National Achievement Tests

According to the results of the National Achievement Tests 2018 publicized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on Monday, July 30, Japan’s elementary and junior high school students have strong basic academic skills but struggle to solve complex questions.  The problem is what those "complex questions" are like.

In one Japanese test, for example, participant pupils were supposed to pick up 2 pieces of information from the text to write a "correct" answer.  The 2 pieces of information are scattered in the text, divided off by irrelevant paragraphs.  The "complex" question is, I have to say, designed so that about 50% of participant pupils are to be tricked into writing an "incorrect" answer with only one piece of information.  Students are said to continue to have difficulty solving complex problems using their basic knowledge of Japanese.  Of course, it is very important for students not to fall for a fraud in their future.  However, is that what MEXT wants to teach children in the National Achievement Tests?

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/28/reference/japans-annual-student-achievement-test-worth-cost/#.W2ETrrdlJYxNational Achievement Tests

Free Shuttle Bus between Motomachi Shopping Street and UMIE

With the key words “umie”, “motomachi”, and “bus”, you can find a web page of the free shuttle bus which runs between Umie, a shopping mall at Kobe Harborland, and the western end of Motomachi Shopping Street on weekdays.

 I was on business and had to kill an hour or so around the western half of Motomachi Shopping Street.  I walked through the streets for 3 blocks, and found a cup of coffee cost cheaper as I walked westward.  I walked to the western end of the street and had a cup of coffee at TuKuRu.

On TripAdvisor, Kobe Motomachi Shopping Street is ranked #40 out of 762 attractions in Kobe.  66 travelers have posted their reviews about the street in English.  Along the street, however, only 2 attractions are listed on TripAdvisor; Kobe Fugetsudo Museum, which is ranked #119 out of 762 attractions in Kobe and which have had only 1 review in English, and Gallery Miyake,#412, which has no review in any language.  Even Motomachitaki Park, which is listed on Google Map, isn’t listed on TripAdvisor.  Hanakuma Park is just across the railway, and you can have a good view over the downtown of Motomachi from the top of the park, which used to be Hanakuma Castle.

Not all the restaurants along the street are listed.  Only a few of them have reviews.  Some reviewers of the shopping street sound to have just strolled through it, regretting that they found fewer people as they walked to the western end of the street.

If the shopping mall wants to attract more people into walking through the street, they have to list all the attractions along and around the street, and of course, have to list the shuttle bus system mentioned above in English for themselves.

The Ambivalence about Kobe Motomachi Shopping Street

On TripAdvisor, Kobe Motomachi Shopping Street is ranked #40 out of 762 attractions in Kobe.  66 travelers have posted their reviews about the street in English.  Along the street, however, only 2 attractions are listed on TripAdvisor; Kobe Fugetsudo Museum, which is ranked #119 out of 762 attractions in Kobe and which have had only 1 review in English, and Gallery Miyake,#412, which has no review in any language.  Even Motomachitaki Park, which is listed on Google Map, isn’t listed on TripAdvisor.  

Not all the restaurants along the street are listed.  Only a few of them have reviews.  Some reviewers of the shopping street itself sound to have just strolled through it, regretting that they found fewer people as they walked to the west end of the street.

If the shopping mall wants to attract more people into walking through the street and into more shopping, they have to list all the attractions and restaurants along the street, and even have to post the first reviews in English for themselves.

Community-Based English Learning is badly needed.

     My wife and I parked our car in the Naka-no-hashi Car Park, and visited the grave of my father in Mt. Koya.  After the visit, we visited Oku-no-in Temple and strolled along the street in the graveyard, watching the graves of historic figures.  We walked out of the graveyard from Ichi-no-hashi, and felt like having a cup of coffee or something to take a rest.  First, we found Komi Cafe, but it was full of travelers from abroad.  We kept walking, and found a Japanese sweet shop entirely vacant.

     What was the difference between two shops?  In Komi Cafe, a staff was sitting in front of the cafe, appealing they can serve in English, with signs and menus in English in front of the shop.  On the other hand, the sweet shop had no signs or menus in English.  As we has yummy Japanese sweets with a cup of aromatic tea, some foreign travelers looked into the shop and just passed by, shaking their heads.

     Later, when we were having lunch at a Japanese restaurant after visiting Kongo-bu-ji Temple and Danjo-Garan, there came in five young foreign travelers, who had troubles communicating with the staffs how and what to order.  I gave them some help. 

     The Koya-cho municipal government should provide a kind of English adult education to support the staffs working in the area to learn some useful English phrases so that they can serve visitors from abroad friendly and efficiently, as the area is attracting so many sightseers from abroad, who are contributing the tax revenues.

