On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

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On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

From the Editor
This year has seen the departure of Alan Mackenzie as CUE co-ordinator, following on from several
other changes in officers earlier in the year. Alan has gone on to manage the coming conference, and iscurrently standing for election as national program director. His time as CUE co-ordinator has seen an
impressive list of achievements: a series of mini-conferences, each with published proceedings; a bookpublishing venture; collaborative projects with other groups within JALT; and a redesigned layout for
On CUE. He leaves CUE with a strong identity as a professional forum for the discussion of issues
facing university and college educators in Japan today. We’l miss his boundless energy, but wish him
well in the future and look forward to the new team building on the foundations he has laid.
This issue of On CUE comes with an apology for the long delay since the last issue. A number ofproblems, (including the procrastination of the editor!) pushed back the publication date for the Springissue to such an extent that the board have tentatively decided to move to two issues per year instead ofthree. In place of the third issue we propose to seek expressions of interest from individuals or groupsinterested in guest-editing an annual special themed issue of On CUE. Guest editors will be free toexperiment with the content and format of special issues, which could follow the general framework of
the current issue, but could also be quite different. If you have an idea for a special issue, and would liketo be involved in editing it, please contact the editor (<carroll@andrew.ac.jp>). If you are new toediting, the On CUE editorial team will be happy to give every assistance.
The next issue of On CUE, volume 10 (2) is planned for the Spring break and should be in mailboxes
before the start of the 2003 academic year. That issue will be the first to be peer-refereed. I believe thisis a very positive step for On CUE and will benefit readers and contributors alike.
If you would like to discuss any of these issues, or if you have comments or suggestions about activites
CUE might organise in the coming year, please feel free to contact any of the editors or the CUE
executive board members listed on page 1. Call in at the CUE desk at Shizuoka, or send us an email.
See the notice on page 6, listing the kinds of jobs for which we have vacancies at the moment. We lookforward to hearing from you.
Michael Carroll

CUE PARTY
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Saturday 9.00pm, near Shizuoka station
Dinner and all you can drink for 4,200yen
For booking purposes it helps if you sign up earlyc o n ta c t A n d r e w O b e r m e ie r <andrew@kyokyo-u.ac.jp>
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Turn-taking
analysis ofJapanese EFL
learners’ English

of Japanese EFL students’ turn-taking system inEnglish and to apply them to EFL education.
I asked 8 pairs of juniors at a Japanese university
first to answer a questionnaire and then to have freeconversations which I recorded on audio-tape andtranscribed, using the notation by Ochs, Schegloff
and Thompson(1996). With the transcribedconversations I asked the participants more detailed
questions about their understanding of turn-taking.

Yang Tao Features of Japanese EFL learners’
turn-taking
Kyoto University of Education
My analysis of turn-taking focuses on threepoints: speaker’s role, listener’s role and attitude
toward TRP(transition relevance places: pauses
between speech)(Sacks and et al.1974). From somedetailed examples quoted from the recordings, four
prominent features were observed:

Introduction
Many of my Japanese students have told me
about their experience, in conversation with native
speakers, of not being able to get a word in.
Language proficiency level may cause the problem,
but more importantly, the problem also may be due
to conventions in the English turn-taking system thatare different from the Japanese system(White 1997,
Riggenbach 1999, Iwasaki 2001). According to
Iwata(1998), unlike in English, in Japanese turns areusually allocated, not taken. Her research is basedon conversation between Japanese and foreigners,
but what about the Japanese EFL learner’s English
conversation with their Japanese peers who sharethe same attitude toward taking turns in theconversation? By analyzing whether they are able
to take turns with appropriate timing—whether
they’re able to realize the roles of speaker andlistener, this research attempted to find some features

1. Back channeling expressions were well usedby the learners and especially by female students,
but most of them were used in supporting utterances
instead of taking turns to show their opinions.
In face-to-face communications, listeners don’tlisten to speakers’ words passively; on the contrary,
they have to digest those words within the context
using their knowledge, and to think about what they
have to answer next. During conversations, evenwhen it is not our turn to talk, we may nod or makenoises like”umhmm,””yeh”to encourage the speaker
to continue.
Table 1 shows back channeling expressions andfillers used by participants in this research:

Table 1
Nasalsounds(Countless times)
Ehhn (enn), ahh, ehen, hunhunhun,
hunhun, yeah, yeahyeah, oh, uhun,sou(Japanese),hahaha,sousou(Japanese) wow,haha,heiheihei

Soundsandwords(14 times)
Wow beautiful (1),Yeah I think so(2)Yeah ahh I think so too(1)Oh, really,(1)Yeah like kimono (1),Yeah like a seminar (1),
No I don’t think(1)
Ohh I’d love to go there(1)Oh,Why(2)Oh yes(1)Uhun I see,(1)Okayokay I see(1)No I don’t think so.(1)3

Words(many times)
okay, well, yes, soso, so,then, great, why, yeees,

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Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

As we can see, the range is limited. There are
only few actual words used, and most of the timethey are used together with nasal sounds(oh, ah, wow
and so on). However, the nasal sounds such as“uhnn,enn,hunhun” are typical Japanese backchanneling expressions. So we can come to aconclusion that because of strong influence fromlearners’ native language-Japanese, they still use
Japanese back channels unconsciously whey they
speak in English. Also, expressions like “what I
means is, I don’t think I agree with you” are neverused here, which indicates that these students tended
to emphasize expressions that acknowledge others,
to ignore expressions that take turns to show theiropinion, and to avoid denying as much as possible.
2. The participants in the project didn’t feelcompelled to avoid silences. This could be
misunderstood by English speakers as a mark of
unwillingness to be involved in the conversation.
However, in the follow-up discussions, participants
gave me the following ideas about silent time.
1) Silent time depends on the tempo of theconversation, whether turns follow each other rapidly
or slowly. Therefore, if the conversation tempo isslow, the silent time between turns and topics could
be longer.
2) Silent time depends on the familiarity of the
topic: if both interlocutors are familiar with the topics,
they don’t need time to think about it, so the silent
time could be shorter.
3) Silent time depends on the leader’s personality.
If the leader prefers a slow pace style, full of silence,other participants have to follow him or her.
4) Silent time can be used to find new topics:
being silent at this time gives participants of theconversation a chance to think of new topics.
5) Silent time depends on the relation between
the interlocutors: if they are friends it is okay to keep
silence, but if they are not familiar with each other,
they feel a certain pressure to continue theconversation. Otherwise, they worry about that thepartner will think them unfriendly.
In this research, at TRP moments, in order toavoid the embarrassing feeling of silence, female
students laughed or giggled between turns.
3. Interruption, overlapping and prediction of the
speakers’ next words in a conversation rarely
happens.
In some languages, overlaps are almost always
considered inappropriate: speakers must wait until

another speaker is silent before beginning a turn(Riggenbach 1999). According to Uchida and Lala
(1998), English speakers and listeners think it isimportant to make clear their own statement in the
middle of the other’s utterance, while Japanese think
it is important to support the other’s utterance andbuild a cooperative relation.
According to the responses to thequestionnaires, most participants agreed that tointerrupt the speaker is usually an impolite thing.
They listed some situations: 1) in a situation which
has more than two speakers (which is out of therange of this study); 2) when the speaker’s rank ishigher than the listener (which is also not the settingof this paper); 3) if the speaker has shown that hehasn’t finished his words, for example, by raising
the intonation, and the listener understands it but
ignores him by interrupting( none of this occurs here);4) if the speaker’s talk is meaningful and interesting;5) if the topic is initiated by the speaker.
This view that interruption and overlaps are
impolite was reflected in the tape recordings. In theeight pairs of conversations, there are only threeplaces of overlapping. This contrasts with mostdialects of American English, in which people want
to use overlaps to avoid gaps, or silence, between
turns (Reiggenbach 1999).
Perhaps one reason for this lack of overlaps isthat in Japanese, the conclusion comes at the end of
the sentence or utterance, so Japaneseconversationalists have the custom to wait until the
speaker finishes, since whether an idea is affirmative
or negative is unclear until the end of the utterance.
In this research, prediction seldom happens
except on two occasions in the utterances of a
returnee student. Other participants never predict
the speakers’ next words or hidden meaning behind
the words, when they are listeners.
4. Turns were quite short and every participant
prefered equal turn-taking.
Yamada’s(1992) work demonstrates that there
are important differences in turn-distribution patterns
between Japanese and English. The Japanese, using
Japanese, take shorter turns which are distributed
relatively evenly among participants regardless of
who initiates a topic. By contrast, Americans,communicating in English, ‘take long monologue
turns, distribute their turns unevenly, and theparticipant who initiates a topic characteristicallytakes the highest proportion of turns in that topic’.
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On CUE

Hiroko (1998) also suggests that speaker changes
occur more frequently in Japanese data than in English
data. In this research, even though the setting is
two participants in each group, still it is obvious thatevery turn is very short and turn changes frequently
occur as in example 1.

