The way we see things

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!

英語で読む

突然ですが、教師をなさっている方で、ご自分のクラスを録画してご覧になったことがある方はいらっしゃいますか。私は一度だけあります。大学院のあるクラスで、自分がクラスを教えている様子を分析するという課題が出されました。当時、私はアメリカの大学で日本語を教えていたので、その様子をビデオに収めることにしました。その後で、そのビデオを何度も観ながら書き起こしをしたのですが、とても恥ずかしい気持ちになったのを今でもよく覚えています。板書を間違えていたり、生徒の質問を聞き間違えていたり、英語を使う時は声が小さくなっているなど、実際に教えていた時は気づかなかったことがたくさん見つかりました。そして、私は自分が無意識のうちに、どのように日本の会話作法を生徒に紹介していたかを知ることができました。

前回の記事にも書きましたが、みなさんは会話をする時に、話の結びに「ね」をつけて聞き手の同意を求めたり、発話時に前話者と自分の話に関連をもたせたり、相槌をうちながら話を聞くことを知らず知らずのうちに行っていらっしゃいませんか。これら三つの行動に共通している特徴は、聞き手が話し手によく耳を傾けているということです。「聞く」ことを重視する日本社会で育つうちに、自然と身についたマナーなのだと思います。

話を戻しますが、そのビデオの中で、私は生徒と会話をしている時に何度もこれらの会話作法を行っていました。また質疑応答の時には、一人の生徒に発言させた後に他の生徒にその発言内容についての意見を求めるという流れを通し、一人の生徒の発言をクラス全体が聞いていなければならないという状況を作っていました。この他にも、生徒に「聞く」活動を促している様子がいくつかみられました。

私達が学生だった頃を思い返してみて下さい。クラスでは、積極的に「話す」というより「聞く」ことが多かったように思いませんか。主に先生が話をして、生徒は静かに聞いていて、名前を呼ばれた時だけ発言するというのが主な流れだった気がします。私は、気づかないうちに自分が経験してきた授業の形態を自分の授業に組み込んでいたのだと気がつきました。更に、この発見は私にあるジレンマをもたらし、授業の進め方についてもう一度深く考えるきっかけになったのです。次回はそのことについて書きたいと思います。

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 English

２００８年、アメリカに来てすぐに、大学で日本語教育に携わることになりました。日本語を習い始めて間もない学生から、日本の新聞記事を読んで理解し議論できる程の学生まで、様々なレベルの学生と接した中で、気がついたことがあります。それは、本当に日本語が上手な学生というのは、言語的知識が十分なだけではなく、日本特有の会話方法を身につけていたということです。話の結びに「ね」をつけて聞き手に同意を求めたり、発話時に前話者の話と自分の話に関連をもたせたり、相槌をうちながら話を聞くことをしていました。逆に、このような日本らしい会話作法を欠いた学生と話す時は、文法や表現は正しいのに、どこか不自然な印象を受けたのを覚えています。

他国で日本語を教えたことのある方は、同じような経験をなさったことがあるのではないでしょうか。上に紹介したような日本独特な会話のマナーというのは、集団意識を持ち、協調性を重視する日本の文化・社会性が基になっているそうです。これらを理解せずには、いくら正確に日本語を使うことができても、会話を上達させることは難しいでしょう。要するに、日本語教育に求められているのは、日本語の文法や単語を教え、文章を理解できるようにしたり、自分の考えを日本語で発言できるようにすることだけではないと思うのです。日本の文化・社会的側面も積極的に授業に取り入れなければならないと思っています。

さて、みなさんが外国語を学んだ時は、その言語が話されている国の文化や社会性をどのようにして学びましたか？また、日本語教師のみなさんは、今までどのようにして日本の文化・社会的要素を学生に伝えてきましたか？

次回は、どのように授業に取り入れたら良いかということについて書きたいと思います。

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

Have you studied or acquired a foreign language? What was your motivation? I decided to ask my fellow Glyphers what has motivated them.

At Glyph, you might assume that since the art of foreign language communication is our business, that we are all natural language learners. The truth is that we are no different than anyone else. Rather, we have each tapped into sources of motivation that keep us interested in learning languages while we work with them. (Did you know that Glyph currently offers free Japanese and Spanish classes to our employees?)

Many of us at Glyph speak languages other than English as our mother tongue, and at some point all of us have ventured beyond our comfort zone to learn to communicate in someone else’s. Among the team members polled, most have studied multiple languages in addition to their native tongue(s). Native languages include English, Japanese, Romanian, Spanish and Chinese. Second languages studied or acquired include Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Malayalam, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Saramaccan, Spanish, and Sranan Tongo.

Along with the multiple languages studied or acquired by Glyphers, multiple reasons were given as motivation. Interestingly, I found that each person’s motivation for learning a particular language differed depending on the language; and motivations were likely to be tied to circumstances. For example, most of the reasons given for learning a foreign language are extrinsic and imminent: the need to communicate with family or a love interest, or as a requirement to work or live in a particular country, society or political territory. While intrinsic factors such as cultural curiosity or the thrill of a fun challenge don’t play as big a role as extrinsic factors in the initial impetus to learn another language, they pop up along the learner’s path to provide points of interest.

Which languages have Glyph employees been the most motivated to learn? Spanish tops the list at 43%, while French, German and Japanese are tied at 21%. What are the top intrinsic motivations for learning them? For Spanish, it’s fun, curiosity and feeling good about successfully communicating; for French, it’s familiarity and the desire to learn an elegant language; for German, it’s fun, and interest in German society and the complexity of the language;  and for Japanese, it’s curiosity about the culture, history and people.

Motivation is just part of the equation. What techniques work best for you when trying to learn a foreign language? 

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.

A while back, a Glyph friend and I wrote to each other about hyphens and their proper usage. Two-hyphen terms are sensible enough – you add a hyphen when you're turning a two-word phrase into an adjective that precedes its noun: long-term investment, full-time employment, slow-cooked meal...

You can also have an investment for the long term, or an employee who works full time, or a poorly assembled machine that needs no hyphen because the word "poorly" is an adverb describing "assembled", not "machine". 

Then there are the obvious three-worders: analog-to-digital converter and step-by-step process.

Others aren't so clear... I'm second-guessing my addition of a second hyphen in the term "late-19th-century", even when used as an adjective preceding a noun.

How do you handle that one? Do you like hyphens? Do you overuse them?

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?