New Horizon: Grade 3, Unit 2

[Otaku]

UNIT 2: THE SHAMISEN CONCERT
--J-CULTURE: Have I said how much I hate reading about J-culture in the English textbooks?

--TARGET SENTECE: The target grammar on page 12 can’t be found in the text anywhere. Why? Because you can’t see it. Why? They write it in conjunction form: “I’ve lived…”

--SCHOOL/SCHOOL: On page 15, it is written: “When I was in elementary school, I went to a shamisen school and practiced hard.” This girl must have been very busy going to two schools!

--MULTI PLUS 2: My first problem on this page is the word “we”. When you’re writing about a trip YOU went on, YOU don’t write as a collective, unless YOU are the Borg from Star Trek.

Next, now it’s not J-culture. It’s traveling around IN JAPAN. English has nothing to do with Japan. Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Next, “My favorite was Kinkaku-ji.” Your favorite, what? Place? And, why is “ji” in Japanese? Turn over to the next page, why is “jo” also written in Japanese? If your precious culture is so important to talk about it on every page in the textbook, at least do it in English! It's "temple" and "castle", you idiots! Damn, I'm angry! Setting up an anger management session right now.

Finally, look at the blue text in the Challenge Listening box on page 19. It says, “Shuri-jo Castle.” That’s like saying, “Lake Biwa-ko.” It’s redundant. If someone like me, with no PhD or background in textbook making can find these simple mistakes, what does that say about the people responsible for these paperweights? Scheduling another anger management session.

[Richard_BenoitEnglipedia Drone]

Good point here. If they want to talk about their culture, especially to foreigners try doing it in the foreigner's language!

[Will487]

"--MULTI PLUS 2: My first problem on this page is the word “we”. When you’re writing about a trip YOU went on, YOU don’t write as a collective, unless YOU are the Borg from Star Trek."

I agree completely with you but needless to say we are actually dealing with the Borg in a manner of speaking.

P.S. We use the New Horzon textbooks at my school and I think they are garbage for the most part.

[Paul]

Nice call there Will, I have to agree, particularly on the "borg" point.

Example;

We went on a trip to visit my family back in the world. We visited many of my relatives and had a great time. My favorite part of the entire trip was my chance to eat decent steak at a reasonable price and drink beer that my brother made.


Sorry Otaku but while the student is talking about her own experience she is referring to her shugaku-ryouko, which as I see it makes the use of "we" proper in the situation described to in the section you have a problem with.

[Otaku]

For my response, I will simply post the title of the page: My School Trip.

The point of the page is one student telling about their experience on a school trip. Without even focusing on the horrendous starting of a paragraph with a pronoun, it should read, "My class and I went..." The focus isn't the 'school trip', it's the experiences of one individual on the trip. Every other sentence in this area starts with 'my' or 'I', so throwing in a 'we', especially if the reader doesn't know who 'we' is.

IMHO is not necessarily incorrect, simply bad practice.

[Paul]

IMHO is not necessarily incorrect, simply bad practice.

I dont dispute your points but I dont see how you can say it is bad practice either. If it bad practice it somehow to me anyway makes the assumption that there is something incorrect about it.

[Otaku]

Actually, thinking about it some more, I will go out on the limb and say it is incorrect.

Here's the passage...


"We went to Kyoto on a school trip in June. Kyoto is an old city with many traditional buildings.

My favorite was Kinkaku-ji. It was very beautiful. I also enjoyed talking with my friends at night. I'll never forget the trip."


The rule of grammar states that you don't use a pronoun without FIRST using a regular noun before it. That's the rule. I think we can agree on that, right? So, in the first sentence, "we" is incorrect to use. You must say something like, "My class and I..."

Now, if you wanted to refer to the group (class and student) and where they went as a group in the following sentences that I would be okay. But, "we" is never mentioned again.

And before you say it sets everything up in the explanation above the passage, that has no relationship to the actual writing inside the passage? Why? Because you can't assume the reader knows anything (topic of writing, culture, etc.) other than what they are reading. You have to read it in a vacuum.