EFL learners are compensatory strategies, whichallow them to repair breakdowns in conversation
when difficulties arise, and keep the turns moving
on to the desired end.
There are specific linguistic devices for getting aturn when one is unable to enter the normal flow ofturn-taking or when the setting demands that specificconventions be followed. It is crucial to makelearners recognize culture-specific situations andturn-taking strategies (such as strategies of being agood listener, modifying their attitudes toward silenceand so on).

Example 1
S.M.
82S: so I am very looking forward to it
because
83M: uhnn uhnn
84S: with my sister
85M: OHHH uhhh together?
86S: together
87M : uhnn
88S: I and my one older sister
89M: uhnn uhnn uhnnuhnn very good idea
90S: enn
91M: uhnn but you need to saving money

Improvement of Textbook Design

Strategies used by English speakers for natural
turn-taking have not been the focus of many teachingmaterials. In other words, there are few materials
available at present which teach learners how to use
communicative strategies when problems areencountered in the process of transmitting
information. Some possible ways of doing this arefound in authentic conversation in Exploring Spoken
English (Carter and McCarthy 1997), various
activities as in Discourse Analysis in the Language
Classroom (Riggenbach 1999), and special linguistic
usage listed in Conversation Gambits (Keller andWarner 1988).
When using authentic texts, we should note that
because of the strong influence of the source
language, it is also necessary to consider the
students’ own culture and language.

Many Japanese participants mentioned that they
prefer an equal talking style, not being the leader ofthe discussion, not being the followers, but being
able to share opinions with other members equally.
This is maybe another reason to explain why turns
are so short, and participants are willing to compete
for turns, since there is such an unspoken rule among
them. For these students, wa (harmony) is mostimportant.

Pedagogical Implications

Classroom Instruction and Curriculum
Development

English as a Foreign Language

Turn-taking analysis is merely a small part of theactivities that teachers should do in and outside of
the classroom, but this analysis indicates that thecommunicative competence of the learners involvedin this project was not high enough for them tocommunicate easily, even between peers. In addition
to the lack of teaching material I discussed above,
this may also be a result of conventional teachingand enforcement of traditional roles played byteachers and students in the classroom.
In Japan, oral communication lessons at the
middle school level have been emphasized for morethan 15 years, but still one can hardly say that theattempts to combine the acquisition of rules ofinteraction, with the acquisition of linguistic formulae
have been satisfactory (Izumi 1995).

Most of the participants noted that it took a longer
time for them to understand the partner’s words in
English than in Japanese. The level of English
proficiency of the participants is not high enough to
let them use English as freely as their native tongue,
Japanese. This is another explanation of why theychange turns so frequently and slowly and are notable to interrupt or predict. Therefore, turn-taking
training can not be separated from foreign language
learning.
Lack of Knowledge of Compensatory Strategies

Some communication strategies are used to tackle
and overcome linguistic problems encounteredduring interaction. One kind which are essential for5

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Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

If the teachers’ style is still a traditional way ofteaching, no matter what kind of name is given to
English lessons, the teaching result is the same. In
fact, the traditional classroom has very ordered turntaking under the control of the teacher, and pupils
rarely speak out of turn (McCarthy 1991). Partly
due to the dominance of teachers, students areaccustomed to the question-answer way of speaking
English. When they interact with native speakers oreven with their peers, this results in the conversation
being limited to simply answering questions andstudent turns are very short. Thus, as teachers, one
thing we can do is to encourage students to give
additional information beyond simple answers, andtake longer turns in and outside the classroom. CFPs
(conversation flow plans) proposed by Cullen andMorris (2002) are one way to help students become
involved in conversations more easily and actively.
Japanese culture-based reluctance to interrupt
and take a turn when a pause occurs in conversations
especially with people of higher status means it is
not necessary to consider filling silence to hold aturn. That’s why English pause and silence treatment
may need to be overtly identified in the classroom.
Learners should be encouraged to use mechanismsthat fill gaps in conversation when performing tasks
in pair/group work or when talking directly to theteacher.

Some participants in this research told me in theirinterview that they realized something important for
their oral English. Some of them even asked forsuggestions on how to improve their turn-taking skill
in English conversation, and others suggested theywould like to have a list of gambits and routines asreferences for future self-study. So from this aspect,
by being involved in this kind of academic research,learners can become aware of a more suitable way
to study foreign languages autonomously.
Turn-taking is one of the most important parts ofa conversation. To the degree to which our students
are able to control turns well, they will be able tocommunicate with others more easily and fluently.

References
Carter, R and McCarthy, M. 1997. Exploring
Spoken English. London: Cambridge University
Press.
Cullen,B. and Morris,J. 2002. Conversation
Flow Plans. On CUE9,23-24.
Hiroko, F. 1998. ‘Turn-taking in English andJapanese: Project ability’. In Grammar,
I n t o n a t i o n , a n d S e m a n t i c s. h t t p : / /www.linguisticlist.org/cgi-bin/dissfly.cgi?rhfuro.
Linguist List Homepage.
Iwasaki,S. 2001. ‘Pragmatics and Second
Language Acquisition: Implication for Intercultural
Communication’. Unpublished Paper. Hiroshima
Shudo University.
Iwata,Y. 1997. ‘Why Japanese Can’t Take
Turns? Discourse in Foreign Language Education’.
Tokai University Foreign Language Centre.
Monograph Series I.
Izumi,E. 1995. Gambits and Routines for
Promoting Oral Communication. Unpublished
Master Thesis. Graduate school of Hyogo
University of Education.
Keller, E. and Warner,S.T. 1988. Conversation
Gambits. –Real English Conversation Practice.
London: Language Teaching Publications.
McCarthy,M. 1991. Discourse Analysis for
Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ochs, E., Schegloff,E.A. and Thompson,S.(ed.)
1996. Interaction and grammar. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

More Listening and Prosodic Training
NeededIn this research, most of the participants werepoor at using raised tones to show their partners
that they hadn’t finished their turns. This may bepartly because Japanese is a quite flat language,
without many up and down changes of intonation.
Therefore, more classroom use of audio/video
recordings of native English speakers engaging inconversation, concocted or authentic, may increase
learners awareness of the differences in intonationand pitch usage between English and Japanese. By
increased awareness learners may eventually
incorporate English usage of intonation and pitch
more effectively into their own speech in pair/group
work inside the classroom and conversations outside
the classroom.
Raising Students’ Awareness of the Target
Language6

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Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

CUE
Do you want to be more involved withCUE ?
CUE is the biggest SIG in JALT, witharound 300 members. We produce thejournal, On CUE, now referreed, twice ayear, as well as occasional books, such as
the recent ‘Projects from the University
Classroom’, edited by Keith Ford andEamon McCafferty. In addition CUE
has hosted three mini-conferences in thelast three years. These activities only
happen because of the work of CUE
members who volunteer their time andskills. The more people who volunteer,
the more effective we can be in providing
these services to members.

If you’d like to respond to this article,
or to any other article in On CUE,
address your comments to Keith Ford,
Opinion and Perspectives section
editor, at <fordkeith@hotmail.com

If you would like to volunteer, pleasecontact any of the members of theexecutive board, listed on the front pageof On CUE, or come to the CUEdesk at
the JALT conference in Shizuoka.

Research Bulletin

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Have you written for your in-houseresearch bulletin?

WebmasterDo you know of in-house research
papers that might interest On CUE
readers?

