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.

Kishi no Go-hon Matsu (Five Pine Trees along the Shore)

It is said that there used to be pines on the shore in Tezukayama. They have been called “Himematsu on the shore” from the far past, but the fact is that there was not a “shore” in front of Sumiyoshi High School. That is a view added by later generations. In this context, “Hime” may be a praising word, or may mean that a god put a treasure in the tree. Settsu-meisho-zue, a guidebook of Settsu Area in the Edo Period, says “Himematsu on the shore” are the pines in front of Sumiyoshi High School. Also, Settsu-meisho-zue-taisei, the second complete edition of the guidebook, says, “There are a group of pine trees which lead to a riverbank in the east of Kishu-kaido,” an old highway from Osaka to Wakayama. They are leftovers of the ancient pines on the shore. We do not call them “Himematsu on the shore,” but we often call all of them “Hamamatsu on the shore of Sumiyoshi.” The pine forest area had been spread out over for many years. There are traces of “Himematsu on the shore.” That is a rumor told by later generations. However, they have been treasured as “Gohonmatsu on the shore” by people in the region for many years. There are only four pines now, because one pine died. People in the region have treasured these four pines for a long time.

I would ask how old they are, if “Himematsu on the shore” were humans.

The more new rice fields are reclaimed, the more “Himematsu on the shore” disappear.