With my classes taking a short break for Christmas and New Year, I finally got my act together and have gone back into my own learning, of teaching and more importantly, of some Japanese.
Here is the status of my Japanese:
- no formal Japanese classes ever
- only went to a few volunteer housewives’ classes for a short period
- second to none motivation to learn
- no strategies or no routines of learning
- only instrumental motivation (It would be useful only if I needed Japanese at work….)
This all translates into my Japanese level remaining at the false beginner level, elementary at the most, and that things are pretty hard going if I were to improve my Japanese – there are always better things to do. My problem is very much like what many Japanese learners of English have, I’m much better at reading than talking and listening because I can understand Kanji in its written form.
As I was browsing though bookstores, I could not resist the temptation and have bought yet another Japanese textbook to put on my shelf – as if simply having the book will mean my Japanese can miraculously improve on its own, without any actual studying.
My excuse of building a pile of textbooks was that as a difficult learner, I’ve always found it really hard to stick with one textbook. Having several meant I could dip in and out of whichever seems interesting for the day. I also find it impossible to get the perfect textbook. Perhaps any such attempts would be futile, as teachers we should know better that there is no such thing as a perfect textbook.
With my recent reading on lessons from good language learners, I’ve realised, unfortunately, I probably belong to the groups outside that category, which means I could benefit from having some strategies and a study plan if I were to have any chance of success.
The book I bought was this one:
Learning Japanese from Manga. Each unit has a dialogue for a certain situation with a CD. What I like about this book is the fact that the conversations are realistic and as far as I could tell, it has a mixture of formal and informal situations. But what I really like is the grammar points and conversation tips written in Japanese. Apart from the actual dialogues, I found myself learning more from the grammar point section spilling out the tips of how to converse more like a native. The tips aside, I am also learning how to read just above my comprehension level. It feels pretty good to understand grammar points in Japanese.
I couldn’t help to draw parallels between some of the strategies suggested in the book and the way we talk in English, perhaps more in a British way.
On a chapter on refusals, the book gives the following tips:
- never gives an outright refusal
- use incomplete sentences to indicate your intention to refuse
- following the apology, gives a reason (however simple it might be)
- add a polite phrase at the end so the other will invite you again next time
- express subtle hints including the use of certain discourse markers, falling intonation as well as the appropriate facial expression
At this point, I wonder, how come my learners (especially those in lower levels) are unable to use the same strategies in making refusals in English? Should the teachers be more explicit in comparing these strategies and perhaps to even spill them out at times? Wouldn’t that be a logical thing to do given that we are in a largely monolingual teaching environment? To draw parallels between strategies and feed in the appropriate language.
I wonder how I could turn this into a viable lesson.
connieay 