It is often claimed that despite many years of learning efforts, Japanese people cannot speak English at all. But in lieu of lamenting this fact, it is more useful to think about what has created this terrible situation. In my opinion---and I feel many people agree in this---it is simply because most Japanese people have little opportunity to use English in their daily lives that they cannot speak it fluently. So if you want to do something about the current situation, what you need to do is not complain about Japanese people’s ineptitude in learning a foreign language but provide them with as much opportunity as possible to practice speaking.
This view naturally led me to the idea of holding an event in which every participant, whatever his or her nationality, would be required to use English. When I hit upon this idea, I thought it might be appropriate to call such an event “English Speaking X” in the sense that its main focus would be upon improving the participants’ speaking skills.
Yesterday this idea finally materialized, and five advanced learners of English, all of them Japanese, gathered at Mita campus (in Tokyo) to discuss some pedagogical issues in English. I am an assistant professor but the other four are graduate students and three of them have a very high TOEIC score (over 900).
Although I hadn’t prepared any specific topic or theme to discuss, the fact that every participant was in some way or other involved in English education naturally prompted us to talk about pedagogical issues. First of all, we discussed why it is so difficult for Japanese learners to speak English. Of course, everybody cited the lack of opportunity to use English in everyday life, but another reason cited was the system of English education in Japan that tends to choose accuracy over fluency.
To be able to speak English accurately would require many years of training and a great deal of grammatical and lexical knowledge, but if your English is not strictly accurate, it is still possible to communicate. There are many people in the world whose English is not grammatically impeccable but who is still capable of interacting with others. If you pay too much attention on accuracy, however, you will have great trouble improving fluency, which might make communication itself impossible. So it is very important, in teaching or learning English, to weigh accuracy against fluency.
After discussing this problem, we switched to another topic. I said to them, ”Suppose you were teaching English to Junior high school students or high school students and suppose that a student of yours came to you and asked, ‘Why is it necessary to learn English?” How would you respond to that question?’” If you were an English teacher in Japan, this type of question would be the most recalcitrant one. For example, the questioner might point out that his or her father cannot speak English but makes a lot of money, which they might say proves that learning English is not necessary at least in Japan.
One possible answer we came up with was that though it is not strictly indispensable to learn English, it will at least broaden the learner’s horizons and open up many possibilities. And being able to speak English will make it easier to access various sources, which will help garner information efficiently. Another way of handling this question we discussed was to try to convince the questioner of the importance of learning English by pointing out that things are changing rapidly and that the world is far more interconnected than it was twenty or thirty years ago, when the questioner’s parents were in their twenties. Indeed, the society is paying a lot of serious attention on English proficiency these days, which is palpably reflected in the fact that influential corporations, such as UNIQLO, now adopt English as the official language.
But as far as I am concerned, the ultimate answer to this type of question would be that he or she is not yet entitled to judge what is necessary and what is not; they are too young and too inexperienced to assess the value of what they are learning. I would tell the questioner that when I was as young as him or her, I didn't think that learning English was so important; that only when I was able to speak English to some extent did I realize how useful it was. Dogmatic as it may sound, this type of response is, I believe, not so preposterous. Learning something new allows you to look at things from a new angle. And if you look at something from a new angle, even if you are looking at the same thing as you did before, you might notice that it has an aspect which you were previously unaware of but which puts it in a far more favorable light. So learning a new thing without understanding how it will become useful in the future is sometimes unavoidable.
After considering these matters, a participant offered a new topic: to what extent should high school teachers teach pronunciation to their students, or how much emphasis should they put on correct pronunciation? Her own opinion was that since SAE is now regarded as the model in most high schools, as least as a teacher she should try to imitate American English. I disagreed with her idea and claimed that she should put as little emphasis as possible on good pronunciation because what is "correct" pronunciation is now difficult to decide, especially as English is now spoken in so many parts of the world that it is almost impossible to think of the language as something monolithic (though a number of Japanese people show a surprising incapacity to understand that American or British English is not the only correct English). Indeed, if you imagine the situations where Japanese students will be required to use English in the future, it is more than likely that they will have to communicate more often with non-native speakers of English, such as Chinese people and South Koreans, than with native speakers, and if they are incapable of understanding various types of English that are used by those non native speakers, however similar their English may be to British or American English, they might have a lot of trouble performing their jobs. So it is better to emphasize grammar and vocabulary over pronunciation, because the former two seem to be less variable than the latter.
