From Sage On Stage To Guide On The Side: My Journey As An Educator In Japan by Jason Wolfe

by Jason Wolfe

Bio: Designing a classroom experience centered around creativity and innovation is an exciting topic for this educator with a background in plant ecology and corpus linguistics. 

Jason Wolfe, a Canadian long term Tokyo resident, has taught eikaiwa, high school, and university, and now teaches design full-time and speaks about design thinking.

His volunteering keeps him active in the maker movement, JALT, and TEDxYouth@Tokyo. A collaborator with many groups seeking to provide a much-needed perspective on the future of learning, Jason’s insight into the benefits of tactile explorations inspires the creative problem-solving confidence that will challenge your perspective.

A Little History

I came to Japan in late 2005 and started doing the eikaiwa stuff, GABA mainly, and although I have some issues with the company and how they treat their “non-workers,” I had a positive experience because of all the connections I made there, both personal and professional. 

Over time I found my way into a national high school teaching higher-level English to returnees. This was a nice jump as I was tasked with creating and implementing my own curriculum for the first time.

This was more of teaching something ‘in’ English, instead of teaching English as a language or second language. 

I would later learn proper terms for this, PBL, CLIL, etc.

This was a major high point because previously I'd always had to teach a prepared curriculum and, being who I am, generally had issues with it. I taught what I was interested in, and at the time, it was environmental issues and philosophy.

That school was at the beginning of a transition from a 3 + 3 (junior and senior high school) to a 6-year school, and more importantly, a switch to an International Baccalaureate (IB) school. This is usually done by introducing a cohort on the new plan while the older grades are still in the old system. Every year you add a new cohort as another grade graduates and slowly the school is transitioned. I became part of both schools and there was some learning involved with the IB methodology.

Although the IB program we were teaching, the Middle Years Programme (MYP), was a methodology designed to be implemented with any national or regional curriculum, it was a very different approach. The biggest learning change was assessment. This included rubrics and very clear instructions on what is expected from students to receive a certain grade.

Grading was also organized into four or more criteria with very clear distinctions. In a nutshell, there was much less of “I think this is a 7/10, feels like a 7…” These and other IB related things really opened my eyes to education and what it means to be an educator.

From Sage on Stage to Guide on the Side

From then I started defining what kind of educator I was. I realized I was not really interested in what I thought education was ... students as empty glasses to be filled by the all-knowing teacher.

I wanted to challenge and motivate my students ... create life-long learners (some more IB jargon).

Currently ...

I currently teach Design to junior high school students at a private 6-year high school in downtown Tokyo called Kaichi Nihonbashi Gakuen. This is an IB MYP class and since we follow the national curriculum I had to align my course to the national standards of 技術 (Industrial Arts) and 家庭科 (Home Economics).

Yes, I teach sewing and cooking.

But, I do it in a design thinking sort of way, where I provide problems and challenges and they have to solve them by making something.

Here are a few examples of some problems and solutions:

• Design a locker shelf that will make the classroom a better learning environment for you and your peers (1st-year JHS wood processing project). Students use SketchUp to 3D design their shelf and planning models then make the real thing.
• Design a Japanese inspired healthy breakfast cookie (2nd-year JHS nutrition project). Many people skip breakfast and a cookie is a hand-held solution to that problem. But, a cookie is a little strange for breakfast...hence the Japanese culture addition.
• Design a product that will make elderly people healthier ... using only the parts from an old umbrella! (3rd-year JHS community/society project). There are too many elderly people in Japan (contentious!) and too many umbrellas. Let’s create something that solves both problems.

One thing I try to do as we go from 1st year to 3rd year is to try to make my projects less and less Googleable.

This is to force them to be creative. 

Kids are naturally creative, but in high school they are busy and the whole system seems to reinforce the idea that creativity is not as important as test scores and finals.

If I don't think about forcing creativity, they'll resort to using Google, not due to lack of creativity, but lack of time. The students will Google that project and see what comes up ... I think the idea of giving students something unGoogleable is a must for this generation.

Another task I strive for is radical creativity. As I tweak and update my lessons from year to year I look for areas where creativity can be maximized. This is how I ended up with the challenge to make the elderly healthier using only parts of an old umbrella. Recently I have found that the projects coming back to me are similar and following a trend. I will have to tweak them and possibly allow them to use any waste resource and might even add unGoogleability to the lesson requirements.