For example, I'm sure we've all experienced the following. The JTE creates a worksheet for this area. Students write about their trip and then he/she give you the papers to correct. 99% of the papers start off with "We..." That is incorrect.

I feel like I'm doing my students an injustice if I read their papers with the inside knowledge of knowing about school trips and who goes on them. I read them like I would a stranger reading them, and it just plain wrong to start a paragraph off with a pronoun.

And, my comment in the OP about writing from the "I" versus "We" has to do with me seeing students answering other questions using the same form, AND the textbook practices this in other parts as well: "I get up at seven. I leave home at seven fifty. I walk to school. I get to school at eight ten. We have lunch at twelve thirty. I play basketball after school. I usually study before dinner. I go to bed at about eleven." I, I, I, I, We, I, I, I...which of these don't belong?

I'm under the opinion the "we" usage has to do with a culture thing, community culture and all. J-culture bleeding into English class only creates future pain and sorrow, IMHO. An annoying pain now will become a huge injury if it's not sniped early.

That's how I see it.

[Richard_BenoitEnglipedia Drone]

At the risk of being smashed into particles by Otaku, or "digitized" Like they used to do to people in "Captain Power: Soldiers of the Future"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Power

I feel that the "we" in this conundrum is not reffering to Japanese and what "they" always get up to. But rather "we" the class went on a trip.

It doesn't make it correct but I would be reluctant to strike it down as borg like culture promotion.

[Otaku]

...and starting a paper with a pronoun?

[Richard_BenoitEnglipedia Drone]

It doesn't make it correct

(sorry lazy lol)

[Paul]

We have met the enemy and he is us........

[Otaku]

...he is we.

[Richard_BenoitEnglipedia Drone]

[Will487]

Otaku,

I agree with your point that in order for the sentences to be gramatically and logically correct, they should start off with "My class and I" when referring to a school trip. This pronoun confusion is a problem that my students have in general. I have graded diaries that they have done over their vacations which have read something like this:

I went to basketball club this morning.
We had a great time.

This leaves me no choice but to circle "we" and ask them who "we" is.

Often times, the students will mix up "I" and "it" as well which makes their written passages even more confusing. Examples of this would be "I was fun" or "I was amazing" when they meant to say "it was fun" and "it was amazing."

The main problem that I have in all of this mess is that the teachers follow these textbooks verbatim, and if I raised an issue with a passage in the book with them it would probably cause more problems than solve them. I end up trying to ignore the mistakes of the textbook and just concentrate on the fact that they are speaking English at all even if it is gramatically and logically incorrect at times. I try to catch the mistakes when grading their homework and write in the appropriate grammar there as that is a direct conduit to the student at that point minus the textbook and the JTE.

Anyway, I think all your points are strong and legitimate. The question I would ask you is this: are you able to bring these grammar incongruities up to the JTEs at your school and fix these mistakes before they ever reach the students?

[Otaku]

Actually, thinking about it more, I think the opening sentence shouldn't be "My class and I..." I think it should read: "I went on a school trip to Kyoto with my classmates."

After all, the topic is "MY school trip."

@Will, if I can get to the JTE before they've set the ball in motion, I will bring mistakes to their attention, but if it's already set in motion I'll bring it up with the teacher privately. But, if I'm correcting their papers, just like you, I ask the student, "Who is 'we'?"

I only work at one school and I've been working with the same teachers for all three years. We have a great working relationship, but another problem with the system over here is the constant bouncing around of the teachers, teaching different grades every year. I sometimes don't get to the teachers before they put the stuff out.

It just really grinds on me that the people writing these textbooks probably have PhDs in the field and stupid mistakes like these slip in.

I have a conspiracy theory about this grade-to-grade and school-to-school bouncing. The excuse given is "so not-so-good schools can get a flavor of good teachers as well." I think that's simply an excuse. I think the real reason is so that teachers won't become skilled at one particular grade. By bouncing them around, teachers don't ask questions about the foolishness in the textbooks because they don't have a chance to become truely skilled at one grade, and as a result, the textbook becomes more of an English Bible than a reference book.

