Pray for Japan.

This is what I did and what I believe I can do for Japanese people after the earthquake and the tsunami on 3.11.

As a Japanese, I appreciate all of the warm heartedness from the people all over the world.

Hope you a Happy New Year :)

Pray for Japan from America (original)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScoU3p7lobE&feature=context&context=G203a8b6AUAAAAAAAAAA

Pray for Japan from America (English subtitle):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3m5Il5wcBg&feature=context&context=G203a8b6AUAAAAAAAAAA

Pray for Japan from America（日本語字幕）

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_yJF65XBzU&feature=g-upl&context=G203a8b6AUAAAAAAAAAA

Presentation at Three Rivers TESOL Conference

Today, I had a presentation in Three Rivers TESOL Conference at Pittsburgh, PA.

This was my first time to have presentation in a conference, so I was very worried about it, but thanks to all of my friends who supported me, and the participants in my presentation, I was able to manage this very challenging event.


Here's my slides.

I explained the problems which assistant language teachers (ALTs) in Japan are facing in their English classroom.

Second, considering these problems, I conducted an experimental research about the influence of conversation within authentic context, with the hope that having conversation with students can be one possible role for ALTs outside of the classroom.

Thirdly, I connected the results of the research to sociocognitive and sociocultural perspectives, to have possible implications for the future development of EFL/ESL classroom.

Where the life is gonna go. -1-

This is something not directly related to English education, but is something which will be more important when we involve in "teaching", so I post it here.

I decided to interview 100 people about what they think is the most important thing in life during my stay in America, and here's the story of my first interview.

~ ~ ~

I had my first interview of life with my friend and my conversation partner. He friendlily shared his story as well as his thought on the questions I asked him.

He studies International studies as his major in university, as well as Anthropology and Religious studies as his minor (he’s a double minor student). He is also interested in Asian studies. When I asked my first question, why he’s interested in these areas, he answered,

“Because I’m interested in the way people lived in the ancient times and how their ways influence our life today.”

I got interested in why he is interested in people and their way of living. I knew I was going to ask him a lot of “why” questions. He took a couple of seconds to think and said,

“It’s related to my half Lebanese background.”

Here came new information about him. I didn’t know that he has this background! He smiled and started to tell me his family’s story.

“My mom and my grandma cooked many ethnic dishes from there. We sometimes had family gathering with neighbors and had simultaneous dancing competition with Arabic music. Also, when I was little, my grandma told me a lot of Lebanese stories. Those stories made me interested in Lebanese culture and life there, and after that, I found it very interesting to learn and know different cultures even from areas which you don’t know where it is.”

He told me that he was tried to send his grandmother to Lebanon twice, because he intuitively recognized that it is very important to visit one’s genetic home. He, himself also wants to visit Lebanon, because that place is wired to his gene. He, then, told me that culture and history are strongly related with each other. He shared some stories which describe how strong culture oppressed, dominated and pushed out minor culture in history. That was very interesting, to tell the truth. I always like listening to stories from people who know better than me.

After the historical story, I asked him how he is going to connect his background and his study to the future. He told me about three things he wanted to do in the future. First one was Arabic translator, but he admitted that he felt it very tough to learn Arabic when he started, and gave up the first one. The second one was to work as a study abroad supporter. This was based on his own experience when he studied abroad in Spain.

The woman in the international office who was in charge of me was very nice. But, she didn’t contact me, and actually all the other students who were studying abroad at that time, even though she said she would do before we had left. I know people face culture shock and all the other difficulties when they go abroad, so I want to support them, and I will definitely contact them while they are there to help them with their problems.

After he told me the story, he stopped talking for a couple of seconds, and then, he started to talk about the third thing he wants to do.

And, actually, I want to be a massage provider. I want to provide people with holistic healing.

It reminded me of one martial art which I do, so I talked about it for a while. After that, I asked him a holistic question which is an important question in my interview: with a whole picture of your life from the past to the future, what are the important things for you? His answer reflected his character and background.

I think one thing which is very important for me is to do something good. For everybody. I want to be a study abroad supporter because I want to help people who suffer in cultural difference. I want to be a massager to heal people who need it. I want to help people, and have good influence on them.

