The sad state of science education in Japan

[The_Nice_Guy]

Within each school, that may be the case. However, to avoid that, a student would go to the school which suit their learning needs, as I said. It is not uncommon for students living next to a high school to instead travel via subway to another school on the other side of town every day (Average cost of return trip, $5US a day), simply for that sort of reason.

The best way to avoid this would be to have teachers in each school with the ability to cater for different abilities within a class. Of course, I've since discovered that it's extremely difficult.

Which is again why students who learn better in those environments tend to be the ones who enrol in the schools which use those environments. When I said the schools all used the same curriculum, I didn't mean everyone's a bloody ROTE learning clone. What's the same all around is the information the classes are based around, to a certain minimum level.

And that shouldn't be the case. Why should students learn the exact same information? For content based subjects like the sciences and the humanities, sure, you can't avoid content. But for language, content is just a context through which process skills are imparted.

In other words, the use of authentic, which is to say real life situations, should be employed to enable learning. Play a broadcast from the late night news, for example. An english cartoon. A recording of actual conversation between a native english speaker and a japanese like how to get to a train station. These sort of things.

The content of all these should not be dictated by the higher ups. It's not wrong, however, for the higher ups to provide a database of ideas from which the teacher can pick and choose what content s/he wants to use for classes.

As I did say, those are a bit old. There have since been some reforms, and I'll look for some more up to date articles later. However, I will admit that these problems do exist, and this is more due problems with teacher training then it is with the curriculum. Things have slowly been changing over the past few years as new young teachers come into the system with new fresh ideas of how to teach.

Happening everywhere. But the curriculum should also be loosened up. For the sciences, less emphasis on content and more emphasis about thinking about what content they have would be a good idea. My teaching subjects are chemistry and english(a weird combination), and the biggest problem in chemistry is getting students to undnerstand the thought processes behind the basic facts.

Yes, but I don't think even in Singapore that you would have situations like my example above, would you?

Believe it or not, there's also a huge restructuring of the syllabus going on here, involving all the subjects being taught in schools, as well as the methods of instruction.

For the sciences and the humanities, the end results, that is to say the facts and theories of the subjects, are still dictated by the Cambridge 'O' and 'A' Level examiners. For language, however, I have observed vast differences in content from school to school, and even between classes in the same school. These differences are a result of student abilities, environments, as well as events in real time.

I've seen teachers use current events as content for english teaching, and some use archaic(heh) content from WW2 as content, etc, based on their perceptions of what a class of students might be interested in.

And let me guess, they adopted the same "Our methods worked for us when we were kids, why shouldn't they work for these kids now?" I've got when I've pointed out similar problems over here, right?
I guess the "If it's not broke, don't fix it" principle seems to apply everywhere. Some people just don't seem to understand that just because it can work doesn't mean there's not a better solution.

Problem is the skepticism about whether it is indeed a better solution. Sometimes the skepticism is justified. Sometimes it isn't.

In the case of teaching, however, it has been shown that new methods work better. That doesn't mean the old ones are discarded, just that they should be used less frequently.

Agreed that they're not always going to be the best teachers, but you have a better chance of them being good if they've got proper training, if only because they're not as likely to have the same hang-ups with their students as their teachers did when they were learning English themselves (For example, a common problem over here with non-native language teachers is an over-emphasis on grammer and proununciation, to the point where students are berated constantly for even the most minor of errors).

When talking about training here, I mean having some university level courses in linguistics(social and functional), and then a course in english language instruction, which builds upon that linguistics knowledge and applies them in teaching. Anything less than that for teaching english to students aged 14 and above is insufficient.

Over-emphasis on grammar and pronunciation and berating students for those errors, for example, is classic behaviorism. But the teachers probably won't know that themselves.

Personally, there's two things about the Japanese system of English teaching which I feel could use a lot of improvement. Firstly, the one area where ROTE memorization could be of real use perhaps, Vocab, isn't even taught in class. Secondly, when one has a rare chance for communication, too much importance is placed upon pronounciation. English speakers are *used* to all sorts of weird English accents. Between Great Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, you've already got maybe 7-8 major recognisable accents, all of which pronounce many words slightly differently. No one's going to really give a damn if you pronounce "Thank You" as "Sanku Yuu", because we understand your meaning. There's plenty of time to teach the students "proper" pronounication once they actually have an understanding of what it is they're saying.

Great Britain has an accent? Dude, IIRC, within England itself there are more than 10 accents!!! Not to mention that the Scots would be pissed if they knew you grouped them together with England in having a common accent.

I have conversed in English with Americans, Australians, Europeans, English etc, and it's always interesting to see how my own accent shifts slightly to improve communication.