I have a teacher who has been teaching 20 years and I asked her how many times shes taught the same grade. She said, "seven." In 20 years, she's only taught a certain grade 7 times! That's not very many, especially considering there is usually a 1-2 year break in between teaching the same grade...you forget a lot of the good ideas you had. When you go back and teach the grade again, you reuse the ideas you made 3 years ago while sticking pretty close to the crappy textbooks. The problem with that is you reuse the material you made three years ago when you were also following the textbook pretty closely back then, too.

A lot of my JTE's worksheets have mistakes in them. I tell her about them well before she uses them, but instead of fixing them, she simply tells the students to fix them. When she finishes using the worksheet, she puts it back in her folder, where the same mistake is made three years into the future.

Another big problem with a lot of the older teachers is that their stuck in their ways and still on paper ideas and aren't storing them on computers where it's easy to change a mistake. Speaking of which, have you looked on the desktops of some of your teachers. A lot of them use the desktop as a My Documents folder. Teachers and computers over here...that's another topic altogether.

[Munch]

UNIT 2: THE SHAMISEN CONCERT
--J-CULTURE: Have I said how much I hate reading about J-culture in the English textbooks?

I don't know whether you have or not. But I think it is good to include topics that students are familiar with. It can help students to engage with the subject and relate their learning of English to their lives. Personally, I think a shamisen concert was a bad choice though - none of the students seemed remotely interested in Japanese traditional music. I suspect it's also intended to remind students about Japanese culture. Is that an explicit goal of the Japanese educational system?

--TARGET SENTECE: The target grammar on page 12 can’t be found in the text anywhere. Why? Because you can’t see it. Why? They write it in conjunction form: “I’ve lived…”

I like that. It shows students that the grammar they are learning can appear in a slightly different form.

--SCHOOL/SCHOOL: On page 15, it is written: “When I was in elementary school, I went to a shamisen school and practiced hard.” This girl must have been very busy going to two schools!

Yeah, the two "school"s made that sentence a bit awkward to read but it doesn't strike me as egregiously unnatural. What don't you like about it?

--MULTI PLUS 2: My first problem on this page is the word “we”. When you’re writing about a trip YOU went on, YOU don’t write as a collective, unless YOU are the Borg from Star Trek.

By "you", do you mean me? Because I might write that way. The use of "we" didn't seem strange to me at all. Maybe you are reading too much into it. Do you think it is an error due to the collective nature of Japanese culture? Thousands of native speakers have used the phrase "We went on a school trip".

Next, now it’s not J-culture. It’s traveling around IN JAPAN. English has nothing to do with Japan. Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

I am baffled by this. What is so hard about using English to talk about travelling around Japan? Obviously a lot of nouns will be Japanese but otherwise, what is the problem? And unlike the shamisen concert, travel in Japan is something students are familiar with and can easily relate to.

Next, “My favorite was Kinkaku-ji.” Your favorite, what? Place? And, why is “ji” in Japanese? Turn over to the next page, why is “jo” also written in Japanese? If your precious culture is so important to talk about it on every page in the textbook, at least do it in English! It's "temple" and "castle", you idiots! Damn, I'm angry! Setting up an anger management session right now.

Finally, look at the blue text in the Challenge Listening box on page 19. It says, “Shuri-jo Castle.” That’s like saying, “Lake Biwa-ko.” It’s redundant. If someone like me, with no PhD or background in textbook making can find these simple mistakes, what does that say about the people responsible for these paperweights? Scheduling another anger management session.

I agree that "My favorite was Kinkaku-ji." sounds awkward without context. That seems like a simple issue a native speaker could have corrected. The ji/jo business came up in class and we used it as a teaching point. We talked about how most English speakers (and foreigners in general) won't realise what jo/ji/yama/mame/whatever mean in Japanese, so you end up with phrases like "edamame beans". I told the students to be aware of the issue but not worry about it too much. It took one minute, a chuckle was had, and we moved on.

