Welcome to the first PALE newsletter of 2005. Before we say anything else, PALE officers apologise for the fact that this newsletter is not up to the same professional standard of publication as last year. Although PALE has achieved remarkable success in saving itself from the brink of extinction we still have some gaps in our ranks. Edward Haig the previous coordinator took on many tasks in addition to the coordinator's job. Single-handedly he edited, printed and posted the newsletters last year. In devoting so much of his time to this task (and other vital tasks related to keeping PALE going) Edward was unable to spend as much time on his PhD studies as he planned. Because of this Edward has decided to step down as a PALE officer this year (although he is very much involved in the task of giving help and advice to the new coordinator who, conveniently, also lives in Nagoya). We all wish Edward well with completing his PhD and we all thank him for his invaluable help in saving PALE from the brink.
What PALE now needs is a publicity officer to take over the task of publishing a professional standard newsletter followed later by other kinds of publication. So, if there are any budding editors out there please make yourselves known to any of the PALE officers. If you attend the JALT conference in October you can also talk to us in person, although of course this is not a requirement for the post. No previous experience is necessary as Edward has agreed to pass on his knowledge of the whole process to whoever takes over.
Robert AspinallCurrently the treasurer for PALE, the first couple of months have been hectic with getting the paper work in order. Thanks to Edward Haig, it was quite an easy process transferring receipts numbers into the right columns, that sounds simple until I mention that I have no Excell experience. So there was a little learning curve over the spring break.
Now that our accounts are in order the last stage is the audit which usually occurs end of March and can last until June. Under the guidance of the JALT treasurer this year PALE will be able to be in good running order for the year ahead.
Since PALE is a great SIG in providing information about professional development in the Japanese Education System, I would like to encourage members to become more involved in disseminating information to PALE members.
You can help PALE by offering articles, or reviews or by showing interest in one of the positions and start learning more about it.
As the PALE treasurer I look forward to serving the SIG and look forward to a productive year.
Sincerely,
Nicolas GromikMembers of PALE were saddened to learn of David Agnew's recent and untimely death. I met David only once, when he lectured on his work with the Education Workers' Association (EWA). Not having had much experience with labor unions, I wondered what sort of person would be speaking, and vaguely imagined either a big, burly fellow pounding on the podium with a tire iron, or a wild-eyed character spouting fiery slogans. Instead I found a disarmingly soft-spoken, smiling, and youthful-looking man, who gave a concise yet lucid history of the EWA's gradual emergence in response to deteriorating conditions in language schools.
The lecture was first-rate: well-balanced, free of emotionally-charged rhetoric, and wonderfully informative. David's lecture helped to shape my awareness of labor action in Japan. In the years to follow, I kept up with David's EWA work in Osaka, and was impressed with his unflagging energy and positive outlook. This is not the place to delve into EWA history; interested persons can go the the union's home page at http://www.ewaosaka.org/eng/index.htmlBy the way, I think David would approve of my posting the link here; he was clearly a man who focused on action, and I think he would want people to keep on supporting the work he so energetically advanced.
After leaving Japan and taking up work in Canada, David continued to support his former colleagues here by editing the PALE Journal online. And what an editor he was! Suffice it to say that without David's support, there might well have been no journal at all. We had no reason to expect a first-rate publication, but that's what we got. I wish David were here to talk about his motivations and the source of his tremendous energy and dedication; I could use his advice, as the PALE group struggles to attract new members and to carve out a role for itself.
Jonathan B. BrittenI hope that this report about two recent meetings in Tokyo will help PALE members get some insights into what is actually happening nation-wide in the area of English language teaching reform. Mostly, the meetings consisted of schools and universities reporting back on their progress in implementing changes to their language curricula. Various programmes are coordinated by the Ministry of Education (MEXT), but these programmes are worthless unless they result in practical change taking place at the genba (the place where education is actually delivered). PALE members may want to compare what is going on at the institution where they work with some of the programmes mentioned in this report.
Day One: the SELHi [Super English Language High School] Forum 25 March 2005
SELHi schools are high schools that have applied for and received extra resources from MEXT over a period of three years in order to improve English teaching. They are also required to carry out action research into the methods they use and publish the results. March 2005 is the final month of the first three-year research project which involved eighteen schools (fifteen public and three private). This forum was organized so that some of these schools could report back on their progress, and panels of experts could discuss what could be learned from their experience. About 700 people attended the forum that was held at the "Big Sight" Conference Centre in Tokyo.
In his opening remarks a man from the Ministry of Education pointed out that Japanese people now had more opportunities than ever before to communicate with foreigners (through travel, the internet etc). In spite of this, he believed that Japanese people in general were still poor at communicating in English.
My own impression is that this perception by government and employers in Japan that English levels of students are too low, is the main reason for the fact that the national budget devoted to English teaching is being increased at a time when public education expenditure as a whole is being cut.