I asked him another which I thought was realistic: what do you if you find that what you can do to help people is very limited, such as helping people in poverty in the world. You can’t help all of them, right? His answer was something I didn’t expected and therefore, very interesting.

From my philosophical view, what I can do is to hope. We have a very short time to exist in the world, but I believe everything is connected to where the world is gonna go. Even though I can’t have direct influence, hoping will connect to those people in some way.

This was enlightening for me, because I had never thought that even hoping will connect in some way. This was truly an eye-opener for me. He added one more important thing in his life.

Also, I believe that ideal will help. If you have something strong in your mind, it will help you when you face difficulties.

I thought his study about Socrates might have had influenced him to reach this answer. I don’t know. But in any cases, it is a very nice comment which I don’t think I can get from many people.

Finally, I asked him the question which is the purpose of my interview. What is the most important thing in life? He smiled and answered,

I think the most important thing in life is having an ideal. Having something to stand by. At the same time, once you get the ideal, it is very important to be open to other ideas. People think differently, and the conceptual thoughts differ. It is possible and probable that your ideal or belief is different from those of other people’s. In that case, you cannot neglect or discard the other ideas. You have to stay open to them.

Have ideal and be open to other ideas. Those are the most important things in life.

Article Summary 2: World Englishes and English as a Lingua franca

I read this article “Current Perspectives on Teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca”  by Jenkins (2006) in order to present the idea of this article in class. This article provides us with varieties of views on World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca, and I enjoyed reading it, so I put it here just to share with more people.

Summary

This article explores recent research in World Englishes (WEs) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), as well as examines the definitions of WEs and WLF, from the standpoint which equalize them with native speakers’ English, and accepts, rather than rejects, these new varieties of of English in the field of TESOL. This article is composed of four parts : definition of WEs and ELF, review of relevant research, implications for TESOL language standard, and assessment of consensus on WEs and ELF.

Firstly, it provides three definitions of WEs, asserting that there is little confusion among them. It defines ELF, on the other hand, with relevance to English as an International Language (EIL), and World Standard (Spoken) English (WS(S)E), with emphasis on its pluricentricity and intelligibility among non-native speakers. Secondly, it provides an overview of recent development in WEs and ELF with the views of corpus study, WEs variety, nativised and mother tongue English,  and anti-imperialism and anti-hegemony, concluding that WEs and ELF can no longer be considered as optional extras. It also pays close attention on some key research, which is about SLA, challenges against linguistic imperialism, and ELF lexicogrammar. Thirdly, it discusses  “ownership of English” (Widdowson, 1994), and concluded that teachers and students have to accommodate other varieties of English into their multilingual classroom, as well as the teachers have to construct appropriate methodology in different contexts of language learning and use. Finally, it assesses the consensus on intelligibility of WEs/ELF, as well as the ling between language and identity, awareness raising and testing of WEs/ELF, suggesting researcher to find ways of bringing WEs and ELF together in their interest.

More tips for the details

1. Definition of World Englishes (WEs) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

   1.1. WEs   1: English as an “umbrella label” covering all varieties

                    2: The so-called new Englishes. Nativised, indigenised, institutionalized
                        Englishes.

                    3: English associated with Kachru’s pluricentric approach.

“pluricentric approach”: means that there are several global centers, native and non-native, each with
                                    its own standard variety of English. (Jenkins, 2009, p.70. Extracted from a blog)

“pluricentric language”: language with several standard versions, both in spoken and in written forms. (wikipedia)

   

   1.2. ELF = English as an International Language (EIL) / World Standard (Spoken) English 
                      (WS(S)E)?

        1.2.1. EIL: 1. “it suggests that there is one clearly distinguishable, codified, and unitary
                               variety called International English, which is certainly not the case”
                               -Seidlhofer (2004)

                          2. English which “refer[s] to the use of English as a means of
                              international communication across national and linguistic boundaries.