On CUE:
section editors,
layout editor
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Please submit brief summaries ofcurrent in-house publications andabstracts of research reports to theeditor: Michael Carroll<carroll@andrew.ac.jp>

Mini-conference organisers
There are also opportunities for more
people to become Executive Board members
7

Features

Join theRiggenbach, H. 1999. Discourse Analysis in the
Language Classroom. A Michigan Teacher
Resource.
Sacks,H., Schegloff,A.E., and Jefferson,G.
1974. A Simplest Systematics for the Organizationof Turn-taking for Conversation. Language ,50(4),695-735
Uchida Lala. 1999. Turn-taking and Its
Indexicality: From, English and Japanese Talk
Shows. AILA’99 Tokyo CD-ROM.
White, R. 1997. Back Channeling, Repair,
Pausing, and Private Speech. Applied Linguistics,
18(3), 314-344.
Yamada,H. 1992. American and JapaneseBusiness Discourse: A Comparision ofInteractional Styles. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

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Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Conversation
strategies in acontent-basedclassroom

things mostly in Japanese. The conundrum isapparent—the students express a desire to be better
English speakers, but lack the confidence or skills
to put in the practice that will help them improve.
Second year students at MIC spend their fallsemester abroad studying in an English-speaking
country. In preparation, much of our second year
spring semester curriculum is focused on preparing
the students (both language and culture-wise) for
the study-abroad experience. We know that in thepast many students were going abroad with very
weak speaking skills. They had the vocabulary andthe grammar, but didn't seem to know how to havea real thirty-second conversation. We suggest that
this was at least in part because they didn’t have abasic repertoire of conversation strategies.
The whole notion of teaching conversation
strategies springs out of the field of discourse analysis,
the study of language in use. McCarthy (1991, p.
1) writes, “[Discourse Analysis] is now forming a
backdrop to research in Applied Linguistics, andsecond language learning and teaching in particular.”
As we see the structure of conversation, we canbegin to isolate and teach the common strategies
used in natural speech to take part in a real
conversation. In a CBI setting, it is perhaps evenmore necessary to learn the conversational gambits
needed to discuss complex or abstract issues withoutsounding stilted and false. Burton (2000) suggeststhat as we begin to analyze the structure of classroom
talk, the talk itself becomes classroom input. Thisidea was intriguing to us and we wanted our students
to gain communicative competence prior to settingout abroad. Thus we aimed to further our students’spoken fluency and comprehension of English
conversations by providing them with conversation
strategies and the opportunity to practice them inour class.
One group of conversation strategies comprises
common lexical chunks used for managing
conversations. These include phrases useful for
opening or closing a conversation, as well as phrases
for changing the subject, requesting more information
or clarification, asking for time to think, expressing
agreement or understanding or concurrence,dismissing a fruitless conversational thread, and soon. “I know what you mean.” “What’s new?”“Hang on a sec--it’s on the tip of my tongue…” “Oh,never mind.” “Sounds great!” Other examples
include reductions such as “Whaddayacallit?” andSylvan Payne
and Cindy J. Lahar
Faculty of Comparative
Culture, Miyazaki
International College
Miyazaki International College (MIC) is a fouryear liberal arts college in southern Kyushu, Japan
where all classroom instruction is in English using
content-based instruction methods. Content Based
Instruction (CBI), according to Brinton, Snow andWesche (1989, p. 2), is: "concurrent teaching ofacademic subject matter and second-language
skills." At MIC, first and second-year students
spend eighteen hours a week in CBI classrooms,
where each course is taught by a partnership
between a language teacher and a content teacher.
In a team-taught content-based classroom, theobjective is to enhance all of the language skill areas
while teaching the content of the course (see Stewart,
1996 for a more thorough discussion of content andlanguage integration at MIC). Balance in all language
skills is desired, but it often boils down to this: thestudents get to do a lot of listening practice while
the teachers talk at them. They get to practicereading from classroom texts and they get ample
writing practice in summaries or research papers
or journals. Speaking tends to take a back seat.
For example, in many classroom activities in our
institution we break students into small groups andgive them a problem. In our experience they usually
solve the problem by first discussing it in Japanese,then work together to translate the solution into
English. Speaking in English tends to be in very shortutterances, or in prepared, rehearsed presentations.
Teachers monitor groups and urge students to try
to speak English more, but the default setting of
small-group or pairwork seems to involve discussing8

On CUE

maintenance strategies such as “Uh-huh” and“Hmmm.” Without these useful, automatic phrases
in a person’s repertoire, conversation seems clunkyand dull. With them, conversation takes on life.
The conversation classroom text, Nice
Talking With You (Kenny & Woo, 2000) is
designed for teaching large groups of Japanesecollege students in once-a-week, fifty-minuteclasses. It offers one way of conducting a
conversation class with forty students in a classroom
where all the desks are screwed down in rows.
MIC’s classes are smaller and the desks move, but
we decided to use the text as a supplement for our
two team-taught sections of a class entitled Issues
in Personal Development (20 students were in eachsection). Nice Talking With You contains a numberof conversation strategies introduced in ten units.
These were adaptable to our purpose of getting
students accustomed to talking about themselves andabout personal development, comfortably and in
English.
We introduced the conversation strategies
through Kenny and Woo’s text. The students
practiced them using the text’s high-interest, lowthreat topics—part-time jobs, sports, dating, family,
and so on. The students learned to prepare for aconversation by jotting down the things they wanted
to say, to consider conversation strategies theywanted to practice and to note questions theywanted to ask. Quickly the students learned thepattern for rehearsal and practice. In Kenny andWoo’s scheme, students are divided into groups offour. Each student talks once to every other student
in the group about the same topic, in a series ofthree short, timed conversations. Teacher talk isminimal: “Okay, everybody ready? Conversation
one partner… Topic: sports… three minutes…
Go!” And the students would actually bolt into
conversation like racehorses coming out of the gate.
At three minutes the stopwatch beeper would gooff. The students then would take one minute toreflect, make some notes and prepare forconversation number two. As they developed arepertoire of strategies, their fluency, confidence andmotivation to speak all increased. Furthermore,
our students gained awareness that this was exactly
what they needed. One student noted theimportance of developing her conversation skills forachieving her goals on study abroad. She wrote in
her journal “I want to make friends on study abroad.

If I don’t practice conversation, I can’t makefriends.”
Concurrent with the conversation work, ourstudents were learning the content of the course
through readings, lectures, videos, and various
classroom activities. Thus we often used the day’scontent as the topic for additional conversation
practice. In one case, students had just completed
an exercise in which they each wrote a list of tengroups they had membership in and which defined
their identities. They had ranked them according topersonal significance. In the timed conversations,
we overheard a lot of, “Oh, really? Me too!” “I
know what you mean.” “I’m the same way.”“I didn’t know that about you.” These werestrategies they had just learned to express surpriseor agreement.
Our infusion of conversation work aimed tocreate a class atmosphere where speaking was
enjoyable instead of a required and unavoidable
chore. Our students began to talk longer and longer
in timed conversations. If we gave them, say, threeminutes to discuss a topic and it was not enoughtime, many would all demand another minute or two
for the next conversation. Sometimes, deep inconversation, they would simply ignore thestopwatch beeper when time was up; we foundourselves going around waving our arms to get themto stop speaking English so we could go on to thenext thing. Other times we would simply turn off
the stopwatch and let them go as long as theywanted. Sometimes ten or twelve minutes would
go by and no one seemed to notice that the clock
hadn't beeped yet. They were too involved inconversation.
This behavior generalized to all aspects ofclassroom activities. Much to our delight, speaking
English became the norm for pairwork and small
group discussions in both sections of the course.
Even when having discussions in larger groups, thestudents elected to do this in English. This was a
new pattern for us to see -- we had successfully
created an atmosphere where speaking in English
was safe and comfortable, and most importantly,
where English conversation was the norm. This isexactly the aim of MIC - and neither of the authors
had seen this accomplished in any of the other classes
they had taught here.
Student feedback was encouragingly positive.
Towards the end of the semester we asked the9