Iwami Kagura performed in English

     According to the news program of NHK, Good Morning Japan on April 16, Iwami Kagura was performed in English.  The local volunteer players mastered the theatrical ritual elocution under the coaching of a local interpretor.  That shows how helpful and effective Community-Based English Learning can be.  If more local English teachers in high schools participate in that typ of training, the efficacy will be tremendous.

http://jcc.jp/news/13385034/

https://japanin.jp/en/image/1577883793325743188_3016342302/

 

http://www.kankou-shimane.com/en/?p=6802

http://jcc.jp/news/13385033/

Community-Based English Learning

On March 10, 2018, I watched the TV program "This is the new common senses of Osaka people.” on TV Osaka. Chitose, an okonomiyaki shop in Nishinari, was presented. Chitose was reviewed on TripAdvisor in English, and has made a boom. According to the TV program, okonomiyaki there tastes just averagely. The tip of the success is that a shop assistant is very friendly and helpful, and, above all, can introduce how to choose my-favorite okonomiyaki and how to enjoy eating it in English. This shows what English proficiency average Japanese people need.

The current business recovery in Japan largely depends on the increase of inbound tourists. If you want the recovery to spread into every corner in Japan, you should attract inbound tourists into every corner in Japan. Who will post the first review in English to attract them? Will you wait for an accidental luck? Will you invite influencers to all the “every corner” in Japan? It is local people who should post the first review in English. Can we know all the preferences of all the nations? No way. We should employ human-wave tactics instead. It means people in every corner should post reviews on their favorite restaurants and things to do in English.

That is what Community-Based English Learning should support.

http://www.tv-osaka.co.jp/sp/osaka_lover/#cont_ponzu

The Number of Readers within 24 hours after their Publish

Community-Based English Learning can be helpful.

     TripAdvisor, a travel review site, kindly reported to me, "47 travelers read your review of Kifune in the past week.”  So did:

36 travelers; Choryu Taiken Noto Suigun

24 travelers; Oyamazumi Shrine

21 travelers; Mt. Kiro Observatory Park

12 travelers; Nibukawa Onsen Hotel

12 travelers; Murakami Suigun Museum

12 travelers; Innoshima Suigun Castle

     Those were the reviews I posted on TripAdvisor in English about the places I had visited during my trip along Shimanami Kaido Highway.  My English reviews on Kifune and Choryu Taiken Noto ( which should be pronounced or spelled Noshima, though) Suigun were the first English ones on TripAdvisor.  Kifune is a Japanese restaurant in front of Oyamazumi Shrine, one of the oldest and most widely respected shrines along the Seto Inland Sea.  Choryu Taiken Noto Suigun is a sightseeing boat trip of rapid tidal currents around Nojima Island, one of the bases of the Murakami Pirates, one of the most notorious medieval pirates in Japan.  You can easily find the appetite for historically authentic experience and for authentic Japanese food around sightseeing spots.

     My review on Innoshima Suigun Castle, which is not an authentic castle but a public museum with the appearance of a castle, was also the first one in English.  Its number 12, and other English reviews on Murakami Suigun Museum, which had been posted before mine, imply that establishments of provincial governments are not so much welcomed.  Their efforts to supply some authentic experiences there are to be made.  Especially, it’s a pity that Murakami Suigun Museum has plenty of brochures and as such in English while Choryu Taiken Noto Suigun, which is carried on just in front of the museum, doesn’t provide services in English.

     Community-Based English Learning can be helpful for inbound tourism at every corner in Japan.

Community-Based English Learning and Travel Review Sites

     To attract foreign visitors into every corner in Japan, Japanese local people, in many cases, should post the first reviews on each corner in Japan in English on travel review sites.

     A member of my family was a Bakumatsu freak and lured me into driving to Suo-oshima Island, where the Edo Shogunate armies tried to carry out a landing operation against the Choshu domain armies.  The operation suffered crushing defeat, and the defeat led the shogunate into its later collapse.  We visited a couple of Bakumatsu-related spots, and I wrote some reviews of our visits in English and posted them on TripAdvisor.

     Two travelers got interested in my reviews; one from Hawaii, and the other from California.  They asked me the same question; the bus service on the island.  As I myself was just a visitor, I asked the Suo-oshima Tourism Association to join the travel review site and to answer the questions.  And they did.

     So many people, so many minds.  I hadn’t expected history-fan travelers would get interested in visiting the remote islet.  Keeping a journal in English was just a part of my English learning.