        1.2.1. WS(S)E: a hypothetical, monolithic form of English

                                “single monochrome standard form” - Quirk (1985)

        1.2.1. ELF: Pluricentric. English which is pluricentric in that it is based on local 
                           norms.

                           Use/intelligibility. English which are widely used and widely intelligible
                           across groups of English speakers from different first language
                           backgrounds.  
       

As far as ELF interactions are concerned, any participating mother tongue speakers will have to follow the speakers will have to follow the agenda set by ELF speakers, rather than vice versa.

2. Overview of relevant research

  2.1. General Overview

• Corpus studies including outer and expanding circles. cf. ICE, VOICE
• Dictionaries and grammars of different Englishes. cf. The Macquarie Dictionary (1997)
• A variety of WEs, such as Asian, China, Japanese, European, and Latin American English.
• Nativised and mother tongue Englishes
• Anti-imperialistic and anti-hegemonic view of WEs

      WEs and ELF can no longer be considered optional extras. 

 2.2. Key research and controversies

       2.2.1. Interlanguage (IL) v. WEs/ELF

                 IL theory claims that a second language speaker’s competence lie between L1
                 and L2. However, it ignores the local Englishes’ sociohistorical development
                 and sociocultural context, as well as their hybrid English speaker identities.

       2.2.2. Agains linguistic imperialism

                 Canagarajah (1999) challenged and resisted linguistic imperialism, claiming the 

                 importance of local use of English. “Native-speakerist” element. which was lead
                 from linguistic imperialism should be reduced from teaching materials.

       2.2.3. Lexicogrammar of ELF

                 Seidlhofer (2004) worked on the potential salient features of ELF lexicogrammar
                 and found nine features which are unproblematic to communicative success. On
                 the other hand, ELF writing features are highly controversial.

3. Implications for TESOL language standard

Standard English is extremely difficult to define. How teachers and students accommodate other varieties of English into their multilingual classroom is very important.

There is still heavy bias toward standard American or British English in terms of what Widdowson (1994) calls ownership of English. This challenge will be translated into appropriate methodology (Holliday, 1994) for learners in different contexts of language learning and use.

4. Assessment of consensus on WEs and ELF

Teachers and their learners need to learn not English, but about Englishes, their similarities and differences, issues involved in intelligibility, the strong ling between language and identity, and so on.

Pluricentric approach would enable each learner’s and speaker’s English to reflect his or her own sociolinguistic reality, and to raise awareness of the diversity of English. It is also important for  speakers of WEs and ELF to adjust their speech in order to be intelligible to interlocutors form a wide range of L1 backgrounds.

Testing of WEs/ELF will involve both devising the means to distinguish between learner error and local variety, and finding ways of identifying accommodation.

Researchers need to find ways of bringing WEs and ELF together in recognition of their shared interests, whatever their circle or research focus. 

The Best Language Teacher: Reflection on Postmethod Pedagogy and Humanizing Pedagogy

Imagine that you are in an language classroom in a high school, learning a new language.

Who do you expect to be the best teacher for you? A native speaker of that language? Or, local teacher who speak the same language as yours?

In the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), this question has been a very controversial issue.

Historically speaking, it used to be native speakers that were considered to be the best teachers. It was conspicuous especially around the World War, because the language teaching model came from the background where perfectly correct grammar and native-like pronunciation were required for espionage. The method at that time was called audiolingual method. Then, after the War ended and the world economics became international, people started to use many varieties of Englishes which are distant from the perfect English. Therefore, people started to concentrate more on communication, and to accept many varieties as well. This was called communicative language teaching CLT.

CLT was a great hit for ESOL teachers, since the learners were supposed to achieve high proficiency of communication after a set of education through it. However, it turned out to be that CLT was less effective than their expectation, simply because they considered it as a "one-size-fits-all" methodology which can be used everywhere in any context. So, at the end of 20th century, it was said that methodologies died, because they do not work.

However, it was not these methodologies that was wrong; it was the way of application for language classrooms. After the reflection on this expanded mistake, researchers proposed many approaches for better language teaching. One example is Kumaravadivelu's (2001) "postmethod pedagogy" which focuses more on the sociocultural aspects involving in language learning.