Another participant, however, pointed out that whatever kind of English you may speak, you at least should know, as a fact, that, say, the sound of "l" and that of "r" are different, or that saying "shit" when you should say "sit" might produce a devastating result---an opinion with which I couldn't agree more. But at any rate paying too much attention to correct pronunciation can produce the same effect as paying too much attention to grammatical accuracy, of discouraging learners from trying to speak English. School teachers have a duty to assure his or her students that it is OK to speak English with Japanese accents.
And, after this, the same participant that had raised the question of "pronunciation" offered another question: a typical high school class consisting of more than 30 students, and it being only natural that some students are more proficient at English than others, how should high school teachers decide what part of their class to zero in on? If they devote their energy to improving higher level students, their class might be unbearably difficult for lower level students, whilst if they focus on salvaging less proficient students, that might bore students with higher proficiency---a situation traditionally called Catch 22. I maintained that they should home in on higher level students, but the other participants were skeptical of this. They said that ideally they should cover all the students of their classes. But was it possible? It was extremely difficult, if it was worth a try.
At this point, a glance at my watch reminded me of the fact that a participant was supposed to leave at 5 p.m. because of an appointment. It was 5:05, so I told her so and that it would be better for her to go. And along with her, all of us left the class room we had used, and moved to a cafe called Veloce near the campus, where we continued to speak English and, since all of us were palpably Japanese, captured other people's attention, but we couldn't have cared less.
Taken together, this event was a great success. I think we should continue to hold a similar event at a regular interval.
2011年2月12日土曜日
2011年2月10日木曜日
What linguistics is not:
Asked what my job is, I always just say that I am an English teacher. But I am also a linguist, a fact that I often keep secret especially in front of those who I've just met because of the difficulty of explaining what an average linguist is up to. Different linguists do different jobs, and it often happens that those who believe themselves to be linguists are not so regarded by others. Indeed, pinning down linguists' jobs is not a little tricky. But this does not imply that linguistics is a recondite discipline that is beyond ordinary people's ken. So, as there seem to be a lot of confusions or misconceptions among laypeople about what it is the duty of the linguist to do, it might not be so superfluous here to provide a general and neutral adumbration thereof, or at least of what is not her duty to do---though I must hasten to add I myself am not so knowledgeable as to this occupation as to be equal to the task. The following sketch, for the validity of which I cannot vouch at all, is intended for laypeople, so it is written in as easy a manner as possible.
First of all, if you think that a linguist is a person who can speak several languages fluently, you should drop the idea immediately. Although most linguists can speak at least more than one language, theoretically one can do linguistics without knowing about any languages other than one's own. One of the culprits for this misunderstanding is, I think, the fact that the English word "linguist" has several meanings, one of which is, unfortunately, "a person with a good command of foreign languages." But you should keep a line of demarcation between this figurative meaning of "linguist" and what a professional linguist means. The purpose of the linguist is to clarify scientifically what a specific language or human language in general is, not to become proficient in many languages, though this kind of proficiency ultimately proves to be of use to her.