When I Google the students' ideas, I want to see nothing in the results.

How can I implement lessons that push for maximum creativity?

A lot of my personal inspiration for creativity comes from the D-School at Stanford. I started following a lot of their steps in my English classes and my science lessons and eventually, I ended up teaching Design. I am very happy with this transition.

Although I teach a little English on the side, my full-time work is as a design teacher - challenging and, hopefully, inspiring students to maximize creativity and prototype like crazy.

The goal is to make quick and dirty solutions to the problem and then iterate and expand.

The language of instruction is English. I teach two classes, the DLC and the GLC class, or the lower and higher English level, respectively. They will study Design for the three years of junior high school.

The goal of the 4-year MYP program at my school is to get their English proficiency up to a level where they can study in an IB Diploma Programme (DP) class in English.

This is a daunting challenge as DP classes are rigorous and challenging. The first year class comes in at a very low-level English and I often have to use some Japanese, provide some bilingual material, and/or have a Japanese teacher assist at times.

Navigating the material at their level is a challenge but the complex nuances of IB assessment is also very complicated (in Japanese too) for their young minds.

Here are some pictures of students working:

Other Responsibilities

The biggest responsibility I have outside of teaching is managing the English book library. The library is a little small and the English books were very few and of limited quality and interest. I have to choose, buy, and process most of the Englsih books.

I love books, but I am not a trained librarian, I had to learn/guess a lot of stuff, and it is a learning process.

There are a few different categories I try to build upon. I make sure to get English books that:

• Correspond to the taught curriculum in both Japanese and English
• Inspire a love of reading
• Should be part of all libraries (I don’t know if anyone will read War and Peace, Marcel Proust, or Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations...but they are there as an antilibrary)
• Facilitate academic research for the end of junior high and senior high school projects
• Progress students through the extensive reading program

Here is our (English) library

For the extensive reading program, I need to provide materials that will allow for a transition from a basic beginner escalating up to native, or near-native, high school level. We try to do this in 4 years, junior 1 to senior 2. The minimum they need to achieve is CEFR B2 in all 4 skills, but even at that level, the DP course will be quite a challenge.

Another thing my school does and I am directly involved with is native speaker homeroom teachers (HRTs).

I am currently a third-year HRT with the GLC class and have to deal with all the responsibilities that go with that. Parent/Teacher interviews, discipline, dealing with personal issues, fieldwork in another city for 3-4 days, classroom tidiness, and other things.

It is a lot of work but mostly, very enjoyable.

I am now in my 4th year at this school, happy and content, but wondering how to keep adding creativity to my life and where the next changes will happen. I have always found that my favorite age to teach is junior high, but it takes a lot of energy and I am not sure I can do that until retirement (although I could as this position is permanent). Change is approaching...but when, where and what...TBD.

-          A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter

If you have something 'ALT' to write about that hasn't been covered in these blogs, email me at alttoblog@gmail.com so we can work together and spread your story.

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How To Use Logic To Improve Your EFL Students' Writing by Liang Ye

by Liang Ye

Bio: Liang Ye is an accidental English teacher. Her previous professional experience was in public policy with the Singapore Government.

She holds a Bachelor of Social Science (double major in Sociology and Psychology), a Masters of Arts in Sociology, and also a Level 7 Diploma in TESOL.

She currently speaks four languages and is learning another two.

Now, she works as an English instructor in Kansai Soka High School in Osaka, Japan.

It all began with a Facebook post. Well, perhaps even before the Facebook post.

I have lived in Japan for a total of six years so far, and had only started teaching English in classrooms three years ago. Even before starting a formal career in teaching, I found myself correcting English essays from children of acquaintances and entertaining odd requests from time to time. Then, I started noticing something peculiar.

Occasionally, I would receive essays that were written in flawless English, but I had no idea what they were talking about.

How is that even possible? The grammar was perfect! But the sentences had no apparent logical link with each other, and the clauses were put together as if the author was talking in circles or even broken spirals. It reminded me of sample speech patterns of patients with schizophrenia or cognitive dissociation in psychology textbooks. How should I even begin to correct them?

Thus began my quest to help English learners straighten out their writing.