In fact, I would dare say that even vocabulary need not be rote learned. Basic ones, sure, there's no way to get around it. But once the basics are grasped, it's time for students to try inference. An example would be to present a text with about 2-3 words which the students have never seen before. From the context of the passage, get them to guess at the meaning of those words. This sort of activity can build up language confidence and self-sufficiency.

Instead of 'proper' pronunciation, I would say 'acceptable' as a better gauge, because it still matters a great deal. Or else you get this below. It's from my english education class in teaching speaking. Kids were to partner up and take up the roles in pairs, and stimulate the conversation. It's a ball of laughs!

Code: Select all

Hotel employee(HE): Morny, rune sore-bees.
Guest(G): Oh sorry, I thought I dialed room service.
HE: Rye, rune sore-bees. Morny. Jewish to odor sunteen?
G: Yes, order something. This is Room Thirteen-O-Five. I want...
HE: Ok. Torino-fie. Yes, bliss?
G: I'd like some bacon and eggs.
HE: Ow July then?
G: Sorry?
HE: Aches. How July then? Pry, boy, pooch...?
G: Oh, the eggs! How do I like them! Sorry. Scrambled, please.
HE: Ow July thee baycome? Crease?
G: Crisp would be fine.
HE: Ok. An Santos?
G: What?
HE: Santos. July Santos?
G: Uh... I don't know. I don't think so.
HE: No? Judo ones toes?
G: Look, I really feel bad about this, but I just don't know what judo-one-toes means. I'm sorry...
HE: Toes! Toes! Why Jew Don Juan toes? Ow bow eenlish mopping we bother?
G: English muffin! I've got it! Toast! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be fine.
HE: We bother?
G: No. Just put the bother on the side.
HE: Wad?
G: I'm sorry, I meant butter. Butter on the side.
HE: Copy?
G: I feel terrible aout this...
HE: Copy. Copy, tea, meok...
G: Coffee! Yes, coffee please. and that's all.
HE: One minnie. Ass rune torino-fie, stranglee-aches, crease baycome, tossy eenlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye?
G: Whatever you say.
HE: Ok. Tenjewberry mud.
G: You're welcome.

So you see, pronunciation is still important. To an extent.

TWG

[LordShaithis]

Oh, every couple weeks someone posts something like this. Just the country and the idiotic replies change. Remember the one where 3% of the British thought Battlestar Galactica really happened?

[Frank Hipper]

Oh, every couple weeks someone posts something like this. Just the country and the idiotic replies change. Remember the one where 3% of the British thought Battlestar Galactica really happened?

What does a poll of British adults with a sense of humor (and who had possibly been drinking) have to do with Japanese school kids not knowing basic astronomy?

[Archaic`]

The best way to avoid this would be to have teachers in each school with the ability to cater for different abilities within a class. Of course, I've since discovered that it's extremely difficult.

Heh. I'd say practically everyone on this forum would've discovered that during high school for themselves.

And that shouldn't be the case. Why should students learn the exact same information? For content based subjects like the sciences and the humanities, sure, you can't avoid content. But for language, content is just a context through which process skills are imparted.

In other words, the use of authentic, which is to say real life situations, should be employed to enable learning. Play a broadcast from the late night news, for example. An english cartoon. A recording of actual conversation between a native english speaker and a japanese like how to get to a train station. These sort of things.

The content of all these should not be dictated by the higher ups. It's not wrong, however, for the higher ups to provide a database of ideas from which the teacher can pick and choose what content s/he wants to use for classes.

Again, we seem to have a misunderstanding. They're required to teach certain minimum levels of content in each subject, and after that, it's up to them what they want to teach from what is essentially the "database of ideas" you just mentioned.
As to actual teaching methods, to my knowledge there is no set method the teacher is supposed to use, but the majority apparently to tend to teach the same things the same ways.

Happening everywhere. But the curriculum should also be loosened up. For the sciences, less emphasis on content and more emphasis about thinking about what content they have would be a good idea. My teaching subjects are chemistry and english(a weird combination), and the biggest problem in chemistry is getting students to undnerstand the thought processes behind the basic facts.

Over here, it might be more of a problem to get the students to start thinking for themselves, with them getting so used to being spoonfed all the facts by rote. Of course, if they actually needed understanding to pass their tests, whereas now all they need is pure memorization, I'd imagine you'd start to see a large change in the study patterns of these students. When it comes to passing those tests, these kids get totally obsessive. So do their parents for that matter.

Believe it or not, there's also a huge restructuring of the syllabus going on here, involving all the subjects being taught in schools, as well as the methods of instruction.