Second, if you believe that the duty of the linguist is to show people in general what kind of rules they should follow if they are to speak correctly, it seems that you do not know anything about linguistics today. As early as 1909, a Danish linguist named Otto Jespersen, whose influence on this field cannot be overstated, maintained that the purpose of the grammarian is not to prescribe what grammatical rules "should be" but to describe what grammatical rules "are." Yes, there are language mavens and grammar snobs, who are persnickety about what they perceive to be correct usage and show no restraint whatsoever in excoriating those who they think commit the error of flouting their sacred rules. Sometimes, these fanatics may subsume themselves under the category of "linguist." But if they are linguists, I am a Martian. A true linguist approaches verbal phenomena as a botanist approaches herbal, or a zoologist animal, phenomena. She does not dictate which expressions are correct and which not. Every expression, as long as it is sufficiently widespread, is a legitimate object of her study, because it is a legitimate member of the linguistic world no less than a species of animal is of the animal kingdom. True, language mavens may suggest that you stop using such expressions as "I could care less" and "The reason is because he is a nerd." But from a professional linguist's point of view, it does not make sense to judge whether these expressions are "correct"; what piques her interest is why they have emerged.
Finally, if you suspect that the job of the linguist is to provide a(n) historical explanation of a word or a construction, well, you are not wide of the mark but still not to the point. Those who do this kind of work are usually called "etymologists" or "lexicographers" and now distinguished from linguists. I say now because there used to be a time when the job of the linguist was to explain language phenomena on historical principles. In those days, it was generally believed that the only way to explain why certain words or constructions existed was to appeal to the history of the language. But an iconoclastic Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure challenged this then impregnably predominant idea on the grounds that it should be possible to study any historical phase of a language independently of all the others, to draw a line between synchronic and diachronic aspects of human language, a distinction that is still influential in the field of theoretical linguistics, though some attempts have been made to revise it. So the job of linguist today is not to provide an etymological explanation.
"Then, what is the linguist doing? You say that she is studying scientifically what language is. But this is too vague. What I want to know is specifically what kind of activity she is engaged in." You might complain. Sorry. But I have no intention of equivocating. The vexed/vexing problem with the definition of linguistics is that what it means to scientifically study language differs from one person to another. Some say that the word "scientific" means "in a manner as rigorous as natural science", while others say that geistwissenshaft (human science) is completely different from natural science, with myriad less extreme interpretations of "scientific" in between. So beyond this, it's up to the individual what is within the proper realm of the linguist to do. Ah? My stance? I believe that I am standing in the middle of the spectrum, equidistant from the two extreme poles, since I am an advocate of the golden mean. But perhaps that's just because they are equi-valent (gleichgultig) for me.
First of all, if you think that a linguist is a person who can speak several languages fluently, you should drop the idea immediately. Although most linguists can speak at least more than one language, theoretically one can do linguistics without knowing about any languages other than one's own. One of the culprits for this misunderstanding is, I think, the fact that the English word "linguist" has several meanings, one of which is, unfortunately, "a person with a good command of foreign languages." But you should keep a line of demarcation between this figurative meaning of "linguist" and what a professional linguist means. The purpose of the linguist is to clarify scientifically what a specific language or human language in general is, not to become proficient in many languages, though this kind of proficiency ultimately proves to be of use to her.
Second, if you believe that the duty of the linguist is to show people in general what kind of rules they should follow if they are to speak correctly, it seems that you do not know anything about linguistics today. As early as 1909, a Danish linguist named Otto Jespersen, whose influence on this field cannot be overstated, maintained that the purpose of the grammarian is not to prescribe what grammatical rules "should be" but to describe what grammatical rules "are." Yes, there are language mavens and grammar snobs, who are persnickety about what they perceive to be correct usage and show no restraint whatsoever in excoriating those who they think commit the error of flouting their sacred rules. Sometimes, these fanatics may subsume themselves under the category of "linguist." But if they are linguists, I am a Martian. A true linguist approaches verbal phenomena as a botanist approaches herbal, or a zoologist animal, phenomena. She does not dictate which expressions are correct and which not. Every expression, as long as it is sufficiently widespread, is a legitimate object of her study, because it is a legitimate member of the linguistic world no less than a species of animal is of the animal kingdom. True, language mavens may suggest that you stop using such expressions as "I could care less" and "The reason is because he is a nerd." But from a professional linguist's point of view, it does not make sense to judge whether these expressions are "correct"; what piques her interest is why they have emerged.