[Paul]

I don't know whether you have or not. But I think it is good to include topics that students are familiar with. It can help students to engage with the subject and relate their learning of English to their lives. Personally, I think a shamisen concert was a bad choice though - none of the students seemed remotely interested in Japanese traditional music. I suspect it's also intended to remind students about Japanese culture. Is that an explicit goal of the Japanese educational system?

Welcome to the forum!

This depends TOTALLY on the location and school I would lay a HUGE bet on. Many if not most JHS's have elective classes and any of the kids take shamisen, tea ceremony, or traditional dance or drum classes. That tells me that the students do have an interest in learning the traditional music and arts as well.

“My favorite was Kinkaku-ji.” Your favorite, what? Place? And, why is “ji” in Japanese?

Otaku, down here even the road signs to Shuri Castle Park read in Romaji....Shuri-jo Castle Park. I talked to the guy who actually made the signs and pointed out his "mistake" and he deferred by telling me he just followed what he was contracted to do by the Highway Department in charge of that road. He knew it was wrong but said nor did nothing about it.

[Munch]

Welcome to the forum!

This depends TOTALLY on the location and school I would lay a HUGE bet on. Many if not most JHS's have elective classes and any of the kids take shamisen, tea ceremony, or traditional dance or drum classes. That tells me that the students do have an interest in learning the traditional music and arts as well.

Thanks for the welcome - and agreed. It depends what the writers were trying to do. If they wanted to appeal to students based on their hobbies I still think it was a poor choice because relatively few Japanese teenagers are interested in shamisen music compared to other topics they could have chosen for that chapter. It is just sheer weight of numbers. There are other reasons for including Japanese traditional instruments though.

“My favorite was Kinkaku-ji.” Your favorite, what? Place? And, why is “ji” in Japanese?

Otaku, down here even the road signs to Shuri Castle Park read in Romaji....Shuri-jo Castle Park. I talked to the guy who actually made the signs and pointed out his "mistake" and he deferred by telling me he just followed what he was contracted to do by the Highway Department in charge of that road. He knew it was wrong but said nor did nothing about it.

Yeah, it's just a usage issue, nothing to get too upset about. Be aware and move on. I wonder if there are any place names with three-fold redundancy in their names?

[Otaku]

I don't know whether you have or not. But I think it is good to include topics that students are familiar with. It can help students to engage with the subject and relate their learning of English to their lives.

I could see how having a familiar topic could be a useful tool, sometimes...but not ALL THE TIME. It seems to me every time I turn the page, it's more and more Japanese culture: This is a hashioki. We call it a yunomi. I mean, between stories about woe-are-we Hiroshima suffering and environmental pollution, it looks to me that the English textbooks are simply conditioning their students instead of actually focusing on teaching them English.

When I studied Japanese at uni, we learned all about Japanese-ish things: ikebana, onsens, sumo, etc. Culture and language...they’re connected. Honestly, I think if I were to study about hamburgers, hotdogs and American football in Japanese class, that would be really strange. I think the same goes for English class whenever possible.

Yeah, the two "school"s made that sentence a bit awkward to read but it doesn't strike me as egregiously unnatural. What don't you like about it?

This comment was in regards to what I said to this quote in the book: "'When I was in elementary school, I went to a shamisen school and practiced hard.' This girl must have been very busy going to two schools!"

I will admit, I was being a bit facetious but the point I was getting at is the weirdness of the sentence, which we both agreed on. What don't I like about it? Everything! The sentence makes it sound like the girl went to an elementary school AND a shamisen school on the side. While the sentence might not be 'egregiously unnatural', at the point you have to say 'egregiously' when referring to an English sentence in a beginners of English textbook, the hairs on the back of my neck start standing up.

I say, keep things simple. Write clearly for the sake of the students trying to learn the language.

The use of "we" didn't seem strange to me at all. Maybe you are reading too much into it.

I keep saying the same thing but nobody seems to be listening. You don’t start off a paragraph, much less the beginning of a paper, with a pronoun. It’s a bad practice to follow. Specificity is what my English teachers always told me in school.

