Is It That Important to Be Right in Class?
Our beginner Japanese 1.1 class just finished this week at the TN Language Center. This term I was…blessed?...with having two minors in the class, an 11-year old (normally we have an age limit of 15 at the Center, but his registration slipped by) and a 15-year old, both boys. Each term I’ll normally have at least one high schooler or older middle schooler in the class. And especially during the school year, the challenges of having “real school” classes, homework, and tests in addition to my Japanese class at the Center can be a bit overwhelming.
But this term with two public school students in my class I noticed some interesting study habits that I believe reflect the values of public education and how those differ from a class like ours where students are there to learn Japanese for the sake of learning it, not for a grade. Recently I’ve posted a lot of articles on my Facebook page about how Japan is trying to revamp its education system, especially in elementary schools, to get away from rote memorization and focus more on teaching students creative problem solving. Which is great. The rote education system in Japan often comes under criticism. Especially when the educational values of new JET Program English teachers, charged with teaching their students to communicate, clashes with the Japanese Teachers of English (JTE) who must get their students to memorize prescribed lists of English vocabulary and grammar to pass high school and university entrance exams.
But can the American education system really claim it’s so much better than Japan for not teaching rote memorization? My recent experience with my two minor students this term makes me question so. I have seen in my own class how these boys have prioritized giving the correct answer first and completing tasks as quickly as possible at the expense of them actually retaining the material.
For example, when we drill our hiragana chart in class, I have the chart projected on the white board and play a track that with a Japanese native speaker saying each character: あ、い、う、え、お and so on. After multiple times drilling the chart, students are accustomed to the pace and know to the say the character at the same time as the track. But my 15-year old was always trying to say the character before the track. My belief is that in his subconscious, he believes that saying the sound before the track proves he’s smart, that he knows it, and that proving he knows it is what earns him points. To his own embarrassment, he was often wrong and mispronounced the character in a very noticeable manner before the track. My observation throughout the class was that he struggled to read hiragana in reading exercises and was not retaining any connection between symbol and sound during the drills. Was his focus on trying to be first and right actually distract him from learning what he was supposed to?
Those who know my teaching philosophy know I refuse to use romaji (Japanese represented phonetically in the Roman alphabet) in my class. I make my students learn to read hiragana. I pass out writing worksheets and we will practice writing and saying characters out loud as many times as it takes for students to remember them. Let’s say the worksheet has about 20 boxes for students to practice the stroke order. If a student can write it 5 times and memorize the character, then that’s fine with me. If they need to write it 20 times, that’s fine too. The goal is to learn the character. But my 11-year old would fill up all 20 boxes as fast as he could, then run doodle on the board or goof around in class. I had to implement a seating chart and legit classroom management techniques for the first time since I was an English teacher in Japan.
But I don’t necessarily blame the student. It was almost like I could see what he was thinking: “Teacher said to write the character. I wrote the character as many times as the worksheet allowed. Now I can go play.”
I think this shows that in the public school, he has been trained just to complete the task given by the teacher that’s right in front of him. By doing so, you don’t get in trouble, you’ll get a passing grade, and if you finish early, you get to play or talk with friends. But now this makes my job difficult because I don’t think the student knows what it’s like to learn just to learn. So how does a teacher teach learning itself to their students outside of rote tasks to be completed in the classroom for a grade? I’m legitimately asking because I don’t think I figured it out this term. And I don’t think teenagers will listen to me when I try to just tell them.
So with that said, if you would like to truly learn Japanese for any reason, even just for the sake of learning it, then I truly want to teach you. Registration is open for both a summer intensive and weekly summer group classes. And you can always download my app Hiragana Breaker for iOS or Android for free and begin the crucial first step of learning hiragana on your own.