Features

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Features

On CUE

students to write comments in their journals.
Comments such as “I couldn’t speak much as a firstyear student - I have more confidence now” and “I
could get confidence for conversation” supported
our observation that this work served to increase
their confidence when speaking in English. Students
also wrote about the benefits of increased
conversation skills, and a belief that they could now
speak more fluently. These results are evident insuch comments as “Conversation helps me relate topeople. It helps me speak English naturally andsmoothly”, “now I became a person
who…speaks…spontaneous[ly]” and “It is very
useful for me because I didn’t know how to startand finish conversations. I also learned how to givecompliments.” We were also pleased to readcomments such as “sometimes I use [these strategies]
not in class, but in daily life” demonstrating that theexercises from class generalized to situations outsideof the classroom.
Now, one year has passed since we were in theclassroom with these students. They have returned
from their time abroad. We now have theopportunity to listen to them speak English and it isapparent that they have internalized theseconversation strategies and have gained even more
confidence in speaking. They say that knowing thesephrases helped them to engage others inconversation while abroad, and they were aware of
how prevalent these strategies are in everyday
speech. Some even learned to listen for new
conversation strategies, taking note of the special
phrases native speakers used in conversation andadopted them into their own repertoire. In an
attempt to quantify these observations, we emailed
the 40 students from those two classes a short survey
about the conversation strategies we practiced theyear before. All of the respondents claimed thatthey used at least some of the speaking strategies
during their study abroad. Comments clearlysupported those we read in their journals last term.
For example, one student said that the conversational
strategies “made me more comfortable when I tried
to speak with another student on study abroad” andanother said “I used the words from Nice Talking
with You when I met people on study abroad, so I
think it’s useful to speak more English-like and tocontinue conversations”.
We are certainly not the first to extol the teachingof natural communicative strategies (see for example,

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Burke, 1998; Kaye & Matson, 2000; Olsen, 2002)or the use of timed conversations (see for example,
Deacon, 2001; Kenny & Woo, 2000) whenteaching English to Japanese students. Speaking
actually can, and should, create a second language
learning environment that offers opportunities to use
natural strategies. At the end of that term last year,
one student wrote “I couldn’t respond to teachers
when I met them in the corridor, but I can talk toteachers now and I can respond naturally.” This
alone makes us feel that our efforts were worthwhile.
We are further convinced of success when we think
about the positive learning environment thatdeveloped independently in those two classes, andwhen we consider the appreciative feedback fromstudents while learning the strategies as well as one
year later. Given this, we have become advocates
for teaching conversational strategies that allow forpractice of natural speech to enhance confidence,
comfort, and ease of communicating naturally inEnglish.

References
Brinton, D., Snow, M.A., & Wesche, M. (1989).
Content-based second language instruction.
Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Burke, D. (1998). Without slang and idioms,
students are in the dark! ESL Magazine,
September/October, 1998.
Burton, J. (2000). Learning From Discourse
Analysis in the ESOL Classroom. TESOL Journal,
9(4), 24-27.
Deacon, B. (2001). Timed conversation: Speak,
speak, and speak again! The Language Teacher,
1, January, 2001.
Kaye, N. & Matson, D. (2000). From writing
to speaking: Enhancing conversations. ESLMagazine, July/August, 2000.
Kenney, T. & Woo, L. (2000). Nice talking
with you: Developing fluency with conversation
strategies. Tokyo: Macmillan Languagehouse Ltd.
McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse analysis forlanguage teachers. Cambridge University Press.
Olsen, K. (2002). Content for conversation
partners. ESL Magazine, January/February, 2002.
Stewart, T. (1996). Organizing and teachingcourse content in fully integrated language andcontent instruction. Comparative Culture, 2, pp.
1-17.
10

On CUEAs the number of 18 -year-olds been on the decline. It peaked at 2.05 million in
1992 and by 2000 had dropped by 25% to 1.5
has been rapidly decreasing, million. It will continue to drop further for at least
there is some concern about the several more years to about 1.2 million - a total dropof nearly 40% from its highest level (see “Wanted:
negative effects - particularly College Students”; “New Schools For Japan”; The
the lowering of standards - as Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 2002, p. 246). In
such an environment, where nearly all incoming
universities are forced to accept students enter university directly after graduationa much greater percentage of from high school, it is a matter of survival for these
universities to enact a ‘free pass’ policy. This situation
applicants, and in some cases all leads us to consider the question: What is to be done
applicants. In this issue’s OP for the many students now entering these institutions
who, even more so than those of previous years,
column, James Porcaro looks at lack the academic accomplishment, interest, andthe developing phenomenon of discipline required for academic achievement atuniversity level?
‘free pass’ universities andsuggests that it can be viewed in Responsibilities, challenges, andopportunities
a positive light.
First, it needs emphasizing that ‘free pass’
universities should not abandon their responsibility
to provide all students with the best possible
education that they can. It is their moral and social
obligation as educational institutions to assess,understand, and effectively meet the needs of theirstudents. They must realize that now it is a matter of
their very survival to fulfill this obligation. It is difficult
enough for such universities to draw students fromhigh schools where advisors are already very
reluctant or unwilling to direct students to schools
without any standards of admission. For any of these
universities to get the reputation that there is not onlya ‘free pass’ to entrance but also a ‘free exit’ tograduation - that is, every student graduates
regardless of even lower academic performance thanpreviously accepted - would lead to their certain
demise. Universities must think of themselves as
responsible business enterprises that are personallyaccountable to students and their families as paying
customers. They may have to follow a ‘free pass’
policy of admission, but in a highly competitive
education marketplace they must not get themselvesa reputation as an institution that takes its students’money but gives little or no educational value forthat expenditure. While this is a period of crisis inJapanese university education, at the same time it isa precious opportunity for ‘free pass’ universities toposition themselves favorably within a market that,‘Free pass’
universities: a
new opportunityforachievement?
James W. Porcaro
Toyama University ofInternational Studies‘Free Pass’ universities
In 2000, Kawai Juku, a prominent preparatory
school, listed nearly 200 private universities in Japan- more than 40% of the total number - as ‘free pass’
institutions (“Ukereba ukaru F ranku shidai”, 2000).
These universities now accept virtually all students
who apply, regardless of whether a formal test and/or interview must be taken for admission. As is wellknown, the population of 18-year-olds in Japan has
11

Opinion and Perspective

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Opinion and Perspective

On CUEin one sense, has actually expanded. By maintaining
academic integrity with a high profile, not only willsome more accomplished students still be attracted
to the university and be able to thrive there, but also
parents, high school teachers, and students
themselves will come to recognize the institution asa place where students who have achieved less thanthey are capable of at secondary level can maximize
their learning potential and get the best education
available to them. The university would be seen tooffer a kind of second chance to such students to
prepare themselves for finding good employment
and living full lives as productive members of society.
There are, in fact, still some opportunities foruniversities to maintain their levels of enrollment fromthe market of graduating high school students. In
2000, only 31.5% of female students, comparedwith 47.5% of male students, advanced to four-year
universities. At the same time, the percentage of
secondary female graduates advancing to juniorcolleges dropped to 17.2% from a peak of 24.6%
in 1995 (The Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 2002,
p. 248). The possibility of increasing enrollment fromthis market can be achieved, but only with adeliberate and determined effort by the entire facultyof the university, the administrative staff, andespecially recruitment and job placement personnel.

Changing instructional
circumstances
Teachers must teach, not pretend to teach. They
must ensure that students are learning, not pretending
to learn. Syllabuses and styles of teaching need tobe revised and renewed to appropriately fit theneeds of the many new students now able to enter
university on a ‘free pass’. Some professors mayneed to develop innovative instructional approaches
and develop different classroom practices. Indeed,more than ever we all need to be adept and masterfulin our teaching and effect the kind of classroom
environment and educational experience for ourstudents that leads to optimum academic andpersonal accomplishment. Leadership at the highest
levels among the university authorities is critical in
all efforts to maintain academic integrity while copingwith adjustments to meet the needs of the changing
student body. This is the reality of survival at now
hundreds of colleges and universities in Japan. The

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

education market has changed and so must theapproach of enterprises operating in that market.
As for English language study, not only is theoverall level of proficiency of many of the newstudents relatively low, but also many display little
motivation to continue studying and learning English,
even in an age when its value as the international
language of communication becomes greater andgreater. This is the consequence, I believe, of thestultifying manner of instruction received in their six
years of junior high school and high school, evenwith the widespread presence of AETs. It seems
that often the attitude of students stems from a fearof humiliation that is the result of inadequate
performance in an environment which intrinsicallyaffords little chance for success. On top of this is
the continuing challenge of teaching students atuniversity who are required to study English for no
specific purpose. For almost all students the use ofcommunicative English is limited to the classroom.
Furthermore, in fact, students generally have very
little chance of being employed after graduation inpositions that involve the use of English, if indeed
they can find any full-time employment at all.