A teacher from Senri High School, a prefectural SELHi school from Osaka, made a presentation that included video clips of students taking part in communicative English classes. One clip showed the students discussing AIDS and how the laws of different countries approach the problem. I was impressed by the English abilities of the students and by their ability to talk about a potentially sensitive subject like AIDS in a frank and open way. The Japanese teacher directed the class in English. From the video clip it seemed that this particular class was composed only of girls. This clip combined with the other demonstration classes shown over the two forums reinforced my impression that special communicative English classes at the high school level have far more girls than boys in them. Maybe some research is needed on why this is the case.
The next presentation was by two teachers from Mejiro Gakuen high school (a private high school). Students who take the special English course at this school do nine hours of English in their first year, ten hours in their second, and twelve hours in their third. Students who take this course must also participate on a twelve day study tour in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK that includes an eight-day home-stay. After the teachers had spoken a student gave a speech in English about the kimono. This was an example of the kind of speech the students are required to give to their hosts in Abingdon. The speech was excellent. It must have been a nerve-wracking experience for the student to give it in front of 700 people!
The presentations given by the two high schools reinforced my impression of the differences that exist between private high schools and public high schools when it comes to communicative English teaching.
Private high schools have more freedom in allocating more hours per week to English study for some students.
Private high schools can include an element of foreign study as a required part of the course. Public schools can not require that parents spend that kind of money.
Private high schools employ foreign teachers as full-time members of the staff.
To be fair to MEXT, they have been trying to address two of these issues in the following ways. The integrated course of study allows public schools to have more freedom about what they put in their curriculum 3 so they can spend more time on English if they wish. Secondly, MEXT has now allocated guidelines that allow public schools to employ foreigners as full time members of staff with teaching licences. Foreigners are still not allowed to be promoted to the level of Kyoto sensei (deputy-head) or higher. Also the one foreign full-timer I spoke to said he only had a five-year contract although it had not been decided what would happen to him after that.
Panel Discussion
The panel consisted of the following members.
Kageura Osamu, Professor at Miyazaki University
Yoshida Kensaku, Professor at Sophia University
Matsumoto Shigeru, Professor at Tokai University
Yamasaki Yoko, Teacher at Senri High School
Yoshida Naoko, Teacher at Mejiro Gakuen High School
The panel focused on English as part of the whole high school curriculum. They looked at the pros and cons of teaching other subjects through the medium of English, i.e. content-based learning. They also discussed what the aims of the schools should be in regard to the student as a whole person. Yoshida Kensaku (who is a permanent and welcome fixture in this kind of forum) asked "what kind of person do we want to nurture?" In other words MEXT's aim of creating "Japanese people who can speak English" requires us to think of the place of English teaching within the whole nurturing role of the school. English skill is not something that is just stuck on as an after-thought 3 it needs to be central to the whole raison d'etre of the school curriculum. This relates to another theme that came up in both days 3 the argument that improving communication in English cannot be done without improving communication in all parts of the school curriculum.
The panel also emphasised the research role of the SELHi project. Schools must share the fruits of their research with other schools, which, in turn, must be encouraged to try out new teaching methods.
Afternoon Workshop Sessions I
The first set of sessions was divided into four groups, each of which consisted of four SELHi high schools giving reports on their progress. I attended a session with reports from schools in Chiba, Tokyo, Kyoto and Shiga prefectures (the Chiba and Kyoto schools were private, the other two were prefectural).
A common element of the power point presentations given by all four schools was lines on graphs showing various test scores going upwards as students progressed from the first to the second to the third year. Reading and writing were tested as well as oral communication and listening.
Ritsumeikan Uji High School in Kyoto included in its curriculum for the English course a trip to New Zealand.
A common theme was that special English classes were helping to turn the high school curriculum in a more learner-centred direction.
Afternoon Workshop Sessions II
This was also divided into four groups. I went to a session where I learned more about the two private schools I had seen in the first session. Ritsumeikan Uji High School included in its curriculum classes with Asian university students from the Asia Pacific University in Oita (which is also part of the Ritsumeikan group of schools and universities).
Day Two: English Forum 2005 Regarding the Establishment of an Action Plan to Cultivate "Japanese with English Abilities"
The Education minister, Nakayama Nariaki opened the forum with a short speech repeating the often-heard points that globalization is bringing people from different countries into contact with each other more and more, and Japanese people need to make themselves understood better on the world stage. He then handed out awards to schools and local authorities that had achieved outstanding results in English education.
This was followed by a speech by Akashi Yasushi, the former Deputy Secretary-General to the United Nations. He also talked about the need for Japanese people to make themselves understood better internationally. He talked about the difficulty of getting all Japanese students up to a high level. Maybe only about ten percent could be brought up to a really advanced level. This can be understood alongside MEXT's action plan documents that talk about advanced English education only for a few. [MEXT did not put a number on this 3 but I have heard the figure of ten percent mentioned from other sources. When I interviewed Yoshida Kensaku he said that even ten percent would be a huge improvement on the current state of affairs.] Elitism in English education was a theme that came up again at other events in today's forum.
The Director of MEXT's International Education Division, Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau, Yamawaki Yoshio gave the next presentation. [He appeared at the JALT conference in Nara last year to talk on the same theme.] He talked about the progress of the "action plan". One important point was the decision to allocate guidance and budget for the creation of permanent foreign teachers at public schools. There are already 300 of these in place, and plans for up to 1,000 (the final number will be up to local boards of education).
