葛西臨海公園の一日

Issues in ELT in Japan-Syllabus

SE: Issues in English Education in Japan

Mark Christianson, ILC-273, (0422) 33-3497, markc@icu.ac.jp, Email for appointments

Why do all Japanese students have to study English? Why not Chinese? Do you feel it is reasonable to start English language classes in Japanese elementary schools? Why not start in college? Also, why do many Japanese students who study English intensively for several years still feel a lack of confidence in their ability? What are some of the main difficulties that Japanese learners of English face? What is MEXT’s policy of English language education in the first place? How should Japanese society perceive the role of English as a foreign language and what actions should educators and government leaders take in the next decades?

The goal of the course will be for you to develop your ideas regarding the above issues based on reading various viewpoints and analyzing the various arguments. The class will include discussions and debates, a reading journal, opinion essays, and a final presentation. The ultimate, most important goal is the development of your ability to use English for academic communication in speaking and writing. For each issue, we will try to have a cycle of Read, Discuss, Research, Write, Debate, Reflect.

Date	Homework Due	Class Activities (Can change by mutual agreement)
1. 9/9 W	Welcome!	Intro, ice-breaking, brainstorm topics of interest
2. 9/14 M	Moodle No.1	Your personal "Issues of English Education in Japan"
3. 9/16 W	RJ No.1	Issue 1: Is Japan’s English education a failure?
4. 9/21 M	Moodle No.2	Issue 1: Debate Skill Basics, Preparation
*9/23 W	Holiday
5. 9/28 M	Debate Prep	Issue 1: Debate Day
6. 9/30 W	RJ No.2	Issue 2: Should English education start from 1st grade?
7. 10/5 M	Debate Prep	Issue 2: Debate Preparation
8. 10/7 W	Opinion No.2	Issue 2: Debate Day
9. 10/12 M	RJ-Reflection	Mid-term reflection, make presentation groups
10. 10/14 W	Research	Group Work Day
11. 10/19 M	RJ No. 3	Issue 3: How should Japan’s language policy be changed? (tbd)
12. 10/21 W	Debate Prep	Issue 3: Debate Preparation
13. 10/26 M	Opinion No.3	Issue 3: Debate Day
14.10/28 W	Group Outline	Group Work Day
*11/2	Holiday
15. 11/4 W	Visual Aids	Rehearsal tutorials with Mark (11/4 or other day)
16. 11/9 M	Practice!	Presentation Day
17. 11/11 W	Final Reflection	Presentation Day, Final Summary

Participation 20%, Moodle Tasks/Writing 30%, Presentation 30%, Reading Journal 20%

Basically, A Excellent= 91%+, B Good=81%+, C Satisfactory=70%+, D=60%+, E=59% or less, but final grades will follow the criteria given in the ELP Student Handbook p.11-13.

---

Key Assignments

Participation 20%

Participation means how well you attended and participated in classes, on time, with sufficient preparation. Here are some guidelines for penalities related to participation:

Absent with no explanation = -2% per class

Absent with explanation = -1% (If you have a good reason, it may be no penalty, too.)

Late with no good reason such as official train delay = -1% per class

Not prepared or not actively participating in class = -1% per class

Moodle Tasks/Writing 30%

We will also have a class website on Moodle, you will be evaluated on how well-written your opinions or ideas were and also how well you responded to your classmates’s ideas. Each week, your teacher will give you specific instructions for Moodle, and most tasks will be to write your opinion and reasons prior to the debates or discussions, and to write comments to your classmates ideas. Some guidelines will be:

Submitted/Essay Moodle posting is late, short, or unclearly written with many mistakes = -1%

Did not write any reactions to other students’ Moodle opinions = -1%

Final Group Presentation (30%)

The class will be divided into four groups, and each group will make a presentation of 20-30 minutes on a topic of your choice. Each person must speak for at least 3~4 minutes. A detailed outline or the presentation and PowerPoint slides must be submitted by the group in advance. Each person will be graded by individual performance and also the contribution to the group effort. We will make groups around the beginning of October.