Student discipline
Another important consideration is the questionof student discipline. Many of the students entering
universities on a ‘free pass’ bring the baggage ofpoor and inappropriate academic and personal
behavior. This includes: coming to classes late or
not at all; not bringing required books and papers
or even notebooks, pens and pencils; not doing
homework; lazing about and having private
conversations in class, usually in the rearmost of theroom; and exhibiting manners that are less than
expected of mature and courteous young people.
Ironically, the much maligned university entrance
examination system seems to have served to impartto students a respect for effort, self-discipline, andindividual responsibility. Now, as more and more
students do not have to go through this rigorous
system to enter a university, there seems to be awidespread breakdown of this ethic. Once again,
the point must be emphasized that to whatever extent
this may be true among students at other universities,
those schools that are already burdened with thenegative label of ‘free pass’absolutely cannot bear
additional public recognition of such an environmenton their campuses and expect to survive. I believe12On CUE

university, I believe that English language instructionneeds to be based on a humanistic andcommunicative paradigm where students havemeaningful opportunities to formulate and express
their thoughts, opinions, and feelings about their own
life experiences and about the society in which theylive. The aim is first to enhance their self-awarenessand their awareness of Japanese society and culture,and from there to widen and deepen theirunderstanding of other peoples and cultures andissues on a global scale. Great care and thoroughness
must be taken to make lessons and materials
appropriate for the level of language proficiency andcapabilities of students. The instrumental use ofEnglish is integral to the growth and development ofespecially the many new learners at ‘free pass’
universities as mature, thoughtful, responsible young
men and women, well prepared to take their places
in society, the workplace, and institutions of higher
education in Japan or abroad.

that teachers and administrators particularly in thechanging environment at ‘free pass’ universities must
instill in students a positive self-discipline that directs
both their academic and personal behavior. Some
professors who have neither attempted to do thisnor even given it any concern at all, and who areunable to manage their classrooms for effective
instruction, now ignore this subject at the peril ofthe university and the very perpetuation of theirpositions. Though it may sometimes take a great
effort to establish initially, with practice and skill it
can be effected quite effortlessly and indeed withcooperation and appreciation from the students
themselves.

Leading role for English teachers
For all subjects, then, including English,
fundamental instructional elements must be
addressed to meet the needs of more and more
students at ‘free pass’ universities and to facilitate
academic and personal achievement. And English
language teachers may often be well placed as
leaders in these renewal efforts. They have always
had to work with low proficiency students, thosetaking English for no obvious reason and those withnegative attitudes toward learning English. In
particular, their student-centered, interactive, andcommunicative ways of instruction require theconduct of classes in a well-managed, positive
learning environment. In addition, English language
teachers are accustomed to formulating assessmentof students’ work more broadly, and on many levels
besides just test results. These include demonstrated
proficiency and progress in classroom tasks,
activities and homework, effort, attitude, ingenuity,
taking risks, learning from mistakes, and working
well with classmates. Teachers need to be available
and visible on the campus in order to promote a
caring, supportive, and active learning environment,
especially for weaker students now able to enter
the university on a ‘free pass’. With the engagementwith students in and out of class that is an inherent
part of foreign language instruction, once again
English language teachers may be well placed toserve as models at the university. It is imperative,
then, that school administrations maintain or expand
their full-time faculty, who are able to take on this
responsibility whereas part-time teachers are not.
Particularly in the environment of a ‘free pass’

Conclusion
There should be no shame in the name ‘freepass’. For universities that must operate with such a
policy of admissions, there are opportunities open,
challenges to be met, and achievements to be hadby all students who enroll and all associated with
the institution. I am truly confident that ‘free pass’
universities can not only survive but thrive, as longas their faculties and the administrative authorities
boldly address these new circumstances, recognize
their responsibilities, and indeed keep in mind theirown future welfare.

References‘New Schools For Japan: A Proliferation of
Welfare Studies to Cope with Japan’s Aging
Society’. Trends in Japan. (1998, January 16).
Online: http://jin.jcic.or.jp/trends98/honbun/
ntj980116.html
Takayama, Hideko. ‘Wanted: College
Students’. (2000, August 14). Newsweek, p. 54.
The Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 2002.
Tokyo: The Asahi Shimbun Company, 2001.
‘Ukereba ukaru F ranku shidai 194 ko mo’.
(2000, June 23). Shuuukan Asahi, pp. 145-147.

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Opinion and Perspective

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

From the Chalkface

On CUE

Introducing haiku
to EFL composers

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Time Required
This can be taught as a 30-minute “chunk” in alesson, or extended to a full 90-minute class. I teacha 14-week course entitled International Haiku, andsimilar Haiku in English classes are offered by
Tezukayama University.

David McMurray
RationaleIntercultural Studies Faculty
The study of haiku begins by the grouping of
seasonal
word vocabulary. Research has shown that
The International University
students are able to better reproduce vocabularyof Kagoshima that has been learned by topic rather than
There is a line that can be drawn somewhere
between the structured language classroom wherestudents chant “This is a pen” in chorus and theclassroom of chaos where the teacher simply says,“Let’s speak English.” That line demarcates the edgeof complexity where EFL language development lies.
In this same vein, in the exacting structure of
traditional Japanese haiku and the completely freestyle form often favored by native speakers of English
in North America, the United Kingdom, South
Africa, Australia and New Zealand there lies anopportunity for EFL composers to produce morecreative forms of haiku in English. EFL Students havethe cultural understanding and the vocabulary base,but they often lack the technique to compose haiku
of quality. This technique encourages EFL students
to produce creative works of poetry in English thatare even of interest to readers well outside thelanguage classroom.

Students
First and second year university students
majoring in intercultural studies, the humanities or
English are very receptive to this technique, as are
students in other majors in oral communication andwriting classes.

Materials
A whiteboard is sufficient, but the technique isenhanced with props that bring nature into theclassroom such as seasonal foodstuffs, flowers, andsports equipment. Video and Internet connection tohaiku web pages such as <http://www.asahi.com/
english/haiku> enhances the activity tremendously.

alphabetically using dictionaries. University level
students are still hard-pressed to properly pronounceand stress words and phrases or understand the useof syllables. Haiku emphasizes meaning throughsyllable count, rhythm and stress. When students
realize that haiku, an important part of Japaneseculture, is quite popular among students their own
age in over 44 countries, their motivation increases.

Procedure
I ask students to follow my instructions, which I
demonstrate on a white board and ask them toreproduce on a blank page. First, draw two lines
creating four quadrants. Ask for the names of thefour seasons and write one in each quadrant. Elicit
words that go with each season by having students
look out the classroom window. They can gather
weather words or if a sports field is nearby theteacher can ask in what season the following sports
are played: basketball, tennis, swimming, American
football, skiing, etc. If the technique is to aid in theteaching of a chapter from a textbook the students
are currently studying ask them to find seasonalreferences from the textbook (ie. a textbook chapter
on “Going to a restaurant” or “Thanksgiving in
America” could lead to students write words suchas pumpkin, apple pie, duck, goose, turkey into thequadrant for autumn). Make sure the students havecompiled a minimum of 10 words in their seasonalindex. I ask my students to expand it to 1,000
organized words over a 14-week course.
Second, write three or four haiku on the whiteboard. (Haiku in English written by EFL speakers
and by university students in Japan and othercountries can be found in every Friday issue of The
International Herald Tribune - Asahi Shimbun, and14

On CUE

revealed. After a few rounds of asking students toselect, draw and explain their favorite haiku it quickly
becomes apparent which haiku the class favors. The
more popular haiku will be selected two, three ormore times, but the drawing and commentary may
differ. The creative person can then be asked tostand or take a bow.