A couple of years ago, I joined a senior high school in Osaka as an ALT for the first time. Among my other classes, I was tasked with teaching 6 classes of about 25 students on how to write English essays, all by myself. I was anxious and excited at the prospect. The students had up to that point only learnt how to make sentences. The earlier encounters with “flawless but undecipherable” essays stood out in my mind.

How do I help students learn how to write clearly? Out of ideas and with no other recourse, I turned to Facebook.

One of my friends, upon reading my bewildered post, suggested that I give explicit instructions in the target logic (reason being that most students in Japan are not exposed to logic in their classes), and pointed me to some resources.

From there, I went on to build a 1-year writing course, through trial-and-error, with explicit instructions in logic built into the class. Inevitably, being a newly-minted ALT, I made mistakes and some activities fell flat on their faces. However, there were also elements that worked out very well. In fact, so well that towards the end of the academic year, I had students who reportedly passed Eiken level 2 as they got nearly full marks in the writing section, despite failing the Reading and Listening section. Back then, I had no idea that this hardly ever happens until I told my spouse (a JTE, or Japanese teacher of English, in another school). He had looked at me, his mouth agape, and said in wonder, “That has never happened before”.

Although I have only anecdotal evidence that incorporating logic into a writing course works, I suppose what I did is still worth sharing.

So for those who are interested, I have outlined four basic steps (with some sample activities thrown in as well) to help students learn how to build an argument in English writing.

Although there are many ways to build an argument, the most basic style of writing, when stripped down to its barest form, requires the writer to follow the “If A, then B. Therefore C.” pattern (also called Chain Reasoning).

The key aim here, therefore, is to use the concept of “cause and effect” as a foundation, and then use scaffolding activities to help students learn how to use chain reasoning to write coherently, while avoiding complicated meta-language or brain-twisting Aristotelian syllogisms.

These four steps can either be expanded into a full semester course with lots of practice and examples, or condensed into one lesson, depending on the level of the students and the aim of the writing course.

Teachers can also consider including higher-order thinking strategies such as inductive/deductive syllogisms, logical fallacies or introduce different types of evidence in advanced writing courses.

By teaching students how to build stronger arguments, we also teach students how to think more critically; and this, I believe, should be the cornerstone of a balanced curriculum.

---

Step 1: Start with the importance of time sequence in cause and effect.

Example activity:

• Introduce the following two clauses:
• (A) The window was broken.
• (B) The boy threw a ball.

• Draw a timeline on the board and ask students to indicate whether A or B happens first.

• Then, show the following sentences:
• Sentence 1: The window was broken because the boy threw a ball at it.
• Sentence 2: The boy threw a ball at the window because it was broken.

• Emphasize that sentence 2 is incorrect due to the wrong order of cause and effect.

You can reiterate the time-sensitivity of cause and effect with several other (obvious) examples, depending on the level of your students. You may also consider using games or create worksheets to emphasize this.

Suggested grammar: “A because B”, and “A, so B”.

Step 2: Introduce and go through the following logical errors related to cause & effect.

1. Circular reasoning*
2. No relationship in cause and effect
3. Cause and effect are reversed
4. Insufficient explanation

Example activity:

• Use obvious examples and ask students what is wrong with the sentences. Here are some examples of sentences with their corresponding logical errors:

1. Fast food is unhealthy because fast food is bad for your health.
• (Circular reasoning)
2. The sakura trees are blooming because it is raining.
• (No relationship in cause and effect)
3. The students passed their Eiken test because the teacher is happy.
• (Cause and effect are reversed)
4. I am poor because I eat fast food.
• (Insufficient explanation; this can also fall under error 2 or even 3, but I’ll be using this as an example to introduce chain reasoning later in Step 4).

* Among the four types of errors, circular reasoning is a very common writing pattern among Japanese students, in part due to a lack of control and vocabulary in English. I found the following example (adapted from a student’s essay, and modified for dramatic and comic effect) to be very helpful in driving home what circular reasoning is:

I agree that it is important to learn a foreign language. First, if I learn a foreign language, I can speak a foreign language. If I can speak a foreign language, I can speak to foreigners. If I do not learn a foreign language, I cannot speak to foreigners. For example, because I speak a foreign language, I can speak to foreigners.

To help students recognize and avoid circular reasoning, I find it useful to ask students to think in very concrete terms, by using specific situations, rather than thinking with abstract concepts.

Step 3: Introduce hypothetical scenarios.