For the sciences and the humanities, the end results, that is to say the facts and theories of the subjects, are still dictated by the Cambridge 'O' and 'A' Level examiners. For language, however, I have observed vast differences in content from school to school, and even between classes in the same school. These differences are a result of student abilities, environments, as well as events in real time.

I've seen teachers use current events as content for english teaching, and some use archaic(heh) content from WW2 as content, etc, based on their perceptions of what a class of students might be interested in.

Errr....I meant the example of going to a school known for certain teaching methods/standards/etc, regardless of distance. ^^;

Problem is the skepticism about whether it is indeed a better solution. Sometimes the skepticism is justified. Sometimes it isn't.

In the case of teaching, however, it has been shown that new methods work better. That doesn't mean the old ones are discarded, just that they should be used less frequently.

Try telling these teachers that though. *sigh*

When talking about training here, I mean having some university level courses in linguistics(social and functional), and then a course in english language instruction, which builds upon that linguistics knowledge and applies them in teaching. Anything less than that for teaching english to students aged 14 and above is insufficient.

Over-emphasis on grammar and pronunciation and berating students for those errors, for example, is classic behaviorism. But the teachers probably won't know that themselves.

Which is another problem with Japan's language education system. Anyone with a university degree can teach in high school in a subject related to their degree, or can teach a language if they're a foreigner and have any degree whatsoever. It's to the point now I believe where Business majors may outnumber the Humanities majors.

Great Britain has an accent? Dude, IIRC, within England itself there are more than 10 accents!!! Not to mention that the Scots would be pissed if they knew you grouped them together with England in having a common accent.

Well, I was saying there were 7-8 accents between 5 countries. I knew England had at least 3 (English, Welsh, Scottish), but I didn't expect the number to be quite so high.

Instead of 'proper' pronunciation, I would say 'acceptable' as a better gauge, because it still matters a great deal. Or else you get this below. It's from my english education class in teaching speaking. Kids were to partner up and take up the roles in pairs, and stimulate the conversation. It's a ball of laughs!

snip

So you see, pronunciation is still important. To an extent.

Thankfully, with the Japanese language already having so many words borrowed from English and other European languages, they tend to have quite passable pronunciation to begin with. Sure, there'll probably be a spare vowel left hanging off the end of the word, but beyond that, there's usually no problems.

[Sharp-kun]

That kind of role is filled over here by a weekend morning educational anime. IIRC, it's called something like "Sou nan da".

And Gunbuster.

What does a poll of British adults with a sense of humor (and who had possibly been drinking) have to do with Japanese school kids not knowing basic astronomy?

It tells you to take all polls with a pinch of salt

[Admiral Valdemar]

Most Gallup polls are amazingly inaccurate on their subjects. A thousand people isn't really a great percentage of even the smallest first-world nations, yet some see these polls and assume any nation that has 1% of people that even consider Battlestar Galactica real or doesn't know basic scientific principles is a lost cause.

You never know when you may be talking with kids who want to mess around with you and who full well know what the poll will mean and that they're not thick as pigshit.

So until I see something a little more substantial, I'll just take this to mean a minor hiccup in what is otherwise a great schooling system for Japan (once you ignore the whole WWII vacuum they have).

[Archaic`]

That kind of role is filled over here by a weekend morning educational anime. IIRC, it's called something like "Sou nan da".

And Gunbuster.

Nah, Gunbuster hasn't been on TV in ages. Zeta Gundam on the other hand...

[Admiral Valdemar]

Actually, Gunbuster had some good physics. The time-dilation, Californium bombs and probably the most realistic mecha control system devised all helped me like it (aside from Noriko's, shall we say, "assets").

The bioships, using mechas as a weapon system and a bomb the size of Jupiter (because it was Jupiter) all added to the Bad Science aspect though.

[Sharp-kun]

Nah, Gunbuster hasn't been on TV in ages. Zeta Gundam on the other hand...

I was referring to the "Science Lessons". Zeta doesn't have anything like that.

[Archaic`]

Point made. Sorry, was taking you a bit too literally.

[Symmetry]

How true. Every time I moved up a rung on the ladder of education, it seems as if everything they taught us previously was wrong........

Yeah, they start by giving you the switch resistor model for mosfets, then the talk about the linear and saturated regions, then they add leakage current, then base effects, and now they finally spring velocity saturation on me. Its a conspiracy I tell you.

[Lonestar]

Only one man can stop this wave of Ignorance...

Bill Nye the Science Guy (seriously, that guy is a great Educational asset, I could not get enough of him when i was young)

I'll take your Bill Nye and raise you a "Magic School Bus".

[Spanky The Dolphin]

No offence, but unless you're refering to the books, Magic Schoolbus sucked ass compared to Bill Nye.