Reading Reaction Journal (20%)

Each of you must submit a Reading Reaction Journal on designated dates during the term. Your Reading Reaction Journal should be a well-organized record of your reading notes, questions, reactions, vocabulary learning, and other learning in this course. Also, if you prefer to do an "e-Journal" using a blog or other format, that is also welcome, but you will need to print it to bring it to class to use for discussions.

Each Journal entry will be evaluated as Excellent 4pts(wow! beyond criteria) , Good 3pts(=meeting all criteria well) , Mostly Good 2pts (meeting most criteria), or Need to do more! 1pt.

I'll give more details on each assignment step by step, so please ask me about any unclear points.

Reflection on my 2009 sophomore seminar: English Education Issues in Japan

This was my 3rd time to teach this and I felt that everything ran smoothly.
Syllabus and Moodle Site

As usual, I had 20 motivated "education" type students who seem to be interested English education as a future career or research area. The atmosphere of the class was very nice, especially in relation to the three debates we did with the cycle of 1) read an article and take notes on it to prepare for discussion, 2) discuss it and develop a debate question from it such as "Should English be taught from first grade in all schools in Japan?", 3) brainstorm for or against arguments (claim, evidence, assumptions/weaknesses) on a wiki, 4) choose a side and write an opinion essay, and 5) debate the issue. The presentations were mostly very good quality too. I think the students stimulated each other very well.

So...how could this class be better?

• In the read-think-write-debate cycle, some things that are still weak are 1) when they got to the debate, some students felt they still did not have enough knowledge about the topic to debate it well. I could dismiss these comments as their enculturated intolerance for ambiguity--this is no way you are going to ever know everything about a topic, so just debate with what you know!--or their lack of preparation, but I want to thing of ways to help them feel more ready, perhaps by giving a short lecture about the background of the issue and summarize some of the pro/con arguments they should consider. Give more background sources too.
  
• Give readings at least a week in advance.
• More interaction on Moodle? The exchange of ideas seemed limited to me. Perhaps do opinion essay peer reviews in addition to the self-evaluation?
  
• More time for group presentations. Why not let one group have a whole period? The drawback would be less time for teacher suggested topics, but I would have more time to work with the groups to prepare a good presentation and they could do a lengthier discussion or Q&A too. Perhaps the groups could even choose a reading for their classmates?
• Why not make the presentations into a photo essay or movie project? Ask the group to get footage of an English education situation and then explain issues and facilitate a discussion. Also, teach better principles of presentation design, and work together with groups to make the content persuasive.
• Have a "solo" presentation option for a person who does not want to do group work?
• Give a "problem/solution" framework as a guideline?
• 
  

Reflecting on AASP Autumn 2009

This was my second time to teach AASP Autumn (See course blog):

It is strange how sometimes the second time you teach something, you don't feel as good about it, possibly because you have more presence of mind to observe what students are reacting to, and as a result tend to notice difficulties with the curriculum. Or is it because you have higher expectations that it will be better now that it is your second time? Or because the first time is more intuitive and by the seat of my pants rather than planned?

The course went OK...and course evaluations that are coming in seem to show fairly high student satisfaction overall in terms of usefulness and enjoyability and many comment that they increased their confidence for presenting in English in front of an audience. All other instructors went along more or less with the syllabus I piloted last year as coordinator and continued this year, and the satisfaction their classes seems good too.

Basically, in just 8 classes, we teach students the basics of creating an English group presentation and have them present for 15 minutes as a group of 3 or 4 students. Along the way, students record a 1 minute presentation on video for seeing their habits as a public speaker and self-analyze. Then after they do the group presentation, they watch and analyze that as well. It is quite intensive to do a research-based group presentation in just 6 classes when most have never done English presentations before.

1. What went well?

• Compared to last year, the final presentations were more organized and polished. This is probably due to the changes in scheduling--making groups and getting them started right away on the first day, and in supporting students by giving a sample research question and thesis template rather than let the group choose any topic at all.
  