The postmethod utilizes three parameters to visualize the concept of teaching: particularity, practicality, and possibility. He also developed ten pragmatic strategies, called macrostrategies, based on the three parameters (2003). These parameters and macrostrategies stand upon the perspective that sociocultural aspects influences the learners' language proficiency so that the whole acquisition process becomes sociocognitive.

Another example is Bartolome's (1994) implication for humanizing pedagogy. In her research, she aims for politically clear teaching, which requires teachers to recognize and value subordinated students' existing knowledge, culture, and experience, and to create learning context where power is equalized between the teachers and the students. The same as Kumaravadivelu's postmethod pedagogy, understanding sociocultural factors are the prerequisite to realize this pedagogy in language classroom.

Now, let's go back to the first question. Who should be the best language teacher? In audiolingual method, it was obviously native speakers of the target language, since they have the intuitive knowledge of the language, which, ipso facto, creates the language. In CLT, it can be non-native speakers, but still, native speakers were preferred to some extent, since again, they have the perfect linguistic skills of the language which lead learners to better communication. In the last two pedagogy, however, non-native speakers may be preferred since they have been exposed to socially and culturally diverse experiences which have influenced their language learning, and these experiences of their own can be developed into personal methodologies that suit each teacher's particular learners in particular context. Of course, native speakers of the target language can be a good teacher when s/he has different language experiences and/or understands social and cultural factors that influence the language leaning.

Integrating all of the ideas above, the BEST language teacher for today (in globalized period when English achieved the position of international language), is who has a rich variety of language experiences, social and cultural understanding of language learning, and great amount of linguistic knowledge, if not as perfect as native speakers, as well as sociolinguistic knowledge and other knowledge of language usa and acquisition. Language teachers must be confident and competent in their linguistic/sociocultural experiences.

References

B. Kumaravadivelu (2001). Toward a Postmethod Pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 35(4). pp537-560.

B. Kumaravadivelu (2003). Critical Language Pedagogy. A postmethod perspective on English language teaching. World Englishes, 22(4). pp539-550.

L., I. Bartolome (1994). Beyond the Methods Fetish: Toward a Humanizing Pedagogy. Harvard Education Review. 64, 2. ProQuest Education Journals. p173

World Englishes and ESL/EFL Pedagogy

After the expansion of English through all over the world, varieties of "world Englishes" emerged. Those "Englishes" are differ in terms of pronunciation, because the speakers of these "Englishes" have different mother tongues which affect their "Englishes". This trend projects a new problematic issue in English learning field:

Should the target be "standard English" (English uttered from native speakers)? Or are "World Englishes" acceptable for the goal for pronunciation? Should they be a goal or a norm?



In the last blog post, I summarized a study related to this topic, which shows that EFL learners are positive to accept their accents (or their type of "English") as long as they can communicate with others through their English.

However hard we try to discard prejudice on "world Englishes" and to accept those varieties, however, there still remain some perceptional differences on "standard English" and varieties of "Englishes". There is an interesting video about this issue. Let's see how your impression on the guy changes between the beginning and the end of this video.

Honestly speaking, my impression on this guy changed after he showed his English without any accent. I did not (or tried not to) have any bad impression on his English with accent, but I got more positive impression after he revealed the secret.

I have to admit that there are still something in my mind that makes me feel that "standard English" is better than other "Englishes", even though I try to be neutral on them. And, there are many people who have the "uh-oh" feeling toward these varieties.

Why so?
Is it because America, the largest English speaking country, has the strongest economical, political and military impact on the world? Can it not be replaced to other varieties? What are the roles of "standard English" in pedagogic context?



My consideration on this issue in pedagogical field is that EFL/ESL teachers should set native English as a model, but should also accept the varieties depending on their pronunciation ability.
Additionally, teachers need to lead learners to a certain level so that they can make themselves understood in their own "Englishes". In other word, teachers need to help learners make their "Englishes" part of their identities. Only after they earn confidence on their "Englishes" through communication, can they create their own identities with the English, and these will help them accept their own and others' "Englishes" without feeling much inferiority. These identities will enable them to speak out confidently in this globalized world, even under "uh-oh" situation.