once a month in the Mainichi Shimbun. Those
newspapers also have websites http://
www.asahi.com/english/haiku and http://
www.mainichi.com.)Third, use the haiku examples as a cloze exercise,erase key words and read the haiku to the students,
asking them to fill in the blanks.
Fourth, start to analyse the haiku written in
English. They are very short, but rich in underlying
meaning as well as form. Point out the use of ellipsis,
juxtaposition and alliteration. Ask students to countthe number of syllables. They will soon findthemselves repeating the words several times as theydig deeper and deeper into the haiku. The students
have all been introduced to haiku written in Japaneseand can draw upon their own cultural knowledge.
Fifth, the technique can be expanded to a full
90-minute class by asking the students to select theirfavorite season and write a haiku about it using oneof the season words they wrote in step one. Don’t
have the students sign their work immediately.
Collect the haiku after about 10 minutes of reflection.
Write some of them on the whiteboard for immediate
discussion. There is a certain magic that occurs in aclassroom when one sees what they have written
put up on the whiteboard, then sees what otherstudents think of the words. If the technique is to be
expanded to two or more classes, I advise typing
one haiku from every student (I have taught up to
60 students in this fashion) for the next class, wherethat handout can be given, and start off from thefollowing step 6 using the handout instead of thewhite board.
Sixth, ask students to choose one haiku fromamong those on the white board that they like andto draw a picture of it on a page at their desk. Havea few students reproduce the image they drew on
paper onto the whiteboard. Ask them to explain
the picture and relate it to the words an anonymous
student had written. Every poet wants to know what
others interpret from their words. Students in Japan,
however, tend to shy away from taking the risk ofbeing identified with a poorly written haiku and also
don’t enjoy critiquing peers. Therefore it is more
effective to not write names beside the haiku on thewhiteboard. Students need not fear their names will
be associated to any mistakes that might be revealed.
Instead, in this class only the top one or two haikuists
whose compositions are favored by the class are

Seventh, ask the students to submit theirreworked haiku and send it on a postcard to thenewspaper for possible publishing and further
critique by readers all around the world. The Asahi
Shimbun accepts haiku at the following address:
Asahi Haikuist Network
5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku
Tokyo, 104-8011.

Reflections
It is surprising to see just how motivated students
become when they see how a few nouns and verbs
can be assembled into a poem of great meaning.
Haiku has been composed for over 300 years inJapanese. It was first translated into French andPortuguese over 100 years ago. For only the past
50 years or so, haiku have been translated andcomposed in English. During the last decade thenumber of haiku written in English has bloomed.
There are haiku societies in 44 countries and an
estimated 1.5 million writers. Interestingly, one million
are EFL composers of haiku. It is an area where
our EFL students can really find an opportunity toreveal their feelings through writing about the senses
to peoples of other countries who are truly interested
in this form of poetry.

Variations
The writing of haiku is often employed as abrainstorming session for the writing of paragraphs
or longer essays. Popular haiku originally composed
in Japanese can be translated into English. If you
and your class become very interested in composing
haiku you could try introducing this technique to otherteachers and hosting an inter-class competition.
Teachers at Sapporo International University hostan annual haiku competition during their cultural
festival that involves students from universities in 3
countries.
15

From the Chalkface

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

御仏に尻向けおれば月涼しFrom the Chalkface

Further References
McMurray, D. (2000) A Whole Universe in a
Few Words. Japan Quarterly. Vol. 47, No. 4. pages
82 - 91. Asahi Shimbun.
McMurray, D. (2000) Haiku Development from17 Phonograms in Japan to 11 Syllables Aroundthe Globe. The IUK Journal of Intercultural Studies.
Vol. 1, No.1. pp 51 - 67. The International Universityof Kagoshima.

Exhibits
Translated 17 syllable haiku from Japanese
Master Masaoka Shiki into 11 syllables of English.

Mihotoke ni shiri mukeoreba
tsuki suzushi
From BuddhaI’ve turned my backthe cool moon
Example of a haiku composed by a first year
student (with permission of author Fukumoto
Taishi)︒

Evening winddriving past beach wind

If you have a classroom idea that’s worked, or one that didn’t work but fromwhich you learned something about teaching, why not write it up for ‘From the
Chalkface’?
Send submissions to the new ‘From the Chalkface’ section editor, Tim Micklas
at <elhefe@suite.plala.or.jp>

16

On CUE

Combiningversions

and invite comment on which part of each version iscorrect.
4. Preteach difficult lexical items.
5. Invite students to sit in pairs or groups of threeand distribute copies of A and B ( C) versions of
the text and ask them not to look at each others text
until the end of the activity.
6. Ask them to identify the remaining discrepancies,
discuss and write out the correct, combined version,and call the teacher when they feel they have finished.
7. Read out the correct version to the class and/or
distribute copies of the correct version.

Ian Munby
British Club English School
This activity was described by Penny Urr in her
book "Discussions that work". Students sit opposite
each other in pairs or groups of three and try tofind discrepancies between their different versionsof the same text without actually seeing any but theirown. The task is to choose which parts of which
version are correct or most appropriate in terms of
meaning, style, and internal consisitency and to writeout the best version.

Assessment
In stage 7 above it is best for the teacher to readout the text slowly stopping before each difference
and to ask the students to shout out the correct
version. In this way problems can be identified anddiscussed.

Materials

Reflections

Any short text or dialogue can be chosen to suit theinterests and level of English of the students andcan be topic-based or selected to review
grammatical or lexical items for example.

In college classes in Japan, students tend to revert
to L1 (Japanese) when discussing which is thecorrect version. I tolerate this and even feel it is agood thing because this activity tests not only theirEnglish but also tests, and respects, their powers oflogic and knowledge of the world. At least they
have to communicate their versions of the text byspeaking and listening in English, an event which
often fails to occur at all in standard "discuss withyour partner or group" type activities.

Time Required
The teacher can control this through text length but
30-40 minutes is ideal.

Rationale
Apart from the advantages allowed by the teacher's
freedom to select type, length and level of text, thistask requires students to work independently
towards a clear goal. This is ideal in a large classsituation and leaves the teacher free to monitor theactivity and provide individual help where necessary.
Not only must the task be completed by word of
mouth but it also involves practice of all the four
skills.

Variations
Dialogues from movies can also be used in the sameway. A scene from a movie can be shown first
without sound and then shown with sound later tocheck the combined versions. The following is an
example from the Titanic in a scene where Jack firstmeets Rose, who is contemplating throwing herself
into the Atlantic.

Procedure

VERSION A
JACK Don't do it!
ROSE Stay back! Don't go any closer!
JACK Just take my hand! I'll push you back over
ROSE Yes! Stay where you are. I mean it. I
won't let go.

1. Find a suitable text on the internet, type oneout from another source, or create one of your own.
2. Produce two or three similar texts with one or
two variations per line and make class copies
3. In class, write up the first lines of each different
text on the board for demonstration (see exhibit)
17

From the Chalkface

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

From the Chalkface

On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

VERSION B
JACK Let's do it!
ROSE Come back! Don't come any closer!
JACK Just take my finger! I'll pull you back over
ROSE No! Stay where I am. I don't mean it. I'll
let go.

Reference
Urr, P. 1981. Discussions that Work. Cambridge
University Press.

Exhibits

CORRECT VERSION
Utada Hikaru
Young singer/songwriter Utada Hikaru is the biggest new name in Japanese music. Born in New York in 1983, hermother is the famous enka singer Fuji Keiko. Hikaru spent a lot of her childhood in recording studios and started
writing song lyrics in English when she was only 10. At that time, she liked rock bands such as Bon Jovi and Queen
but she later became a fan of R&B music. By the time she was 12 she had already released 3 singles in the US, where
she uses the name 'Cubic U'. She released her first English album in Japan, Precious, under this name in January 1998.
The record was quite popular but to re-enter the Japanese pop music market, it was decided that she would use herreal name.
The first single 'Automatic' was a No.1 hit, as was the second 'Movin' On Without You', which was also used in a
Nissan TV commercial. As expected, her debut Japanese album 'First Love' went straight to No.1 in the charts. But
more than that, it became the most popular debut album ever in Japan, selling more than 8 million copies.
This success was quickly followed up when her next single was used as the theme song for a popular TV drama series
and she made a TV commercial for Sony. She said: "I want to continue to make my own music. And I want to continue
to surprise people with my music."
STUDENT A
Utada Hikaru
Young singer/songwriter Utada Hikaru is the biggest new name in Japanese music. Born in Tokyo in 1983, her motheris the famous jazz singer Fuji Keiko. Hikaru spent a lot of her childhood in film studios and started writing song lyrics
in English when she was only 7. At that time, she liked rock bands such as Bon Jovi and Queen but she later becamea fan of R&B music. By the time she was 9 she had already released 23 singles in the US, where she uses the name
'Cubic U'. She released her first English album in Japan, Precious, under this name in January 1998. The record wasquite popular but to re-enter the Japanese pop music market, it was decided that she would use her first name.
The first single 'Automatic' was a No.1 hit, as was the second 'Movin' On Without You', which was also used in a
Nissan TV commercial. Surprisingly, her debut Japanese album 'First Love' went straight to No.1 in the charts. But
more than that, it became the most popular debut album ever in the world, selling more than 8 million copies.
This success was quickly followed up when her next single was used as the theme song for a popular TV drama
series and she made a TV commercial for Sony. She said: "I want to continue to copy other people's music. And I
want to continue to surprise people with my music ."STUDENT B
Utada Hikaru
Young singer/songwriter Utada Hikaru is the biggest new name in Japanese music. Born in New York in 1973, hermother is the famous enka singer Fuji Keiko. Hikaru spent a lot of her childhood in recording studios and started
writing song lyrics in English when she was only 10. At that time, she liked punk bands such as Bon Jovi and Queen
but she later became a fan of hard rock music. By the time she was 12 she had already released 3 singles in the US,
where she uses her mother's name. She released her first English album in Europe, Precious, under this name inJanuary 1988. The record was quite popular but to re-enter the Japanese pop music market, it was decided that she
would use her real name.
The first single 'Automatic' was a No.1 hit, as was the second 'Movin' On Without You', which was also used in a
Nissan radio commercial. As expected, her debut Japanese film 'First Love' went straight to No.13 in the charts. But
more than that, it became the most popular debut album ever in Japan, selling more than 28 million copies.
This success was quickly followed up when her next single was used as the theme song for a popular TV drama series
and she made a movie for Sony. She said: "I want to continue to make my own music. And I want to continue to makepeople cry with my music ."18