• All students in my classes made their final presentations except for one who was absent due to family funeral--she made up her presentation by recording on a separate date.
• The topics focused on introducing Japanese culture and JLP students came to two of the presentation periods. I was hoping for people to come in more periods, but am happy we got those. I have them on video and can "threaten" my students they need to prepare well next year.
• The self-assessment system worked mostly well, although I disliked replying to all 40 students by email. The advantage of email is a quicker exchange and the text is more permanent for grading/research purposes, but writing short comments on paper may be faster for the teacher. Ideally, students would reflect and exchange comments with peers and instructor using a blog or other portfolio.
• Making groups randomly by lottery on the first day mostly worked. Only two or three groups out of ten in my class had difficulty with teamwork for reasons such as mis-communication about the topic or members who did not really understand or care about what was going on. That will always happen to some extent--I think it builds character among the other members when one member is causing trouble, so it probably good as an educational experience.
  

2. What needs to be better?

• Students feel that getting together to plan, organize and rehearse their presentations as a group is too difficult even using tools such as Google Presentations. So perhaps we should consider simplifying the project further? Group projects always have that element of outside class scheduling and interpersonal difficulties, so if we keep the group projects we will always have to live with that. Going to individual presentations would simplify things a lot...but I don't think so. I think we should live with the complexities despite how stressful they can be for students and instructors.
• The project can be simplified further: Instead of a presentation that uses sources to support a thesis, maybe we could have students argue for an opinion related to their education such as how to change ICU.
  
• The 1 minute presentation could be argumentative...some opinion about how ICU should be changed. The opinion need only include evidence from personal observation. The "My favorite ___" topic could be used for the first class, but not for all classes? We want them to be practicing academic speaking that is persuasive.
• 1 min = How could ICU be changed? -> Group 2~3 students work together to argue a certain need for change in more detail. Sounds interesting. Get them used to Problem-Causes-Solution type analysis to prepare for Winter Project.
• More sample phrases and sample presentations -- I had some on the website, but could not fit them in.
  
• Mini-lessons on PowerPoint online relating to different presentation skills - make those part of a database of presentation skills and phrases that all ICU students can refer to. Link from W3 ELP or the Self-Access Study Center or Critical Literacy Center in the future.
• Use the website more? Students did not seem to know how to use it. Perhaps a Ning is better?
  

How was my ICU ARW course, Autumn Term 2009?

Grades were turned in Monday, and it is time to reflect once again...

Need to start a label called Teaching Reflections so I can find these easily and refresh my memory before I teach the same course again.

Academic Reading and Writing, Autumn Term Program A Level in the ELP at ICU
(Click for Syllabus/Schedule)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Overall:
It was an enjoyable term. I was lucky to have two very diligent and cooperative groups of 17 students (Thanks sections AB and AI!). Participation and performance were very good, with only one struggling student in each class. The Autumn term syllabus at ICU is overstuffed with difficult required readings and is always the most difficult of the three terms spring/autumn/winter for us to teach. However, this year was definitely the most enjoyable of the past four attempts. To some extent, I was able to get through everything and still feel like I've helped my students with the reading and writing skills.

Priorities for Improvement:

1) Reduce the required reading: Almost all teachers are agreed on this and it is high time to do something about it. We've taught the same six readings for the past four years and have complained about how it is too much, but have not made the changes due to reluctance to mess with the syllabus and test questions. It is scary how the years roll by without making needed changes. Once the term is over, it is easy to forget about it until just before the term next year, and by then it is too late to make changes and we fall back on the old system. For my first two times teaching the curriculum, I considered myself and new teacher and felt I just need to get better at approaching the requirement, so I didn't say anything. Last

Solution: The immediate solution seems to be to cut two readings (or parts of them at least) in an informal way by taking them off the test. That should work. Teachers who want to cover parts of them can, while other teachers can ignore them.