Finally, if you suspect that the job of the linguist is to provide a(n) historical explanation of a word or a construction, well, you are not wide of the mark but still not to the point. Those who do this kind of work are usually called "etymologists" or "lexicographers" and now distinguished from linguists. I say now because there used to be a time when the job of the linguist was to explain language phenomena on historical principles. In those days, it was generally believed that the only way to explain why certain words or constructions existed was to appeal to the history of the language. But an iconoclastic Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure challenged this then impregnably predominant idea on the grounds that it should be possible to study any historical phase of a language independently of all the others, to draw a line between synchronic and diachronic aspects of human language, a distinction that is still influential in the field of theoretical linguistics, though some attempts have been made to revise it. So the job of linguist today is not to provide an etymological explanation.
"Then, what is the linguist doing? You say that she is studying scientifically what language is. But this is too vague. What I want to know is specifically what kind of activity she is engaged in." You might complain. Sorry. But I have no intention of equivocating. The vexed/vexing problem with the definition of linguistics is that what it means to scientifically study language differs from one person to another. Some say that the word "scientific" means "in a manner as rigorous as natural science", while others say that geistwissenshaft (human science) is completely different from natural science, with myriad less extreme interpretations of "scientific" in between. So beyond this, it's up to the individual what is within the proper realm of the linguist to do. Ah? My stance? I believe that I am standing in the middle of the spectrum, equidistant from the two extreme poles, since I am an advocate of the golden mean. But perhaps that's just because they are equi-valent (gleichgultig) for me.
Andrew Shaffer "Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love"/ Nishimura Kenta "Kueki Ressha"
Reading Andrew Shaffer's "Great Philosophers who Failed at Love" has been a very amusing but slightly disturbing experience. This book makes it clear that those philosophers who have gain the epithet of "Great" have almost invariably put forward a series of unconventional ideas about romantic, as well as other, relationships. Of course, considering how strange and extraordinary their philosophical theories seem to an uninitiated observer, it may come as no surprise to learn that their views on love are also far from mundane. The Greek philosophy titan, Aristotle, thought that women were by nature inferior to men, that they were "monstrosities" of nature, while the German philosopher and Marx's sidekick, Friedrich Engels, claimed that monogamy was nothing but ludicrous. The British Nobel Prize laureate Bertrand Russell, who married four times in his life, acknowledged that an extramarital intercourse was no sin, whereas for the German esoteric philosopher Martin Heidegger, that he and his illegitimate lover Hanna Arendt were teacher and student was merely an inconvenience.
As the title of this book suggests, the philosophers dealt with here are only the ones who did not make a success in their romantic relationships. But if so, it might be shocking how many of the philosophers that enjoy tremendous fame today have been maladroit at loving and being loved. This book may help you mollify your sense of inferiority about being unwise by suggesting that sagacious people have almost always been incapable of doing what commonest people can easily do. Indeed, you may go so far as claiming that philosophy, or love of knowledge, which compels one to think inordinately about extremely trifling things, is nothing but an impediment to ordinary happiness. Well, It might be true. But for my part, even if it is true that the more you think, the further you are removed from what is called happiness, I cannot help but believe that the act of thinking gives more than it takes away, and that it is better to be an unsatisfied Socrates than to be a satisfied fool. After all, the humongous number of people who should have enjoyed so-called ordinary happiness are the ones about whom no book, or not even a passage, could be written by posterity.
After reading Niashimura Kenta's latest book "Kueki Ressha" many readers may wonder why it was able to win the Akutagawa award. It is true that this autobiographical novel doesn't seem to have anything special that differentiates it from other mediocre works, at least as far as its plot is concerned. But in my opinion it is not the plot but the style that sets this novel apart. Although it is generally held that one can draw a sharp line between form and content, and the belief is widespread that when it comes to literary works, content is far more important than form, the boundary that stands between these two realms is far more porous than is commonly supposed. The aim of the novelist is not just to say something special in an ordinary manner but also to say something ordinay in a special manner, and sometimes which of these a particular novel is doing is not so clear.
In some novels, the line is blurred.