Future English Education Supported by Evidence

At present, the procedure of our English education is still accidental, and all our pretensions in English education will remain mere pretensions until we can analyze the products of English education at home, at school, and in society at large, so as to assign with definiteness responsibility for the various conditions and forces which have brought about the various elements of the English proficiency in the individual human.

The development of science has only just got to the point where we are beginning to have the materials and methods for creating an intelligent art of guiding the formation of English proficiency.

To Pull out of Personal Education

     In fact, many of the current interpretations of the student-centered school management, of student satisfaction, suffer from exactly the same fallacy as the adult-imposition traditional school management---only in an inverted form.  That is, they are still obsessed by the personal factor; they conceive of no alternative to adult dictation save child dictation.  What is wanted is to get away from every mode of personal dictation and merely personal control.

     When the emphasis falls upon having experiences that are educationally worth while, the center of gravity shifts from the personal factor, and is found within the developing experience in which students participate.  The fundamental thing is to find the types of experiences that are worth having, not merely for the moment, but because of what they lead to---the questions they raise, the problems they create, the demands for new information they suggest, the activities they invoke, the larger and expanding fields which they continuously open.

Why there are so many English learning methods?

It is not easy to take stock of the achievements of progressive English learning methods in the last 3 decades: these methods are too diverse both in aims and in mode of conduct.  In one respect, this is as it should be: it indicates there is no cut-and-dried program to follow, that English learning methods are free to grow along the lines of special needs and conditions of local communities and social classes, and that innovating English teachers can express their variant ideas. The existing diversity of English learning methods testifies also to the fact that the underlying motivation is so largely a reaction against the traditional English education that the watchwords of the progressive methods can be translated into inconsistent practices.The common creed of progressive English learning methods is the belief in freedom, in opportunity for individual development, and in learning through activity rather than by passive absorption.  Such aims give the methods a certain community of spirit and atmosphere. The rebellion against formal English studies and lessons, however, can be effectively completed only through the development of a new subject matter, as well organized as was the old subject matter.  We should avoid the one-sidedness of the idea of "active learning” for instance.

Utilizing Travel Review Sites for English Writing

     How to organize English Expression classes, especially writing classes, is always an issue, sometimes it's a very controversial issue.  Some teachers take it seriously and try to have their students express themselves-----have them write letters, e-mails and as such.  Some other teachers take it positively but just are busy having their students ready for writing quizzes in university entrance examinations.  Some more others just concentrate on teaching English grammar.

 

     As I have had our students write English to express themselves, I have tried to provide them authentic opportunities to write and even speak English.

 

     I invited foreign students and visitors to our classes.  Many Japanese students are too shy to express themselves, so I got them prepared.  I asked my students to explore their local “attraction,” write about it in English beforehand, and make a presentation about it in front of the visitors.

 

     I organized a mailing list to have my students exchange mails in English with students abroad.  I even organized a mailing list in Japanese so as to make it a kind of “language exchange.”

 

     Their English writings could be short ones, but sometimes they were asked to write long ones.  For example, they reported their visits of universities in English as a part of their career education.

 

     Many of their writings have been, however, presented just once, and have gone to nowhere but in my PC.

 

     It is a kind of a waste of their important time and energy, although it helped brush up their English proficiency.  At least, they have not been made full use of.

 

     If their writings about their local attractions are to be posted on travel review sites, their time and energy could be recognized to be fully utilized.  Above all, many local attractions in Japan are waiting to be reviewed in English for the first time so as to be “discovered” by foreign visitors.

 

     Let me show one personal experience of mine:

 

   TripAdvisor, a travel review site, kindly reported to me, "47 travelers read your review of Kifune in the past week.”  So did:

36 travelers; Choryu Taiken Noto Suigun

24 travelers; Oyamazumi Shrine

21 travelers; Mt. Kiro Observatory Park

12 travelers; Nibukawa Onsen Hotel

12 travelers; Murakami Suigun Museum

12 travelers; Innoshima Suigun Castle

Those were the reviews I posted on TripAdvisor in English about the places I had visited during my trip along Shimanami Kaido Highway. My English reviews on Kifune and Choryu Taiken Noto (which should be pronounced or spelled Noshima, though) Suigun were the first English ones on TripAdvisor.  Kifune is a Japanese restaurant in front of Oyamazumi Shrine, one of the oldest and most widely respected shrines along the Seto Inland Sea.  Choryu Taiken Noto Suigun is a sightseeing boat trip of rapid tidal currents around Noshima Island, one of the bases of the Murakami Pirates, the most notorious medieval pirates in Japan.  You can easily find the appetite for historically meaningful authentic experience and for authentic Japanese food around historical sightseeing spots.