Benefits: That will open up time for doing more meaningful learning such as other more up-to-date readings, student generated discussions, or explanations for essay writing techniques. Need to make sure this happens.

Drawbacks? Not really: We want to give students significant amounts of reading to help them get used to doing college level work in English, so reducing the amount of reading detracts from this. However, we really don't have enough class time to do justice to such difficult readings at the Prog. A (TOEFL 400-450) level. We really don't. Currently I can spend only two class periods talking about a reading like this: " Race Without Color" by Jared Diamond, Discover Magazine 1994. It is a lot to take in, and with weaker readers, time is needed to help them confirm their understanding before we can work on higher order reading skills such as pointing out the relatively weak points in his argument. The "make them get used to extensive academic reading by throwing large difficult chunks at them at high speeds" approach only works with a minority of students above a certain level of reading ability. For formative development of active and confident readers, the current syllabus seems detrimental. We need to change it.

2) Help students improve use of sources in academic writing: I noticed in the 2nd essays that my students submitted that citations of sources were still quite weak. We went over what is important--using a variety of good quality sources, integrating them, citing them in the text and the Works Cited (we use MLA style), and some students got it. However, in the rush at the end of the term, many of the essays were unpolished, and the use of sources was very rough. I was shocked when a few never cited any sources in their essays at all in spite of all of the reminders and conferences and checklists. What else can I do?

Solution: One improvement would be to make sure students have fairly developed "best effort" drafts when they meet the draft deadline and come to conference about their writing. For the 1st essay, many had good drafts and led to good final essays after discussing points for possible revision. For the 2nd essay, many did not really have a clear direction for their essay and just had some brainstorming with little reflection of research. That has to be changed somehow. I have to be stricter about the quality of the draft--possibly by imposing a grade related to completeness?? However, I noticed that the "grade for draft completeness" hurts the struggling students in an unfair way...so perhaps a better solution is to make the final essay deadline earlier and then pull it back suddenly to give them an unexpected pocket of time to check and polish things up.

Having some kind of visual online tutorial would be nice too...another thing we have talked about but never executed. For use of sources, perhaps the library could work with us to create a stronger tutorial? Or could we find or create something in Japanese that would deepen our students fundamental understanding of documentation in essays and point out common misperceptions. There may also be differences in the Japanese academic tradition for using sources that may be fueling misunderstandings in some of our students.

And of course, we need to provide our students with good samples of documentated academic documents that they can analyze to see how documentation helps (or fails to help) with the argument.

------------
So...if I can achieve those two changes above, I think I'll be happy next year.

Other Small Things-Before I forget:

1. Ask students more details in an online survey--goals, courses they are taking, how far away they live from campus, what they had difficulty with in the previous term in terms of reading/writing, what type of entrance exam they took to get into ICU--this makes a difference in what they studied before entering.
2. Make the 1st essay worth less than the 2nd to emphasize improvement. Also, possibly simplifying the first essay somehow to allow more focus on conventions and techniques rather than quality of research.
3. Grade more harshly on the quality of self-evaluations--if a student writes a weak essay, they should take five minutes (possibly after submission--Hmm) and explain which part is weak and why. Reading one's final essay and critiquing it is very important, in addition to peer critique and teacher feedback.
4. Do a weekly "reaction journal" online to allow opinion exchange on Moodle or other forum such as students' own blogs. Another teacher Jim seemed to have very good discussions going with that format.
5. Give students more information about how to prepare for a writing conference and how the conference will flow for maximum effective use of those 15 minutes.
   
6. The reading worksheets--make general guidelines so that the directions don't have to be repeated--....don't collect them every class--make it once per week or so--try checking as students discuss? Or, just change it to an online posting--don't make all students have to prepare everything--split the work on a class wiki. Also, focus more on critical reactions and opinions than the factual points--I meant to make this change, but didn't and regretted it! Try more of a P&D system like Choskins is doing.
   