Summary of an Article: Native Speaker Norms and China English

He, D. & Zhang, Q (2010). Native Speaker Norms and China English: From the Perspective of Learners and Teachers in China. TESOL Quarterly. 44(4)

Based on a qualitative and quantitative research, this article shows how Chinese students and teachers perceive "China English" in pedagogical context. At the beginning, it provides three models of English as an international language: na native speaker model, a nativised model, and a lingua franca model. These models being applied, they started conducting the research on the pedagogical model of English in China, with focusing on grammar and pronunciation.

The research was conducted with 820 students whose major is not English, and 210 English teachers from four universities in China. Distribution of the subjects on the factors such as gender, grade, age, and their major are considered so that the study can attain object results. Questionnaire survey, matched-guise technique (MGT), and focused interview were adopted for the research.

From the results of the three methods, it was revealed that both university students and teachers consider English as a means of communication, so they accept the China English in terms of pronunciation. Also, their perception on "China English" pronunciation was far from negative, though it was significantly lower than those on "Native-like English". At the same time, however, it turned out that they have different view on grammar, since less subjects accepted the "China English" grammatical features. This was because they assume that if they have more knowledge of grammar, they can communicate more fluently.

Reflecting all the result, the authors concluded that "teaching of college English in China should still adopt Standard Englishes as the teaching model" because of its social-cultural richness. At the same time, they showed one comment on the questionnaire: "we can also accept students' Chinese way of English speaking", since "it is really hard for them to speak English totally free from the cross-linguistic influences of the Chinese language." Lastly, they acknowledged that further research for specification of the pronunciational and grammatical features for "China English" is needed for deeper understanding of this issue.

Why do you study English? - A thought from an EFL context.

There is an obvious universal change in the field of language education since the globalization has begun:  a great emphasize on English is observed in more and more countries all over the world. And now, it has earned a universal agreement that English is the most expanded international language, and therefore, people need to learn it in order to survive economically or politically among this globalized society.

At the same time, however, there has been a critical question from people themselves, who learn English: "Why do we have to learn English?".

These two critical and controversial facts; global agreement upon English as an international language, and a displeasure from people at required (or rather, forced!) English learning, have always been in my mind while I was learning and considering English education. But recently, something has changed in my mind.

Before I start talking about the change, I have to mention English education in Japan.

In Japan, English, as a foreign language, is a required class from fifth grade to ninth grade, followed by three years at high school, and even some more classes at a college/university. For years, however, this long period of study is conceived to be ineffective, since even after a long period of studying English, learners do not pick up many expressions to speak, have only limited reading proficiency, do not understand what a native speaker says in a daily life, and cannot write academic paper. 

Therefore, they ask, "Why are we learning English? It's so ineffective and even unnecessary for our lives!" Controversially, however, they still agree with the idea that English is an international language, and they claim English be a necessity in this globalized world.

Rather, they perceive English as a panacea for their successful life; they admire or sometimes turn envious eyes to people who speak fluent English, even when those people are native speakers of English! Is this really what it should be? - I don't think so.

This jealousy-like feeling toward English and hopeless sigh on Japanese's poor English proficiency are not admirable. Therefore, I persuaded myself, as a future English teacher, as "OK. I'm gonna teach English in Japan. People might think it unnecessary to learn English for use as long as they live their life in Japan, but I do believe English is an international language which do have great impact on Japan's economics and politics, therefore, in order to widen the opportunity for my students to notice this critical need of English, and to enlarge their chance to be more successful in the future, I must teach English." This was my thought upon English education in Japan. 

This thought was rigid and persuasive for me,  so I sticked to it for a while; however, my classmate in TESOL class did change this thought.

He mentioned that all English learners are respected in his country, because English is an economically, politically and scientifically, powerful language all over the world.

My point here is that he did not say "all English speakers", but "all English learners". I see underlying philosophy of learning in his country, that is to say, all learners can be successful as long as they keep trying for it.

This is beautiful. This is something we cannot find in Japan. People do not see things in this way. Instead, they think that English is very hard and therefore many of them give up, or become pessimistic about successful future with English.