The ji/jo business came up in class and we used it as a teaching point.

It’s good that you identified the problem and spun it into a teaching tool. That simply means you’re good at thinking on your feet and probably a good teacher. But, the point of what I was basically getting at was simpily identifying yet another error in the books. I think by having discussions like these, people can read them and get some good ideas (a.k.a. spin textbook mistakes into positive teaching points.)

People might say little things like this should not get me upset, but it's little things stack up into a gigantic headache, wouldn't you agree? AND, I don't know how much time you've spent reading through the various texts, but I've spent an enormous amount of time in all the series. It was painful! I noticed the little things start becoming amplified...every time I see even a small mistake, it's like throwing gas on an open flame.

[Otaku]

Oh, BTW, Munch, welcome to the forums! :)

Please don't think I'm coming off combatively...simply discussing things.

[moolooman]

True that. Otaku only gets combative when it comes to bazaars

[Otaku]

@moolooman...you're bazaar.

Wasn't there a song in the '90s that featured the words, "How bazaar?"

[moolooman]

From my home country in fact. Paul Fuemana and the Otara Millionaire`s Club.

[Munch]

Thanks for the welcome. It’s nice to have the chance to talk about this stuff with people who won’t hold back what they say, i.e. other vulgar foreigners like me.

When I studied Japanese at uni, we learned all about Japanese-ish things: ikebana, onsens, sumo, etc. Culture and language...they’re connected. Honestly, I think if I were to study about hamburgers, hotdogs and American football in Japanese class, that would be really strange. I think the same goes for English class whenever possible.

I agree that it’s important to teach culture along with the language but there are some important differences between your learning of Japanese and our students’ learning of English. First, Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, while the majority of people who speak English are not even native speakers. There is no one culture to go with English, and Japanese people are likely to end up communicating in English with other non-native speakers. On the other hand, Japanese is tied closely to Japanese culture. Secondly, if you chose to study Japanese at university level, you were a young adult and almost certainly interested in Japan. But every child in Japan has to learn English, whether or not they care about the cultures of English speaking countries and have any familiarity with them.

It’s a matter of reducing the amount of unfamiliar concepts a student has to deal with, so we can concentrate on what is important – the language. Also, using Japanese culture makes it relevant to their lives (although I think we agree that there is probably a lot of wishful thinking from older Japanese teachers and textbook authors, as far as student interest in traditional culture is concerned).

I will admit, I was being a bit facetious but the point I was getting at is the weirdness of the sentence, which we both agreed on. What don't I like about it? Everything! The sentence makes it sound like the girl went to an elementary school AND a shamisen school on the side. While the sentence might not be 'egregiously unnatural', at the point you have to say 'egregiously' when referring to an English sentence in a beginners of English textbook, the hairs on the back of my neck start standing up.

I think it was saying she went to both an elementary school and a shamisen school. What's strange about that? It’s a perfectly natural sentence for a native speaker – she went to a music school and learnt the shamisen after school or on the weekend. Maybe you are just getting thrown off by the two “school”s. What about a sentence like “When I was in high school I worked in a supermarket.” Sounds fine to me and it doesn’t mean the speaker was in two places at once.

I keep saying the same thing but nobody seems to be listening. You don’t start off a paragraph, much less the beginning of a paper, with a pronoun. It’s a bad practice to follow. Specificity is what my English teachers always told me in school.

Don’t start a paragraph with a pronoun? Like you just did? It’s perfectly fine in many cases. Use a pronoun if it is clear what the pronoun refers to. It sounds like one of those made-up rules that got passed along without much thought, like “don’t start a sentence with a conjunction” or “passive voice is bad”. Maybe you are misremembering, or your English teachers were over-simplifying to make things easy to understand for students. Maybe they were just wrong.

It’s good that you identified the problem and spun it into a teaching tool. That simply means you’re good at thinking on your feet and probably a good teacher. But, the point of what I was basically getting at was simpily identifying yet another error in the books. I think by having discussions like these, people can read them and get some good ideas (a.k.a. spin textbook mistakes into positive teaching points.)