Example activity:

• Introduce the following two clauses:
• (A) The window will be broken.
• (B) The boy throws a ball.

• Draw a timeline on the board, this time with a mark in the middle indicating “now”. Ask students to indicate where on the timeline should A or B happen in the future.

• Then, show the following sentences:
• Sentence 1: If the boy throws a ball, the window will be broken.
• Sentence 2: If the window is broken, the boy will throw a ball.

• Emphasize that sentence 2 is incorrect due to the wrong order of cause and effect. 

Suggested grammar: “If A, (s) will B”.

Since “If A, then B. Therefore C.” is the most basic pattern in building an argument, using the grammar “If…, (s) will…” is probably the easiest way for students to string ideas together in an argumentative essay.

Step 4: Introduce chain reasoning.

Example activity:

• Introduce the following sentence and ask students why does the author think this way:
• I am poor because I eat fast food.

• Then, show the following paragraph:

Fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. If I eat fast food everyday, it will cost me a lot of money. Therefore, I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday.

Break down the paragraph in the following way:

• Pattern 1


• Fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. (Link 1)

• If I eat fast food everyday, (Link 2)

• it will cost me a lot of money. (Link 3)

• Therefore, I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday. (Conclusion)

Teachers may consider using a variety of examples, or introduce different grammar that follow the same thought pattern. Another pattern is to move the conclusion up in the paragraph and make it the topic sentence:

• Pattern 2
• I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday. (Topic sentence)

• This is because fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. (Link 1)

• If I eat fast food everyday, (Link 2)

• it will cost me a lot of money. (Link 3)

This second pattern is useful in writing courses where students are taught that topic sentences come at the top of paragraphs. Students can then practice building longer chains of supporting sentences into their paragraphs and work towards writing a full essay.

-          A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter

If you have something 'ALT' to write about that hasn't been covered in these blogs, email me at alttoblog@gmail.com so we can work together and spread your story.

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Tips For Teaching Japanese Teenagers And Young Adults by Lina Gordyshevskaya

by Lina Gordyshevskaya

Bio: Lina Gordyshevskaya graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2015 earning an MA with honors in Scandinavian Studies. She obtained a CELTA in 2016 and Delta Module 1 in 2018.

Throughout her career, she has taught YL (young learners), teenagers, and adults of various levels in different contexts, including conversational schools and universities. Currently, she is teaching Business English at an IT-company in Tokyo and loves her job. She writes regularly for her blog, Side Notes on ELT.

Think of a typical Japanese teenage learner. You have probably come across some of them. Quiet and unresponsive, they never look at you and seem uninterested in whatever is going on in the classroom. All your questions are met with deafening silence. Little by little, you start feeling like you are banging your head against a brick wall until one day you realise that you have had enough.

The worst thing you can do in this case is to be quick to judge and give up on this whole situation. Yes, Japanese students are remarkably silent, but let us look at some reasons behind their silence.

Jim King (2014) stated in his research paper on social anxiety and silent behaviour of Japanese learners that the main reason is their cultural background. He wrote that in Japan, reserved behaviour is ‘culturally acceptable and positively regarded’ (p.234). Japan is a very high-context nation which means that one has to read between the lines. Less is said, but more is meant. The Japanese tend to place a higher positive value on silence in comparison to overt verbalisation (ibid).

Seiko Harumi (2001) added one more explanation. According to her, Japanese students’ use of silence is the result of the pedagogy of foreign language teaching including curriculum design and the methods used in teaching.

Indeed, Japanese classrooms are rather teacher-centred.

Foreign languages are taught starting with grammar and vocabulary, and the emphasis is put on receptive skills rather than productive.

In a country where an individual’s social status and position in the social hierarchy are important, students are seen as subordinates and their role is ‘to listen, observe, and learn’ (Atkinson, in Banks, 2016) and not to express their opinions. Of course, nowadays, this is changing but there is still a long way to go.

Taking into an account the abovementioned reasons, we can say that there are definitely quite a few challenges that foreign teachers are facing when teaching in Japan.

The question is what they can do about it. What can you do about it?

1. Problem: Your students avoid eye contact. When you speak, they often stare at their desks, but they will not look at you.

Comment: Surprisingly, it does not mean they are not listening. Of course, not all of them are paying attention, but many do. They avoid eye contact because, in their culture, the teacher is a superior, and one is not supposed to look openly at their superiors.