Mr. Nishimura's style is iconoclastic but also promising. He explores the possibility of writing interminable sentences in Japanese, whose syntactic properties tend to defy long sentences, and to some extent succeeds in doing this. His sentences are often very long, but beautiful and very easy to read. He also uses some unfamiliar, rare words, like "hana" and "doude.” Thanks to these original characteristics of his style one can get an aesthetically stimulating experience from reading his works. Literature has as much to do with form as with content, and I think "Kueki Ressha" could not have won the award had it not been for its eccentric style.
As the title of this book suggests, the philosophers dealt with here are only the ones who did not make a success in their romantic relationships. But if so, it might be shocking how many of the philosophers that enjoy tremendous fame today have been maladroit at loving and being loved. This book may help you mollify your sense of inferiority about being unwise by suggesting that sagacious people have almost always been incapable of doing what commonest people can easily do. Indeed, you may go so far as claiming that philosophy, or love of knowledge, which compels one to think inordinately about extremely trifling things, is nothing but an impediment to ordinary happiness. Well, It might be true. But for my part, even if it is true that the more you think, the further you are removed from what is called happiness, I cannot help but believe that the act of thinking gives more than it takes away, and that it is better to be an unsatisfied Socrates than to be a satisfied fool. After all, the humongous number of people who should have enjoyed so-called ordinary happiness are the ones about whom no book, or not even a passage, could be written by posterity.
After reading Niashimura Kenta's latest book "Kueki Ressha" many readers may wonder why it was able to win the Akutagawa award. It is true that this autobiographical novel doesn't seem to have anything special that differentiates it from other mediocre works, at least as far as its plot is concerned. But in my opinion it is not the plot but the style that sets this novel apart. Although it is generally held that one can draw a sharp line between form and content, and the belief is widespread that when it comes to literary works, content is far more important than form, the boundary that stands between these two realms is far more porous than is commonly supposed. The aim of the novelist is not just to say something special in an ordinary manner but also to say something ordinay in a special manner, and sometimes which of these a particular novel is doing is not so clear.
In some novels, the line is blurred.
Mr. Nishimura's style is iconoclastic but also promising. He explores the possibility of writing interminable sentences in Japanese, whose syntactic properties tend to defy long sentences, and to some extent succeeds in doing this. His sentences are often very long, but beautiful and very easy to read. He also uses some unfamiliar, rare words, like "hana" and "doude.” Thanks to these original characteristics of his style one can get an aesthetically stimulating experience from reading his works. Literature has as much to do with form as with content, and I think "Kueki Ressha" could not have won the award had it not been for its eccentric style.
The year 2010
The following passage was written on Dec 31, 2010.
As 2010 is about to end, it might be helpful to take a step backwards and contemplate what this year has been like. This is the second year I've worked at Kyorin university, and although I've experienced many things, bad and good alike, over the past year, one thing I'm fully convinced of is that I have zero question that 2010 has been a far better year than 2009 was. What is it about this year that has made it so exquisite, you might ask? Well, there are many factors, but one obvious reason is because I was able to spend three weeks in Oxford as a supervisor of an academic tour.
Despite the fact that I major in English linguistics, and teach English at university, I am a rather introvert man. What I mean by "introvert" is that I have little overseas experience. I have been to the U.S. twice, first when I was a kid, and second when I was fifteen, but both for sightseeing and I stayed there just for a week. While I was studying linguistics at university, I didn't leave Japan at all. So, when I joined this summer's Oxford tour, I got out of this country for the first time in almost 15 years. No wonder I had been deeply worried, before going, about whether I could perform the important role of a supervisor. But once there, I was so busy enjoying everything I saw and heard that I couldn't afford to worry. The days I spent there have passed so hectically that there was no room for anxiety. Of course, I couldn't have enjoyed the tour so much without many people's generous and dedicated support. I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.
This three-week stay in Oxford has opened my eyes and broadened my horizons. I experienced what it was like to be in a totally different environment than the one where you had been brought up. Besides, Oxford is a deeply cultural city, known as the place where academia first materialized. As I am a (pseudo-)scholar myself, I hardly need to say that it was an exhilarating experience just to stay there even for a short time and bask in the historic ambience the city exudes.