It isn’t necessarily a mistake; it is just a matter of perspective and style. Do you regard foreign language terms as black boxes which merely serve as pointers to an object, or do you preserve the meanings from the original language? Does “Gobi Desert” bother you? What about any of these:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names?

People might say little things like this should not get me upset, but it's little things stack up into a gigantic headache, wouldn't you agree? AND, I don't know how much time you've spent reading through the various texts, but I've spent an enormous amount of time in all the series. It was painful! I noticed the little things start becoming amplified...every time I see even a small mistake, it's like throwing gas on an open flame.

I agree there are plenty of errors in the textbooks, but many of the things you have mentioned are just personal issues. If you exaggerate issues with the textbooks I think it can make you lose credibility when you are criticizing the genuine problems. For example, there is a lot of debate about teaching culture – how much should students be taught about the culture of the target language, and how much should they learn to communicate about their own culture? It’s a complicated question and it depends on the languages in question, what you are trying to teach, and the motivation and background knowledge of the students. Extreme statements like “English has nothing to do with Japan. Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole” might put people off if they have spent a lot of time considering the issue of culture. The same goes for “rules” you might have been taught the one forbidding beginning a paragraph with a pronoun.

I think it also depends on the JTE. Most are happy to explain about the mistakes, weirdness and out-of-date language in the textbooks when I bring up. But some others seem upset that the Sacred Text of Wisdom is being disputed. That attitude is real pain in the arse, I think you will agree. With New Horizon and a good teacher, I feel like there are a manageably small number of issues. I can bring up all the problems I see without it seemingly like the textbook is completely full of crap.

[moolooman]

It isn’t necessarily a mistake; it is just a matter of perspective and style. Do you regard foreign language terms as black boxes which merely serve as pointers to an object, or do you preserve the meanings from the original language? Does “Gobi Desert” bother you? What about any of these:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names?

Go New Zealand and it`s tautological prowess. First on the list. Bloody nice place is the Mount / Maunga aswell.

[moolooman]

Of equal or bigger concern than the textbooks for me is the homogenised, one-size fits all teaching approach that I must employ in my classes. The huge old statement "if they are serious about English education" would bring up such questions as to is there any differentiation for varied abilities, is there formative assessment, is there planning based on results of said formative assessment, is there "safety nets" for those falling behind, does a rising tide lift all the ships? Nope, nope and nope. I don`t know if I am speaking for English education alone. I suspect I may be pointing at the larger picture of public school education in Japan.

Thanks Munch and Otaku. My head hurts now. Trying to sound as clever an as knowledgeable as you two. Maybe I will just go back to my lameass wisecracking.

[Otaku]

I'll answer your post tomorrow, Munch. This is just starting to get interesting.

And, Mooloo, in serious threads you need wise-crackers to break the tension. I'm not sure about wise, but I'm sure you're a 'cracker'.

[Otaku]

Sorry, meant to reply yesterday but got caught up in other things.

I agree that it’s important to teach culture along with the language but there are some important differences between your learning of Japanese and our students’ learning of English. First, Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, while the majority of people who speak English are not even native speakers. There is no one culture to go with English, and Japanese people are likely to end up communicating in English with other non-native speakers. On the other hand, Japanese is tied closely to Japanese culture. Secondly, if you chose to study Japanese at university level, you were a young adult and almost certainly interested in Japan. But every child in Japan has to learn English, whether or not they care about the cultures of English speaking countries and have any familiarity with them.

I'm a bit confused as to what you were getting in the above quote.

YOUR FIRST POINT: You say that culture is divorced from language because Japanese people will most likely communicate in English to someone else who isn't a native English speaker? Did I get that right? If so, I would have to disagree. Yes, I would agree, but I don't have the stats to prove it, the majority of non-Japanese people in this country do not speak English as their native language. But, I would venture a guess if these non-Japanese people were talking to a Japanese person, the language most likely being spoken would be Japanese, not English. Of course, I'm simply speculating...

Generally speaking, you can't divorce culture/language. That's a slap in the face of every native foreign English teacher in Japan. Anyways, are we are always told, "Teach your culture."?