On CUEThe paradox ofenforcedmonolingualism
for incipientbilinguals

It’s one of those perennial issues in L2
educational circles: should the L1 be
used in the classroom, and if so, whenand how much?
In Vol 9(3) of On Cue, using Peter
Burden’s (2000) questionnaire, Brian
Cullen and John Morris (‘A Case for
the Use of Japanese in College English
Classes’) offered student support forlimited use of Japanese in the classroom
by instructors. They concluded that:

Alec McAulay
Yokohama National
University

1)
Teachers should have some knowledgeof Japanese language and culture.
2)
Classes should…be divided by level totake account of the different preferences between
low-level and high-level learners.
3)
The teacher should use Japanese morein lower-level classes than higher-level ones.
4)
Japanese should be spoken only after
English has been used, and primarily to instill
confidence in students that they have understood
what the teacher said.
5)Japanese should be usually only usedin the five areas of explaining new words, talking
about tests, explaining differences between
English and Japanese grammar, and relaxing thestudents. Even this usage should be kept as short

Reading Cullen and Morris’s contribution to thedebate on Japanese use in the classroom, I was
reminded of an incident I witnessed five years ago
on the campus of a women’s university in Chugoku.
A student nervously approached her North
American English teacher in the corridor and asked,“Nihongo de ii desu ka?” The teacher cheerfully but
forcefully replied, “No, come on, try to speak
English.” Clearly flustered, the student began, “I
absent your class.” The teacher immediately
corrected her, “I was absent from your class.” Aftera little to and fro, and much confusion, the student
finally managed to come back with, “I was absent
your class. Mother dead.” Thankfully, the error
correction ended there.
This scene dispelled any lingering doubts I may
have had about the value of using Japanese with mystudents. It has always seemed strange to me thatthe training of incipient bilinguals should be carriedout through enforced monolingualism. We know thatbilinguals employ code-switching for a number ofreasons, including easing tension, emphasis,
maintaining and shifting social identity andmanipulating social distance. These are skills thatthe incipient bilinguals in our classrooms need toacquire and practice.
As Cullen and Morris indicate, the thinking on
the use of Japanese in the classroom has progressedin a satisfying manner. The question is no longer“Should we use Japanese?”, but “How should we
use Japanese?” Cullen and Morris focus mainly on
the classroom, but more consideration needs to be

as possible. (p.9)

In this issue, there are three varied
responses to Cullen and Morris: Alec
McAulay explains why he welcomes any
move toward greater awareness and useof the Japanese language by English
language instructors, both in theclassroom and in and around theinstitutions where they work; Stephen
Ryan underlines the importance oftaking every opportunity to engage
students in meaningful L2
communication; Dexter da Silva
questions the validity of the authors’
method of research and the conclusions
that they draw. Finally, Brian Cullen
replies to some of these points.
19

Readers Respond

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Readers Respond

On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

given to language choice issues in the institution as awhole. The vast majority of people would agree thata Japanese professor going to teach in Edinburgh
for a year should know English, so why is it valid todebate whether foreign teachers in Japan should
know Japanese? During thirteen years in Japan I
have taught in seven different universities. In the earlydays of my career, the hiring policy of Japaneseemployers favoured English teachers who knew noJapanese (in the belief that students would be forced
to communicate in English). These days, the trend istowards hiring English teachers who can function
day-to-day in Japanese. I suspect that this change
has been brought about by frustrated office staff fed
up with having to try and explain every kanji-thickmemo to the monoglot sensei.
The suggestions Cullen and Morris provide in
their conclusion for Japanese classroom use aresensible guidelines. However, at a time when weare concerned with fostering learner autonomy andtrying to remove the wall between classroom practiceand real-world experience, we need to sensitiselearners to the opportunities and responsibilities
involved in language choice. For the foreign instructor
here in Japan, one step in that direction would be
displaying bilingual competence in the classroom,on campus and in the community at large.

Maximising L2
communication:
the case forcaution in the useof L1 in theclassroom
Stephen Ryan
Seitoku University
As I read the article by Cullen and Morris arguingthe case for more use of Japanese in college classes,

I found my neck beginning to ache through constantnodding in agreement. However, a few days later I
then realised that I actually disagreed with almost
everything I had previously agreed with. I can thinkof only two possible explanations for this: either I
am entering the early stages of schizophrenic
dementia, or we are dealing with an issue offundamental concern to language teachers in Japan;
an issue that forces us to reflect not merely on what
we do in the classroom, but on who we are within
our own institutions and in society as a whole.
Though I highly suspect the former, I would likereaders to humour me by considering the latter
possibility.
There are two general areas where I would liketo take issue with Cullen and Morris. The first is in
their suggestion that language teachers should also
be language learners. The second is the much more
serious question of how we communicate with ourstudents, and how we maximise the opportunities
for students to engage meaningfully in the L2.
Why do so many people make the connection
between teaching one language and learning
another? Cullen and Morris go as far as to claimthat there is a ‘paradox’ in a teacher of English nothaving ability in other foreign languages. I have neverbeen wholly convinced by this argument. I do not
expect a police officer to be a regular victim of crime,
nor would I wish my doctor to suffer frequent boutsof serious illness. In an ideal world of classrooms
teeming with highly motivated, eager language
learners there may indeed be a great deal of truth in
the claim that teachers who have also experienced
L2 language learning have a greater empathy with
their students and an awareness of affective barriers.
However, this is far from the reality of many college
educators in Japan. In any walk of life there is anatural tendency for those with a keen interest or
passion to overestimate the extent to which thatinterest is shared by others. The danger for language
teachers, who have spent a great deal of time andeffort either studying or teaching language, is thatthey presume similar levels of dedication from theirstudents rather than take active steps to encourage
it.
Cullen and Morris are most confident, andconvincing, in their assertion that a knowledge ofJapanese is desirable for teachers in Japanesecolleges. To a certain extent this is a moot point.
For most of us to function in this society, some20