Solution: I would say that the only way is to accept it and take it calmly.

2. Problem: You asked your students if they understood your instructions / explanations. They all said yes or nodded but when you told them to start with the task it appeared that some of them did not understand what to do.

Comment: In Japanese culture, there is a concept of honne as opposed to tatemae. Honne is what an individual actually feels and thinks and tatemae is what they show to the public. It is very important that one keeps the face no matter what. Admitting out loud that there is something you did not understand is unacceptable and even humiliating from a Japanese person’s perspective.

Solution: Learn to read their faces. Many students will not say ‘no’ directly, but they will still look a bit confused. If this is the case (i.e. if you see some confused looks on their faces), give instructions / explanations once again but more slowly. You can also ask stronger students to translate your instructions into Japanese for those students who seem lost.

Another option is to learn some basic Japanese. Before starting with the task, those students who do not understand what to do will most likely whisper something like ‘What are we supposed to do? I didn’t understand’ to their neighbours, so you can act on this.

3. Problem: You ask them to share their opinion, and they freeze.

Comment: They want to give the right answer, but they do not know which is right. Giving a wrong answer means to lose your face, so instead of taking a risk they prefer to keep silence and avoid a potentially embarrassing situation. Another reason is that they are not used to expressing their opinions because they have hardly ever been asked to do that before.
Another reason could be that they are afraid of making errors, e.g. using wrong grammar, or they simply cannot find the right words. Many Japanese people have an erroneous belief that they should either speak perfect English or not speak it at all.

Solution: Instead of making them answer your questions directly, ask them to discuss the questions in pairs. You can walk around and comment on some interesting ideas you hear.

After a while when your students get used to this kind of interaction start asking them to report their ideas back to you. At first, they will struggle, but it is easier to repeat something you have already said rather than coming up with an idea on the spot.

After some time you will notice that they need less time before reporting. It took my students roughly seven weeks to get used to it, but eventually, they could do it easily and with little hesitation.

Make sure that you explain clearly that mistakes are okay and that the main idea of communication is mutual understanding rather than linguistic perfection (even if you yourself somewhat disagree with this).

4. Problem: A variation of the previous one, but a more severe one where your students do not want to communicate with each other either.

Solution: Instead of making them speak, why not ask them to write their answers down? Give each student a small whiteboard and a marker and see if it works. After all, communication does not necessarily have to be oral. After a while, when they get used to you and your classes, you can try encouraging them to become more verbal.

5. Problem: Your students smile all the time and seem to be positive, but one day, you overhear that some of them were complaining about your classes.

Comment: Smiling does not mean that they like you and enjoy the lesson. They are just being polite. They are not doing it on purpose - they just do not want to discomfort you. In Japan, people avoid being direct as this might offend other people. However, this does not mean they do not want to give feedback.

Solution: What you can do is to ask them to write down how they feel about today’s class, e.g. what they liked and what they found difficult. My students were quite keen on this and shared many difficulties they experienced. By knowing more about their feelings and learning issues I was able to assist them more effectively.

And once again, learn some Japanese to be able to understand their real attitude from what they say to their classmates.

While all of the above might alarm you, one thing you should know is that after several weeks, your students will get used to you and become more open and relaxed.

They might even start being honest about not understanding something and ask questions.

Just be patient and attentive to their needs, show them that you are sensitive to their fears and difficulties they experience and create a comfortable atmosphere.
Teaching is a rewarding profession, and teaching in Japan might be one of the best experiences in your life. You are the teacher, and everything is in your hands.

References:

Banks, S. (2016). Behind Japanese students’ silence in English classrooms. Accents Asia, 8 (2), pp. 54-57.

Harumi, S. (2001). The use of silence by Japanese EFL learners. JALT Conference proceedings.

King, J. (2014). Fear of true self: Social anxiety and the silent behaviour of Japanese learners of English. In K. Csizér & M. Magid (eds.), The impact of self-concept on language learning. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

-          A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter

If you have something 'ALT' to write about that hasn't been covered in these blogs, email me at alttoblog@gmail.com so we can work together and spread your story.

Don't have any ideas? We have a list of topics to write about that need a writer. Email in your interest to write and we can set you up. 

For upcoming blogs see the blogs tab here:  http://www.alttrainingonline.com/blog.html