You can, however, try to make English learning culture-neutral. Meaning, try and use vocabulary and grammar that most of the English-speaking countries and Japan have in common, WITHOUT FORCING IT. Find the commonalities and teach them, but don’t tweak English around to make it fit better with the Japanese grammar. For example, “They eat cheese, don’t they?” (One World, book 2) I'm not saying it's incorreect, simply that people don’t usually talk like that in English. We would simply ask, “Do they eat cheese?” I think it is taught this way because that’s how people would ask it in Japanese.

Basically, what I'm saying is just use generic names and stories that everyone, no matter their country could relate to: "The pencil is on the desk." "Jim played basketball yesterday." <--That's generic enough, "isn't it?" Damn, did I just offer an idea to divorce culture?

Also, create original stories to use in the textbook, instead of borrowing them from other countries.

Also, stop using stories that include a moral because, beyond the issue of teaching morals in English class, the conversation will always have to revert to Japanese to have a discussion about it. The focus needs to be kept on English, especially if you’re going to bring in a native English speaker to help with the classes.

YOUR SECOND POINT: Fair enough. Students learning English and me learning Japanese is a bit different. Students are forced to learn English over here. That's why it's important to keep it fun. But, I would ask, "Are students learning about their own culture in a different language beneficial and an effective way to go about teaching language acquisition? I would suggest, it is not...

Additionally, I would argue that it's more fun to learn about something completely foreign than relearning shit you already know, except in a different language. It keeps students interested and engaged. Me thinks...

It’s a matter of reducing the amount of unfamiliar concepts a student has to deal with, so we can concentrate on what is important – the language.

Reducing unfamiliar concepts is a great idea, but what is the result of teaching your own culture in a foreign language? Yeah, a student can introduce themselves in English BUT the material included in a Japanese self-introduction and one from our own country is COMPLETELY different.

Okay, so the students study about their own culture, what is the impact to that when they are speaking English? They pretty much only feel comfortable talking about their own culture? What happens when an English-speaking person wants to share something from their own culture? This most likely will be foreign to the Japanese student. Now, if the Japanese student would have studied about English-speaking countries’ cultures, instead of their own, they might have had the chance to actually connect: “Oh, yeah! I remember studying about that in English class!”

Additionally, taking everything about your culture and translating it into English creates many non-mainstream English words: Chopstick holder, children's day, etc. You say 'chopstick holder', I think something you put a set of chopsticks into, not something you rest them on. You say 'children's day', I'm like "Children don't get a day. They haven't lived long enough to deserve a day!" Ok, I'm becing facetious but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at? A lot of things when translated are just weird. What is ごちそうさまでした in English?

Another reason against studying your own culture is CONFUSION. "This is a zabuton. It is a Japanese cushion." (ok, good so far.) "We use it to sit on tatami mats." (WHAT?!?! What kind of mats?!?!) Trying to explain things about your own culture ends up spiraling out of control because your explanations often include more Japanese words that the listener doesn't understand. I think an important goal of language acquistion is trying to be able to think in that language, and you can't do that if you have to keep jumping back and forth.

Plus, going back to the original comment about 'unfamiliar concepts', it is much easier for students to absorb them when they are younger than to surprise them with it when they are older. It really is as simple as that.

I think it was saying she went to both an elementary school and a shamisen school. What's strange about that? It’s a perfectly natural sentence for a native speaker – she went to a music school and learnt the shamisen after school or on the weekend.

Maybe I’m simply splitting hairs, but she took “shamisen lessons” at "XXX music school"?

Specificity and simplicity I would think would be the best strategy when teaching English to beginners, and as such, I don’t think how the book worded this area does that.

I agree there are plenty of errors in the textbooks, but many of the things you have mentioned are just personal issues. If you exaggerate issues with the textbooks I think it can make you lose credibility when you are criticizing the genuine problems.