The next item on the agenda was a model English lesson presented by Yamaoka Kenji and 30 students from Maibara High School, a SELHi school from Shiga Prefecture. The students brought tables onto the platform to simulate a classroom in front of an audience of 700. The class took the form of a debate about the environment. Of course the class was well rehearsed, but the students did extremely well in a high pressure environment. Once again it was the girls who did the most talking. About one quarter of the class were boys but they did not say much. Yamaoka sensei spoke only in English. Considering that this high school does not have the resources of the more prestigious private high schools it put on an excellent performance.
Afternoon Workshop Sessions I
As in yesterday's forum the workshop sessions were divided into four. I went to the one that included perspective from non-Japanese teachers. Firstly Jeffrey Miller from Hakuoh University argued that, although there were many problems, English education in Japan had never been better. He gave seven reasons for this: (1) the MEXT five year action plan [the subject of this forum]; (2) expanded teacher training; (3) almost 20 years of ALTs; (4) SELHis [the subject of yesterday's forum]; (5) elementary school English instruction; (6) the inclusion of listening in the 2006 Center English Exam; (7) more communicative textbooks and teaching. A Japanese teacher in the audience also commented that in his 30 year experience he had never known a period of change like the present.
The next speaker was Dai Harris the Director of Studies and Program Manager at La Trobe University Language Centre. I was very interested in his comments about the effect of Japanese cultural attitudes to communication on English teaching. In my own research I am interested in this as an obstacle to improved English teaching in Japanese schools and universities. The next speaker was Eddy Jones, advisor to Nagano Prefecture on international education issues. He talked about the successes of the JET programme which has now been in existence for almost twenty years. He pointed to one of the problems inherent in the position of the ALT: the ALT is both an expert and an assistant at the same time. This dual status sometimes can cause problems in relationships with Japanese teachers. The final speaker was Huw Oliphant, the MEXT ALT advisor (and lecturer at Ochanomizu University). He pointed to the improvements that had already been achieved, for example in teacher training and in textbook and exam design. He emphasised the decision of MEXT to promote permanent foreign teachers in public schools.
In the question and answer session that followed I made the point that one of the cultural traits in Japanese education that had caused problems for language teachers was the egalitarianism of Japanese schools, i.e. the attitude that everyone in a given cohort should progress through the various stages of education as one coherent group. Individual students were not supposed to go at different speeds. This meant that potentially excellent students at foreign language were held back from progressing. The panel pointed out that in SELHi schools students who were in the special English course were allowed to progress much quicker. This is true, but I heard at the panel at last year's JALT conference that at one SELHi school there was a certain amount of bitterness in the school directed at the staff and students involved in the English project. In Japan it is considered very rude to be ostentatious about one's ability or achievements. This inevitably brings criticism against those who have clearly advanced further with English than the average for the year group. If the SELHi model is to replicated in many more schools, then students, teachers and parents throughout Japan are going to have to adjust their attitudes to allowing different students to advance at different speeds in some subjects. This would be a move to more individual-oriented education in Japan's high schools.
Afternoon Workshop Sessions II
Out of a choice of four I went to the one on "Effective training for Japanese Teachers of English". After presentations about various training programmes in Japan and abroad there was a very interesting discussion. One controversial suggestion was that all Japanese teachers of English should have some training abroad. This was countered by two points: (a) that perfectly good training could be provided inside Japan; and (b) that overseas training programmes were often unhelpful because they did not address the exam system that Japanese teachers had to work within.
Please note the following new publication.
It contains chapters by Brian McVeigh, Jerry Eades, Robert Aspinall (PALE Coordinator) and others who work or have worked at universities in Japan.
The 'Big Bang' in Japanese Higher Education: The 2004 Reforms and the Dynamics of Change
J. S. Eades, Roger Goodman and Yumiko Hada (eds), Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press A$49.95
On 1 April 2004, Japanese higher education experienced a 'big bang', a set of reforms that have been described as the most significant institutional changes for over a century. One of the main aims is to make Japanese universities more competitive internationally, by eliminating the differences between national, public and private schools, and by giving them greater autonomy from the state in day-to-day administration and decision-making. At the same time, these institutions are facing an increasing demographic crisis, as they compete for a declining number of potential students, thanks to the falling Japanese birthrate. The chapters of this book examine these changes and the background to them from a variety of perspectives, including those of the government, the teachers and the students. Issues examined include the history of Japanese universities, their relation with the state, university management, internationalization, the struggle to attract students, the problems of language teaching, the impact of information technology, and efforts to upgrade the level of research.
For more information see the publisher's website
http://www.transpacificpress.com/public/home.ehtml
PALE's mission starts from the recognition that language education does not take place in isolation from society and other fields of education. Issues of concern include curriculum design, implementation and maintenance, professional ethics, professional development and evaluation, administrative methodology, leadership dynamics, comparative education, sociological trends in education, employment problems, legal issues, and the demands that societies place on educators. PALE seeks to appraise teachers of research and trends in these issues by organizing conference presentations and through its journal, newsletter, listserv and website www.debito.org/PALE.