Opinion and Perspective

Why Less Is More in the Japanese
University EFL Classroom
T. TraubHosei University
When planning a curriculum for an EFL course, teachers strive to choose thematerial which creates the greatest net benefit for most students in the class. Ofcourse, this can be difficult when we have students of varying ability levels. As well,
we have many stakeholders with competing ideas about what to do to create themaximum benefit for students. Additionally, these stakeholders often have theirown personal agendas which may influence their decisions about which learningmaterial is best. All too often, when the textbook choice is not in the hands ofthe teacher, the text that is chosen is far too difficult, or otherwise inappropriate.
This article intends to suggest that while teachers may risk not challenging
higher level students, we should choose, or advocate for the choice of, morebasic level material. There are a number of sound reasons for this view. Easiermaterial will decrease absenteeism, increase learner confidence, and reducebehavioral problems of the lower level students. Additionally, the use of material
which contains previously studied language provides a fertile ground forautomatization of the use of said language. This automatization will then, in turn,free necessary cognitive resources to be used for the oral production, and creativeuse of previously learned language. Finally, easier material is less likely to cause
emotional stresses that raise affective filters, and hinder language acquisition.
Some of the stakeholders who may want to see a more difficult text being
used may be doing so because they believe a harder text portrays more value when
showcasing the curriculum to final decision makers. Oftentimes, consideration isgiven to what the students ought to be able to do and they find it discomforting388

Why Less Is More, OnCUE Journal, 9(4), pages 388-391

to see that some of the students are performing at a level beneath where they aresupposed to be. But the situation is what it is, and we cannot correct the problem
by ignoring its existence. A realistic view of the actual abilities of the students atthe beginning of the course can help us to attain maximum benefit for the classas a whole.
Others may actually believe in the “drowning man” approach. Those people
tend to advocate for the more difficult text believing that a drowning man willcertainly swim as hard as possible to save his own life. In the same sense we can beassured of maximum effort from the students when they are in over their head,and thus maximize English learning. However, a man who has been in over hishead may equate this negative experience to the water, in general, and thus will
avoid the water altogether. Therefore, that man will, certainly, never learn toswim well. This situation can be avoided if we stay in the safety of the shallow
waters near the shore.
With regards the lower level students in the class, if we are covering
vocabulary and grammar structures which are too difficult for them, they aregoing to feel less confident, and thus less motivated (Dörnyei & Csizér, 1998).
Additionally, the anxiety can lead to absenteeism which would, of course,
reduce their exposure to the language and compound the problem (Williams &Andrade, 2008). This will result in a net loss to the overall educational benefit of
the course for the group as a whole. Additionally, lower level students are more
likely to act up in class when they do not understand the material ( Jorgenson,1977). Thus, care must be taken to develop a curriculum around a text which is
not overwhelming to the lower 30% of the class. They will be more likely to show
up, and not act up.
One question that may be posed by advocates of choosing higher levelmaterial is “If we choose material that is low enough so that it will not cause
undue anxiety in the lower 30% of the class, will we not risk making it ‘tooeasy’ for the upper 30%?” This can be answered with the question, “How manyof the best students in your class are so good that they would not benefit from
more exposure to previously learned language?” If the higher level students areengaged in activities requiring them to perform tasks with the language that389

Traubthey could already perform, then they are simply going to become more fluent,and automated at doing so, and this they will do with fewer hesitations, fasterrecognition, and more communicatively appropriate production of the language(Schneider & Fisk, 1982; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977). Additionally, automating
the underlying cognitive mechanisms frees up those resources so that the student
can attend to other conversational tasks such as constructing larger pieces of
discourse by combining previously learned constructions (Pawley & Syder,1983). If we choose a text which is “too easy” for the top 30% of the class, theworst thing that could happen might end up being the best thing that couldhappen. Thus, there is no quantifiable net loss to the students, if a text is chosentargeting the lower 30% of the class.
Another reason to choose lower level material is to lower the affective filter
for all students (Krashen, 1981). The student is unlikely to learn as much if she
is struggling to comprehend so many things that learning becomes unpleasant.
Worse yet, if the student feels inferior or embarrassed because she cannot
understand the material, because every other word is an unfamiliar word, thenthe affective filter is likely to go up, and the student will learn less (Gardner &MacIntyre, 1993).
Obviously, there are some limits to how basic we should reasonably go.
And, it is assumed that choosing a course book will require a certain amount ofguesswork. But, when choosing material for the Japanese university classroom,
it stands to reason that it would be best to err on the side of easiness when ourgoal is to increase communicative competence with previously learned language.
Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be to consider what level would be needed
so that the lowest 30% of the class could get a 75% with a reasonable effort.

References

Dörnyei, Z., & Csizér, K. (1998). Ten commandments for motivating language
learners: Results of an empirical study. Language Teaching Research, 2(3),203-229.
Gardner, R. C., & MacIntyre, P. D. (1993). A student’s contributions to secondlanguage learning. Part II: Affective variables. Language Teaching, 26(1), 1-11.
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Jorgenson, G. W. (1977). Relationship of classroom behavior to the accuracyof the match between material difficulty and student ability. Journal ofEducational Psychology, 69(1), 24-32.
Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning.
New York, NY: Pergamon.
Pawley, A., & Syder, F. H. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike
selection and nativelike fluency. In J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (Eds.),
Language and communication (pp. 191-227). New York, NY: Routledge.
Schneider, W., & Fisk, A. D. (1982). Degree of consistent training:
Improvements in search performance and automatic process development.
Perception & Psychophysics, 31(2), 160-168.
Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic humaninformation processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and ageneral theory. Psychological Review, 84(2), 127-189.
Williams, K. E., & Andrade, M. R. (2008). Foreign language learning anxiety
in Japanese EFL university classes: Causes, coping, and locus of control.
Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 5(2), 181-191.

Author bio

T. Traub teaches at Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan. He has been teaching in theU.S., and Japan since 2001. His current research interests include content-basedlearning, and pronunciation pedagogy.
Received: March 22, 2015
Accepted: February 3, 2016

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