1. Keep things consistent throughout the book as to avoid confusion.
2. Don’t use a pronoun to start off a paper.
3. Teaching your own culture in a foreign language class limits your understanding of the foreign language’s cultures, and will limit it even more when you use the language but are restrained because you spent your time in English class learning about your own culture.

These aren’t ‘personal issues’. They’re ‘problematic’ ones that need to be addressed.

Now, as far as ‘exaggerated issues’, you’ve got to understand something. All these ramblings and pedantic points are years of me note taking in English class. I simply wanted to put them all out there for people to read, mainly as a therapeutic way to help me relax from the years of having my head stuck in them for so long.

I do talk about the overarching problems I see with the entire series: here

OTHER POINTS:
PRONOUNS: The reason you can’t start a paper or paragraph off with a pronoun is because the pronoun hasn’t yet been contextually defined. Munch, please tell me how it is acceptable?

JI & JO: To make my point simple, “pick one and stick with it”. If you’re going to write XXX-ji, then use it consistently throughout the book. However, using “XXX-ji” on one page, the “XXX Temple” on the next one is straight obnoxious and confusing to the students. I can't stress it enough, simplicity is one of the best tools for learning.

That's it for now...

BTW, sorry if some of my thoughts were scattered. Working on several things at once.

[Munch]

I was saying that there are more non-native than native English speakers in the world, so when Japanese people do communicate in English, it is quite likely to be with another non-native speaker.

You seemed to be saying that you must teach culture along with English and you should try to make English lessons culturally neutral. If so, it sounds paradoxical but I agree with you - in the first case, students need to know how to use language to fit the circumstance (an issue of culture) but you don't want to teach them about culture which is specific to one time and place, and you don't want it to get in the way of language acquisition. Anyway, I am sure you'll agree the issue of culture is too complex to deal with in a thread about one textbook chapter (or even any one thread at all!) But I think giving students the idea that "English has nothing to do with Japan" is dangerous and off-putting. And I still don't see the problem with talking about travelling in Japan. Sure, it could have been an opportunity to include in a bit of foreign geography, or some details of transport systems in other countries but there are always trade-offs - familiarity vs. opportunity to teach new concepts.

The "no stories with morals" I half agree with. I actually wish they had stories with ambiguous, controversial or contradictory messages, so we could have some real discussion. But that's just my preference. It's rare even in western countries and probably not going to happen in Japan. I will try to stick to talking about this chapter though, or I will be here all night.

So, you prefer "When I was in elementary school, I took shamisen lessons at XXX music school.", to what is in the book: "When I was in elementary school, I went to a shamisen school." To me, your version sounds exactly as natural as the book's version. It is longer, more specific and more complex - neither is better or worse. As an aside, whether or not I would choose to attended XXX Music School would greatly depend upon the physical properties of the teachers. Boing!

1. Keep things consistent throughout the book as to avoid confusion.

A good guideline, but you could also say: show all common patterns when there is variation is usage in the real world. It's a trade-off.

2. Don’t use a pronoun to start off a paper.

To start a paragraph, or just to start a paper? It might depend on what you mean by "paper", but I think both are fine if it is clear who or what the pronoun refers to. The preamble to the US constitution begins with "we". Even you began paragraphs with "I" and "you", perhaps without noticing. Other posters have given examples too. The example in the textbook seems a bit like your constitution - the "we" is potentially ambiguous, but "class trip" makes it clear who "we" refers to. Third person pronouns are less likely candidates here but I have seen them used in fiction to create suspense. If by "paper" you mean college essay, you are probably right but that is just a matter of convention and using the correct register.

3. Teaching your own culture in a foreign language class limits your understanding of the foreign language’s cultures, and will limit it even more when you use the language but are restrained because you spent your time in English class learning about your own culture.

Well sure, any time not spent learning about foreign culture means you are not learning the absolute maximum amount of foreign culture. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I hope students will be able to talk about Japan and Japanese things in English and be able to talk about foreign things too.

[Munch]

From my home country in fact. Paul Fuemana and the Otara Millionaire`s Club.

Yeah bro, but that was just a cover of this song I think: [exturl]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--g2dmYDUEs[/exturl]

Fully.