pot. Well, given the lonesome mood of the lyrics, I would have to say that a bowl of this satiating dish would be the ultimate comfort food (along with a cup of sake set aside!)… But, seriously, how did we get the name “Sukiyaki?” 

Long story “short” (you’ll see my point in a minute), the head of UK-based record label Pye got ahold of the song on a trip to Japan in 1962. With the intention of recording a new version, he decided that a shorter title was easier to pronounce -- and settled on “Sukiyaki”. Whether an intentionally smooth move or just an inconsiderate one, this new title took over in the English-speaking world and the song went on to sell 13 million copies! This is a fascinating fact that mingles with another interesting misrepresentation…

While “Sukiyaki” is no more synonymous with beef stew than the Cascades’ “Rhythm of the Rain” is with hamburgers, what we have come to know the song to mean may also be different from what lyricist Rokusuke Ei intended… Rumor has it that a disillusioned Ei wrote the song after attending a protest of the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States of America and Japan!

For our benefit, ignorance is bliss and the song is as memorable as the dish! It is beautiful, catchy and carries the sentiments of love and loss of all kinds. The simplicity and repetitiveness of the original lyrics also make this the perfect song for beginner learners of Japanese! Here’s a site that has turned “Sukiyaki” into a full flashcard-style lesson: Memrise.  Below, Glyph’s Education Lead, Nozomi Liao, also provides 3 short grammar lessons from the song!

What songs have helped you learn a foreign language?

Japanese Grammar Lessons from “Sukiyaki”:

• 歩こう <a ru k-o u>

Volitional Form of ‘to walk’: Verb stem + yo u/o u

Volitional form is used to express either one’s own voluntary decisions/thoughts or a casual invitation as “Let’s~”.

Examples:

お昼（ひる）ご飯（はん）を食（た）べよう。Let’s have lunch.

手紙（てがみ）を書（か）こう。Let’s write a letter.

一緒（いっしょ）にコーヒーを飲（の）もう。Let’s have coffee together.

• こぼれないように <ko bo re na i yo u ni>

Negative form of ‘to fall/spill/overflow ’ + ‘in order to’ = ‘in order not to~’

Negative form of a verb is structured with ‘preます (こぼれof こぼれます) followed by ない.

Examples:

忘（わす）れないように書（か）いておきます。I’ll write that down in order not to forget.

帽子（ぼうし）が飛（と）ばないように結（むす）んでおきます。I’ll tie the hat in order not to let it fly away.

• 泣きながら <na ki na ga ra>

Verb Preます  + ながら ‘while’ = while doing ~

ながら expresses two actions taking place simultaneously.

Examples:

音楽（おんがく）を聞（き）きながら掃除（そうじ）をします。I clean while listening to music.

テレビを観（み）ながら宿題（しゅくだい）をします。I do my homework while watching TV.

Read this post in Japanese

My career as a Japanese teacher began when I entered the United States. I was a graduate student, and was given an opportunity to teach Japanese classes at the university level. The class I taught first was Introductory Japanese, in which students started learning the pronunciation of each letter of the “Hiragana” alphabet, followed by intermediate classes.  I also tutored a very advanced-level class where students read and discussed Japanese newspaper articles. Through interacting with students of/at different levels, I realized that students whose Japanese sounded natural not only had plenty of Japanese language knowledge but also applied specific Japanese conversational styles, such as asking for the listener’s agreement to their speech using “ne” (similar to “right?” in English), speaking in relation to the previous speaker and frequently nodding to show they were listening to the speaker. When I was having conversations with those students, I felt as if I was speaking to people who grew up with Japanese. On the other hand, students who lacked those Japanese conversational techniques always reminded me that they were learners of Japanese, as the conversation with them was unnatural most of the time.  

Many studies have shown that those specific Japanese conversational manners were created because of social and cultural factors in Japan, such as being group-oriented and cooperatively minded. That is, experiencing these Japanese socio-cultural norms must be the foundation to understanding and acquiring preferred conversational patterns in Japanese.