But it was not only this that made my stay so cool. It was also the people I went with, that is, the students under my supervision. Some people say that as for traveling, it is not where you go but with whom you go there that counts. Well, I have to admit that where you go is important, but this does not preclude me from saying that the "with whom" part is just as significant. Yes, some, (or most), of the students were troublemakers. Others were not serious enough about studying. To say the least, all of them were not easy to handle. But if so, humans are basically not easy to handle. Some people seem to be malleable just because they hide their true feelings and try to avoid as much conflict as possible. Don't misunderstand me. I am not against doing this. Being able to do so is what it means to be an adult. And you have to be an adult, at least someday.
But sometimes, if you want to strike up an unalloyed friendship, it is necessary to stop hiding your true feelings, to stop pretending to be a person you are not, to frankly express yourself. Those students I went to Oxford with were not afraid of expressing themselves, not afraid of showing themselves as they really are. They were frank and straightforward. So, even if they often caused trouble, and gave me extra spadework, it was not so difficult to imagine what they felt and desired and it was not difficult even to sympathize with them. So, though I’ve no idea what they thought about me, I think that I was able to become friends with them. Through interacting with them, I remembered what it was like to have a true face-to-face communication with others. They reminded me of the obvious but often forgotten fact that it is not good to refrain from doing what you want to do or saying what you want to say. The world out there is certainly full of machination and mendacity, but I feel my three-week stay in Oxford was free of those two necessary vices.
You may criticize me for being too lenient to, or too lopsided in favor of, the students. Maybe, you are right. But I know that they were sometimes too childish and selfish. And I know that in the world of adults, it is necessary to "set aside childish things." But after all they are young. Not that I am old. But they are ten years younger than me. So just because they are as selfish and as childish as I used to be ten years ago does not constitute, at least from my point of view, enough reason to excoriate them. I think that instead of being critical of their flaws, it would be more salutary to focus on their strong qualities and try to learn therefrom. Indeed, they taught me a lot of things that I would otherwise have been unaware of.
Sometimes when you've grown up, you tend to think that you can no longer act like children because you are responsible for your own behaviors, which means that should you make a blunder, you will have to bear the consequences. And there is some truth to this; as an adult you have to be more prudent and discreet than as a child. But this kind of prudence, if put to such an extreme as to border on diffidence, will impede you from fulfilling your true potential .I conjecture that it is lingering childishness in you, your refusal to completely jettison your indiscreetness, that allows you to go beyond your ordinary self. Interacting with those people who are full of childishness, in this sense, emboldened me to be more childish, to be freer to express myself, to be my truer self. It reminded me of the “I” that I really wanted to be, or of the distance between that “I” and the “I” that I am now beginning to settle for. So it is no exaggeration to say that they made the trip all the more inspiring and meaningful, for which I am more grateful than I can say.
Apart from this Oxford tour, I think that some of my classes that I have been in charge of have also helped my second year at Kyorin to be better than the first. During Spring Semester, I taught the course named “English Grammar,” and though it is difficult to say that the class was completely successful, I've learned a lot of lessons from teaching it. First, the class was a sobering reminder that it is excruciatingly difficult to teach grammar to those who are not used to learning, or not ready to study, grammar. How frustrating it was to try to explain a subject to those who didn’t think it necessary at all to study it! But I’ve also learned that however hard your subject may be, if you try hard to explain it in as detailed a way as possible, at least those of your students who are willing to listen can understand what you are imparting. Indeed, one of the students said to me, "Though what you say is difficult, if I try hard to understand it, it is possible to do so." This opinion has encouraged me to hold to the conviction that teaching what is difficult as if it were easy and simple is just hypocritical and to continue to teach in the way I had done before.