7. Help students speak up more in class -- say that I will give points for people who volunteer ideas in class or do a good job when they report on the discussion to the class.
8. Say I expect them to be chatting in English when they come to the classroom--Sylvan's idea. Tell them what I expect an excellent student to be.
9. Grading--Give a clearer chart of what is expected for 100 points?
10. Try to integrate some kind of group project? One group in charge of each reading---they do especially intensive work for helping their classmates understand it? Leading discussions, developing study materials etc.
11. Publishing--how can essays be meaningfully communicated to people outside of the classroom?
12. More creativity and initiative in general--finding the enjoyment of developing their own ideas and sharing them with people. Teach how to integrate images into essays well.

A lot of these ideas will carry over into Winter Term starting the week after...Take it step by step!

Mark

How's It Going? Chp. 7 Making an environment for independent writers

皆さんこんにちは。

私は実際にWorkshopを運営していたり運営したことがあるというわけではないのでこのような実用的なチャプターの内容はまだ自分にとって現実味がないものです。

しかし、「今後WWをやるときの参考」だけではなく、どんな授業にも大切だなと思わされることもたくさんありました。

☆Envision the environment:　p.172 (from Seeman) "Environments push us into specific psychological sets..."

教室のセット・アップは大切。これは大学でもそうだと思います。今学期はOfflineMeetingを行った丸机のWired Groupwork　Roomをほとんどの授業で活用したのですが、従来の教室よりもCollaborationという雰囲気が出やすいと感じています。

しかしIndependent WritingやReadingをしてもらう場合はまた違ったSetupが必用なのでしょう。Andersonのように教室の中にQuiet Zone, Peer conference zoneなどを作ると有効でしょう。大学や高校でもしWorkshopを流行らすならば「この部屋はWorkshopのためにある！」という教室を作って もらうのが最強かも知れませんね。神田外語大学のSelf-Access Learning Center (Link)みたいな感じになるでしょうか。

☆Teaching Independence/asking diagnostic questions: 実は今長男６歳のMichaelとWriting Workshop的なことをやろうとして苦戦しています。日本ではまだ幼稚園年長ですが、アメリカでは９月から一年生になったので英語のWritingを 少しづつ教えようとしています～昨年単語レベルから初めて今ではその気になれば１００語ぐらいの日記やお話を書くのですが、自立・自律してやる気にはまだ なってくれません。そういう意味ではfinding topics/starting/spelling/developing/getting unstuckのアイデアは全て重要ですし、Are students invested in the writing?のところで自分の息子をどう刺激しようかと考えさせられました。

はやり何よりも「書いて人に見せたらリアクションがもらえた」というPublishingの喜びを味わってもらうことが必用だなと思いました。

「自分の書 いているところを見せる」というWriterとしての模範ももっと見せたいなと思いました。Make Plans and Set goals－Write to deadlines, Write to the Xも使えそうです。

The Giverの新しい和訳が出ました！

http://thegiverisreborn.blogspot.com/

日本語の新訳が完成し、予約数が十分あれば再出版されることになったようです。
☆新訳のサンプルはここです。

英語のオリジナル版The Giverしか読んだことありませんが、私の大好きな短編小説です。何度読んでも感動し人間社会の構造と個人の欲求や感情の関係について考えさせられます。

中学・高校・大学の学生だけでなく日本人の大人全員に一読をお薦めしたい哲学的なフィクションなので、是非上記のリンクからアクセスして購入の予約や協力者としての申し出をしてみてください。

Lois Lowryが作り出す「Sameness」の異質なSF世界は日本の社会を考える上でとても面白い材料だと思います。中高生が国語・社会・倫理の時間に読んでDiscussionするのも良いでしょうし、大学生や社会人が教養のために読むのも大事だと思います。全国の図書館に是非置いて欲しいです。

Hope you will have a chance to read it! A movie seems to be in production for release in 2011.

Mark

Links:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/ザ・ギバー―記憶を伝える者-ユースセレクション-ロイス・ローリー/
http://www.amazon.com/Giver-Lois-Lowry/
http://www.shmoop.com/the-giver/