I believe any language has its own communicational style.  If you have taught your native language in other countries, you may have noticed that conversational competence does not merely consist of language knowledge.  Teaching grammar and vocabulary is, of course, indispensable for learners to be able to use the language; however, we should not forget that introducing our socio-cultural norms is also an important and necessary element in language classes.   

The question is how do we teach it in class?

Have you studied a foreign language? Could you share your experiences of how you learned the socio-cultural standards of the language? Are you a foreign language teacher? How have you been teaching this to students?

Every experience provides a lesson… or two, or three. “The Giving Tree” is a book full of experiences and full of lessons. It is one of Shel Silverstein’s most well-known children’s stories and has been translated into over 30 languages. Needless to say, something about this story resonates with people the World over…

I own this book, and I have to admit that whenever my boys ask me to read it to them, I hesitate. The premise sounds harmless: it is a story about a boy and a tree. The tree is both a playground and a source of happiness for the boy, and he returns to it throughout his life. Here is where the experiences of the tree and the boy are open to interpretation.

Each time the boy returns to the tree, the tree is overjoyed to see him. On each occasion, he tells the tree that he needs something more to make him happy. Each time, the tree gives of herself, and the boy takes the offering and leaves for a longer and longer time.  As a young child, the boy’s needs are simple, and he is happy to swing from her branches and sleep in the shade she provides. As he grows older, his needs become more demanding and more complex: he needs money, and the tree gives him all her apples to sell; later he returns wishing to build a house in the hopes of one day having a wife and children… and the tree tells him to cut down all of her branches to build one; then he decides to sail away, and the tree offers her trunk to make a boat. The boy returns as an old man, when the tree has nothing to offer except a stump on which to sit – and so he does.

Is the emphasis on taking or on giving? Does the boy give back in any way? Does he take from the tree in selfishness, or does he merely accept her gifts?

A reader’s interpretation of the story in many ways plays upon the design of a tree: one’s own foundation is like the trunk, and the ideas and emotions triggered are like the branches that reach in different directions. Based on our own experiences, the reader subconsciously identifies more strongly with either the tree or the boy. If the tree, is it a connection to her feeling of happiness at seeing the boy, watching him grow, or in feeling useful? Is it a feeling of being taken advantage of? If the boy, does the reader relate to the idea of a secure place to come “home” to, or affection? Is it a desire to seize opportunity?  Is it a feeling of regret at having taken advantage?

The emotions and ideas in the story are universal: they trigger memories of childhood, of growing up, of security, of taking and giving, of fighting dependence, of learning to be independent, of forming an identity, of dealing with hardship and age… and if we are parents, of taking care of our children.

This leads me to answer my own question: Why am I so hesitant to read this book? If we are parents, the kind of parents we are determines how we relate to the tree – and I see myself in the tree. It is hard for me to accept that the tree gives without reciprocation or thanks from the boy. Perhaps that is my own selfishness coming out. I don’t know if the boy is expressing thanks by returning to the tree… or if he returns only to take again. My hope is that my own children will learn to give back, even if not to me. I wonder how they interpret this story.

The cycle of life in "The Giving Tree" resonates across cultures because the message seems to bend and change with the reader. What separates our perspectives are how we think things should be and how our experiences teach us they are. Does the tree exist for the purpose of providing resources for the boy or does the tree choose to give? Are resources limitless or do they need to be replaced? Can the tree continue to live as only a stump? Did the boy accidentally plant another tree when he ate one of the tree’s apples and threw the core? Do the money, the house and the boat allow the tree to live vicariously through the boy’s life experiences?