But of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Basically I take the view that the sine qua non for studying is its arduousness, so I usually teach in rather strict ways, but I am by nature not so square and interested in making learning experience more enjoyable. So in the class “English Listening and Discussion,” where I am expected to improve the students' listening and speaking skills, I’ve made an experimental attempt to create a light-hearted atmosphere, in which the teacher and the students can interact with each other in a friendlier manner. Instead of concentrating on the process of imparting knowledge, I’ve tried to encourage communication and active participation in the class. Whether this provisional attempt has been successful I cannot tell, but I think this attitude on my part has helped create a good atmosphere and I’ve enjoyed teaching the class, and I hope that the students have enjoyed it too.
I have been talking about my work so far. But of course, it is not only work that has constituted my 2010. Even though I am an easy-going, optimistic person, sometimes I need an outlet for accumulated stress. Some of my friends helped me greatly in this respect. They organized great parties and invited me to them. They listened for my grumblings and gave me important advice. They sometimes encouraged me to have more confidence in myself. Without them, this year couldn’t have been even half as good as it really has been. I’d like to give my deepest gratitude to their kindness.
Taken together, the year 2010 has been a wonderful one. I’ve enjoyed and I learned a lot from it. But there needs to be no ceiling on the level of wonderfulness. Just because 2010 has been good doesn’t mean that 2011 shouldn’t be better. So, while waving good-bye to 2010, who is now leaving, I am already looking forward to meeting a new friend, in excited anticipation of what will be in store for me.
As 2010 is about to end, it might be helpful to take a step backwards and contemplate what this year has been like. This is the second year I've worked at Kyorin university, and although I've experienced many things, bad and good alike, over the past year, one thing I'm fully convinced of is that I have zero question that 2010 has been a far better year than 2009 was. What is it about this year that has made it so exquisite, you might ask? Well, there are many factors, but one obvious reason is because I was able to spend three weeks in Oxford as a supervisor of an academic tour.
Despite the fact that I major in English linguistics, and teach English at university, I am a rather introvert man. What I mean by "introvert" is that I have little overseas experience. I have been to the U.S. twice, first when I was a kid, and second when I was fifteen, but both for sightseeing and I stayed there just for a week. While I was studying linguistics at university, I didn't leave Japan at all. So, when I joined this summer's Oxford tour, I got out of this country for the first time in almost 15 years. No wonder I had been deeply worried, before going, about whether I could perform the important role of a supervisor. But once there, I was so busy enjoying everything I saw and heard that I couldn't afford to worry. The days I spent there have passed so hectically that there was no room for anxiety. Of course, I couldn't have enjoyed the tour so much without many people's generous and dedicated support. I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.
This three-week stay in Oxford has opened my eyes and broadened my horizons. I experienced what it was like to be in a totally different environment than the one where you had been brought up. Besides, Oxford is a deeply cultural city, known as the place where academia first materialized. As I am a (pseudo-)scholar myself, I hardly need to say that it was an exhilarating experience just to stay there even for a short time and bask in the historic ambience the city exudes.
But it was not only this that made my stay so cool. It was also the people I went with, that is, the students under my supervision. Some people say that as for traveling, it is not where you go but with whom you go there that counts. Well, I have to admit that where you go is important, but this does not preclude me from saying that the "with whom" part is just as significant. Yes, some, (or most), of the students were troublemakers. Others were not serious enough about studying. To say the least, all of them were not easy to handle. But if so, humans are basically not easy to handle. Some people seem to be malleable just because they hide their true feelings and try to avoid as much conflict as possible. Don't misunderstand me. I am not against doing this. Being able to do so is what it means to be an adult. And you have to be an adult, at least someday.
But sometimes, if you want to strike up an unalloyed friendship, it is necessary to stop hiding your true feelings, to stop pretending to be a person you are not, to frankly express yourself. Those students I went to Oxford with were not afraid of expressing themselves, not afraid of showing themselves as they really are. They were frank and straightforward. So, even if they often caused trouble, and gave me extra spadework, it was not so difficult to imagine what they felt and desired and it was not difficult even to sympathize with them. So, though I’ve no idea what they thought about me, I think that I was able to become friends with them. Through interacting with them, I remembered what it was like to have a true face-to-face communication with others. They reminded me of the obvious but often forgotten fact that it is not good to refrain from doing what you want to do or saying what you want to say. The world out there is certainly full of machination and mendacity, but I feel my three-week stay in Oxford was free of those two necessary vices.