It might be because they are all aiming at perfect English, not available one for them. It might be because English and Japanese are linguistically distant. However, to some extent, we have forgot very important facts; we should respect all learners, not just fluent speakers of English; and we should have a strong belief in our mind, that when we do our best to learn English, the effort should be rewarded someday.

English speaks a lot for me.
What does it do for you?

Consideration on Life after a terrorist's death.

People shouting for their victory with full of excitement and joy on their faces.

This charmingly-seeming picture caught my eyes when I scrolled the New York Times website, the day before yesterday. It seemed a happy news until I read the headline of the News: Announce of Bin Laden's death - I actually don't remember the exact headline, but it was like this.


The picture drove me to consider human life. Why these people cried out for excitement of a person's death?
Osama Bin Laden was the head of Al Qaeda, which attacked the world trade center, causing the horrible disaster, 9.11. I understand why people wanted to cry out for the death of the terrible terrorism group's leader, and, I always lose my words when I think about those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. I cannot feel the sorrow and lament of the relatives of the victims exactly the same way as they do. I feel vary sad when thinking about them, and get compassion for them, but I cannot feel the depth of their sadness. Therefore, tried to imagine what they feel, and don't want to spoil their feelings by write critically on this matter. Nevertheless, I felt something different when I saw the picture, and I think that is important.

Are these people seem excited for a person's death?
It was very hard to explain what I felt, and is still difficult, but I am sure I didn't feel the same way as the people in the picture did. Did Bin Laden's life deserve nothing but to die? Are we really happy for his death? I doubt it. At least, I don't think it's an appropriate reaction to get excited and cry out for happiness for his death.

I doubt if people in that picture cared that CIA was once financially assisted Bin Laden when the Soviet war in Afghanistan. American government have claimed that they needed to fight against bad when they fight for conflicts or wars. They are not wrong, but what I cannot neglect is that they fight against bad only when it's good for American politics. Noam Chomsky wrote more specifically with critical view about America's irrational fights in history, on his book "9-11"(2001). Do the people care or consider these facts and still get excited about Bin's death? Or do they feel happy because the leader of the murderer group got killed? Oh, wait ! 21 century is not the time like people all feel happy with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Code of Hammurabi was for 3500 years ago. It's out of date!


What I want to express here is not any criticism of America, or the people in the picture; what I want to say is that I doubt that excitement or happiness is the right feeling to have even when facing a death of a horrible terrorist. I don't want to believe that people are that cold. There must be things we must do other than get excited with the news. There are people who still cry for their relatives who got killed by terrorists. And, there are many innocent people who cannot sleep because of the fear of bombs and bullets for conflicts. There are people who need help to find food for tomorrow and shelter for tonight. There are tons of people who need help to live their lives.
 Only one person cannot change the whole world, but each of us can think of those who suffering. We might not save them, but we can pray for them with clean mind. We might not be able to achieve world's peace and happiness with relatively small number of our friends,  but we can care for other people and achieve a small happiness and peace for today. We can appreciate our lives, make one more smile than yesterday, believing that it will spread from people to people, and one day in the future, that smile reach the suffering people for who we pray today.

Starting a New Blog

Discussion on the effects of input and output is no more brand-new, but is still a major concern in second language teaching area. This widely spread discussion, whether language input enhances learners' acquisition more than language output or vice versa, is not an applicable idea only to second language teaching, but it can be applied to learning in general.


We live our daily lives surrounded by information which influence our thoughts and sometimes change our identities. At the same time, however, there are many more unknown facts which have potentials to influence us in the way that we wish them to.

In order to enrich my thought by knowing what is happening in the world and how we have developed our lives as we are today, I am going to learn more about the world.

To do that, I am going to  read books, news and articles with various topics including English education, which is my major, politics, philosophy, history, anthropology... and other study areas as far as I can find. This reading will be "input" for my learning. And, as for "output", I am going to write what I have learned from the "input", to make the floating ideas in my head clear and organized.




This is why I decided to start a new blog here. Probably one post a week? I am not sure yet. But anyway, I hope this new trial will work as a good preparation for my future job; teacher, and lead me to a better life.

"Teachers have to be intellectual." (Noam Chomsky)


Alright. It's all for today!
Good night!