Since its first publication in 1964, the story and message behind Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” have been widely debated… and will continue to be. Silverstein figures among a prominent 3 in Pamela Paul’s 2011 New York Times article “The Children’s Authors Who Broke the Rules”: ‘“The Giving Tree” fell into a nebulous and unpromising noncategory between children’s book and adult literature… Yet “The Giving Tree” went on to sell 8.5 million copies. It was embraced by Christians as a parable of selflessness and has been denounced by feminists as a patriarchal fantasy in morality-tale clothing.” (I recently read of one fed-up mother who took a Sharpie® to the book to add words of thanks!) As for me, I prefer to keep philosophizing. Maybe the book will grow on me. As they get older, I’ll be curious to hear my boys’ opinions of the story…

What’s your take?

El Árbol Generoso

الشجرة المعطاءة 

Το δέντρο που έδινε

아낌없이주는나무

おおきな木

My mother never believed much in Western medicine. Through the years, she would accumulate cabinet upon cabinet of herbal medicines and mystery tinctures, moving them with us to new homes, until I would ask about them while cleaning.

I remember them as marvelous, dusty secrets...amber dropper bottles filled with clear liquids, plastic jugs with long, dried objects, mystery white pills, bags of rust-colored shards, teas, my mother's magic, remnants of ancient times.

I never understood her inability to throw things away, but now I understand it to be a habit of the faithful. We throw things away if we are sure we will never regret those losses. We discard people if we are sure we will never regret losing them. She may forget where she puts her wallet, but she never forgets a friend. I, on the other hand, have been learning how to discard things left and right. I am being reckless and selfish, relearning how to love people without self-destruction. I am not my mother. I tell myself that I am not ready for a million things.

Come here, she says, probably in the kitchen, holding a dropper bottle. Tells my 7-year-old self to open my mouth, explains that this would help keep me well. This one is a type of snake venom, she says... There is only a tiny bit of poison in here...a small amount of poison is a medicine. Makes you stronger. Notice how it tastes nhẩn nhẩn.

Nhẩn nhẩn. Not to be confused with the single occurrence of "nhẫn", which has a different accent above the "â" character. Nhẫn is a ring, for your finger, or it is the root word for "patience".

There is no English word that describes the flavor of nhẩn nhẩn, always spoken as two words, with an emphasis on the second. This Vietnamese term does not appear in dictionaries. There are words we only know exist because they materialize very briefly in our mouths, we eject them into reality, and they dissolve into the air when spent. We only know that these words exist because we create them among witnesses. If a word is uttered in the forest...

This flavor is not salty, sweet, nor sour. It is also not quite bitter... Bitter is what describes bitter melon (khổ qua), India Pale Ale, and coffee, experiences bold enough to be spectacularly memorable or desirable. With nhẩn nhẩn, there is a slight alcohol taste and what seems like a sparkle of electricity. To call it a "medicinal" taste is closer but still not quite it.

I used to wonder if our memories were tied to our abilities to talk about them, whether the lack of vocabulary to talk about phenomena would render us unable to recall them. I am realizing that our capacity for memory is actually tied to our capacity for emotional attachment.

Nhẩn nhẩn, after all, is so subtle and wordless and I shouldn't be able to remember it at all. And I forget what the experience is truly like until I experience it again, and my taste buds ("taste bugs", according to the young daughter of our new analyst) would say, "Hmmm. This. I remember this."

But that is all that my "taste bugs" can manage to say. I do remember this. I remember what my mother used to say. I remember her dark cabinets with secret potions, and the fact that a little bit of poison would keep me well. I remember these as discrete moments, and then never again, until the next one arrives.

One of our favorite things to talk about at the lunch table is our fear of the undead, whether this means zombie invasions or haunted houses. Undead things give us the creeps but we talk about them anyway, the way people can't avoid looking at an accident scene when they drive past. 

As some of us Glyphers have recently moved to new homes, especially new houses, we've also talked about the ways we're supposed to bless a house to prevent unwanted spirit occupation or encourage all-around good energy.

Do you bless homes in your culture? Are there house-related superstitions in your culture?