You may criticize me for being too lenient to, or too lopsided in favor of, the students. Maybe, you are right. But I know that they were sometimes too childish and selfish. And I know that in the world of adults, it is necessary to "set aside childish things." But after all they are young. Not that I am old. But they are ten years younger than me. So just because they are as selfish and as childish as I used to be ten years ago does not constitute, at least from my point of view, enough reason to excoriate them. I think that instead of being critical of their flaws, it would be more salutary to focus on their strong qualities and try to learn therefrom. Indeed, they taught me a lot of things that I would otherwise have been unaware of.
Sometimes when you've grown up, you tend to think that you can no longer act like children because you are responsible for your own behaviors, which means that should you make a blunder, you will have to bear the consequences. And there is some truth to this; as an adult you have to be more prudent and discreet than as a child. But this kind of prudence, if put to such an extreme as to border on diffidence, will impede you from fulfilling your true potential .I conjecture that it is lingering childishness in you, your refusal to completely jettison your indiscreetness, that allows you to go beyond your ordinary self. Interacting with those people who are full of childishness, in this sense, emboldened me to be more childish, to be freer to express myself, to be my truer self. It reminded me of the “I” that I really wanted to be, or of the distance between that “I” and the “I” that I am now beginning to settle for. So it is no exaggeration to say that they made the trip all the more inspiring and meaningful, for which I am more grateful than I can say.
Apart from this Oxford tour, I think that some of my classes that I have been in charge of have also helped my second year at Kyorin to be better than the first. During Spring Semester, I taught the course named “English Grammar,” and though it is difficult to say that the class was completely successful, I've learned a lot of lessons from teaching it. First, the class was a sobering reminder that it is excruciatingly difficult to teach grammar to those who are not used to learning, or not ready to study, grammar. How frustrating it was to try to explain a subject to those who didn’t think it necessary at all to study it! But I’ve also learned that however hard your subject may be, if you try hard to explain it in as detailed a way as possible, at least those of your students who are willing to listen can understand what you are imparting. Indeed, one of the students said to me, "Though what you say is difficult, if I try hard to understand it, it is possible to do so." This opinion has encouraged me to hold to the conviction that teaching what is difficult as if it were easy and simple is just hypocritical and to continue to teach in the way I had done before.
But of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Basically I take the view that the sine qua non for studying is its arduousness, so I usually teach in rather strict ways, but I am by nature not so square and interested in making learning experience more enjoyable. So in the class “English Listening and Discussion,” where I am expected to improve the students' listening and speaking skills, I’ve made an experimental attempt to create a light-hearted atmosphere, in which the teacher and the students can interact with each other in a friendlier manner. Instead of concentrating on the process of imparting knowledge, I’ve tried to encourage communication and active participation in the class. Whether this provisional attempt has been successful I cannot tell, but I think this attitude on my part has helped create a good atmosphere and I’ve enjoyed teaching the class, and I hope that the students have enjoyed it too.
I have been talking about my work so far. But of course, it is not only work that has constituted my 2010. Even though I am an easy-going, optimistic person, sometimes I need an outlet for accumulated stress. Some of my friends helped me greatly in this respect. They organized great parties and invited me to them. They listened for my grumblings and gave me important advice. They sometimes encouraged me to have more confidence in myself. Without them, this year couldn’t have been even half as good as it really has been. I’d like to give my deepest gratitude to their kindness.
Taken together, the year 2010 has been a wonderful one. I’ve enjoyed and I learned a lot from it. But there needs to be no ceiling on the level of wonderfulness. Just because 2010 has been good doesn’t mean that 2011 shouldn’t be better. So, while waving good-bye to 2010, who is now leaving, I am already looking forward to meeting a new friend, in excited anticipation of what will be in store for me.
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