On CUEawareness of Japanese language and culture isunavoidable. The question is how do we best employ
this knowledge in our professional lives? This strikes
at the heart of the nature of the language teacher inJapan. What is the value of the experience gained
while teaching here? As many of us remain in thiscountry longer, we would like to believe that thegreater appreciation of Japanese language andculture acquired over the years is of some
professional value. I am not sure if this is necessarily
the case, as the following example shows.
Students at my own institution have the option ofjoining a programme of classes taught by teachers
who are invariably in Japan for a very short time
and thus have a minimal knowledge of Japanese
language or culture. I strongly suspect that theseclasses were initially introduced for reasons more
economic than pedagogic; younger, less-qualified
personnel on short-term contracts can represent
considerable savings to any organization. However,I have to confess to a sneaking envy when observing
my students in communication with these teachers.
I am forced to question the value of my own
knowledge of Japanese language and culture as I
watch learners prepared to take more responsibility
and initiative when in conversation with someone
with little experience of Japan and its ways. I would
argue that the familiarity with Japanese learning that
Cullen and Morris find desirable could also, at times,
be a handicap. This familiarity can lead to theadoption of a variety of English peculiar to Japaneseclassrooms. Language teachers need to be clear in
their goals: are we merely concerned with theachievement of immediate classroom ‘learning
tasks’, or are we trying to nurture language skills
which can be transferred beyond the classroom?
Cullen and Morris argue that beyond a generalknowledge of the Japanese language there are
specific cases when greater use of Japanese in theclassroom is desirable. One such case is when thebrief use of Japanese “can save minutes of awkward
explanation which disturb the flow of the lesson.”
The theories of cognitive psychology that distinguishbetween explicit and implicit learning are toocomplex to go into in this short piece, neverthelessit would be possible to argue that the “minutes ofawkward explanation” represent a valuable form ofcommunicative engagement between teacher andlearner. I have never taught a lesson that would nothave benefited from my flow being disturbed by alittle more engagement with students. Surely those“awkward minutes” are of more long-term value tolearners than the actual ‘learning activity’ that is tofollow. The same can be said about explaining tests
and homework; the act of comprehending andnegotiating instructions is perhaps of moresignificance than the event itself.
I am not suggesting that we should all be monoglot
oafs, creating confusion and delay in our Englishonly wakes. For the teacher spending an extended
period of time in this country, a knowledge of its
language and culture is inevitable to all but the mostignorant and insensitive. However, one of the biggest
obstacles facing most of our students is a lack ofopportunity to engage in meaningful English
communication. Teachers must take care to ensurethat their own knowledge of Japanese does not deny
students such an opportunity.

Researching theUse of L1 in theClassroom
Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University
In attempting to replicate Burden’s study, Cullen
and Morris provide empirical data on student
preferences for teachers’ use of Japanese in theclassroom. For this they are to be lauded. However,I have various points of concern with their paper,
particularly regarding the validity of the questionnaire
and the conclusions that they draw.
Before addressing these points, I’d like tocomment about the stance implied by the title of theirpaper. I would suggest that it reveals a rather
defensive perspective on the use of Japanese in
English classes. Furthermore, their study seems tobe driven by a need to find some middle groundbetween the ‘English-only’ camp and the‘Translation’ camp, that is teachers who use a lot ofJapanese in the classroom. I suggest that the firstgroup derives their belief from a weak version of
21

Readers Respond

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Readers Respond

On CUEthe Communicative Approach (CA), which
originated in ESL contexts, and which maintains
English-only in the classroom as a strong principle.
In applying this to language classrooms around theworld, EFL teachers have adopted ESL techniquesand classroom practices which were designed for
multilingual, heterogeneous small-size classes. This
weak version of the CA remains dominant in Japan,
and as such the role of the L1 in the classroom isoften undervalued.
My first main concern with Cullen and Morrris’
paper is their blanket term “college English classes.”
Whilst Burden refers to English “conversation”
classes, Cullen and Morris either attempt togeneralize their study to all English classes, or assume
that all university English classes taught by nonJapanese teachers are “conversation” classes. Eitherway, they should have been explicit about theirintention or assumption. If they intended the former,
then perhaps the questionnaire should have been
adapted or supplemented. While it may be true that“conversation” classes are the standard type ofcollege English class, there are other quite different
classes – for example, academic writing, or
integrated-skills ‘content-based’ language classes –which may fall under the category of general English
classes. I suggest that students in either of thesesituations may respond quite differently toquestionnaires on L1 use in the classroom.
My second and greatest concern is with theirfourth and fifth rather prescriptive conclusions (seeabove) that are based solely on their survey ofstudents. This seems to me to be taking student
wants to an extreme. Though they based theirresearch on Burden’s questionnaire, Burdeninterpreted students’ responses and drew generalimplications, refraining from making suchprescriptions. However, Cullen and Morris’
conclusions are strict limitations on the use ofJapanese to functions included in the questionnaire.
Whilst Burden’s intention seems to be to shatterassumptions about the ‘English-only’ rule in theclassroom, Cullen and Morris seem intent onreestablishing certain restrictions, based solely on
student responses to their questionnaire.
My previous argument would not be as strong if
the questionnaire had been more rigorous, and basedon comprehensive, explicit theory. For example, thequestionnaire did not include items regarding
amplification, clarification or explanation of concepts

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1(not merely vocabulary), which are central to theidea of ‘scaffolding’ new input, and which areobserved in many bilingual classes. In theirintroduction Cullen and Morris recognize the bilingual
nature of language classrooms, but theirunderstanding of the use of Japanese in the classroom
is limited to ‘translation’ as opposed to the more
complex ‘code-switching.’ Another issue which thequestionnaire fails to address is the idea that students
may expect or want different things from native
English-speaking teachers than from non-native
English-speaking teachers.
My final concern is the important issue oftranslating questionnaires into the L1 in order toincrease understanding, encourage student commentsin the L1 and further validate findings. The
questionnaire used by Cullen and Morris appears
to have been only in English, and though students
were “encouraged to ask questions (in Japanese or
English) about any item they did not understand”, itis possible that there were some questions that they
misunderstood, or of which they only had a vague
understanding. If the questionnaire had also been in
Japanese, it may well have yielded different results,
in that they would have got some invaluable
qualitative as well as quantitative feedback. Teachers
may often use English questionnaires in classes asteaching materials, but for the purposes of research
the case for using the L1 is very strong. In addition,
allowing only 10 minutes for such a questionnaire
seriously limits time for reflection and additionalcomments.
My focus in this response to Cullen and Morrishas been primarily on their methodology and on the
conclusions that they draw. I would like to underlinethat I commend them for attempting to replicate
Burden’s findings. In Japan, the role of L1 in theclassroom has been undervalued and any researchthat addresses this issue should be welcomed.

If you’d like to respond to any of thearticles in this issue of On CUE
address your comments to Keith Ford,
Opinion and Perspectives editor, at<fordkeith@hotmail.com>
22

On CUE

than a report on a rigourous study. To investigate
this issue thoroughly would require interviews withteachers and students, as well as a better-designed
questionnaire. I would certainly enjoy reading sucha paper, but doubt if the practical implications would
differ greatly.
Finally, one point that I would like to dispute is
Da Silva’s remark that we “assume that all university
classes taught by non-Japanese teachers are‘conversation’ classes”. My current class loadconsists of several integrated English classes, twoTechnical English classes, one culture class taught inEnglish and one culture class taught in Japanese. My
remarks in the paper certainly were not meant toapply solely to conversation classes. Da Silva rightly
points out that students in different classes might
respond differently to a questionnaire. In general, I
believe that the practical advice given in this paper
will stand up in other types of classes, but obviously
the teacher in the classroom is best able to judge
the particular learning needs of any particular groupof students.
In conclusion, I would like to thank McAulay,
Ryan, and Da Silva, and I would be happy to discussthese issues in more detail in an online forum. I would
maintain that knowledge of students’ language andculture is a powerful asset, but along with Ryan I
would agree that “teachers must take care to ensurethat their own knowledge of Japanese does not deny
students” the “opportunity to engage in meaningful
English communication.”

Brian Cullen
Replies
I would like to thank McAulay, Ryan, and
DaSilva for their thought-provoking comments,
several of which I have attempted to address below.
First, McAulay and Ryan both raise the important
issue of language and identity. On this matter, myown experience has influenced many of the ideas in
the paper. While Ryan notes that he may be in the“early stages of schizophrenic dementia”, in termsof my own use of Japanese and English, I feel that I
have taken on two very distinct identities. If ourlearners are to become truly proficient in English,
they will also need to take on new identities. Is
Japanese knowledge, then, as Ryan suggests, ahandicap in helping them acquire this identity? I think
not and strongly believe that a teacher’s knowledgeof Japanese culture and language is an aid in helping
students to move through the difficult linguistic andsocial process of identity formation. A teacher withknowledge of Japanese can always play the “I’msorry, I don’t speak Japanese” game, but thoseteachers without it will not have that choice. And, I
would argue that having more choices is generally agood thing. As McAulay points out, this need toincrease choices extends beyond the classroom out
into campus, and - I would add - into the rest ofsociety. In an ESL situation in an English-speaking
country, a student may have many interlocutors to
help develop their new language and identity. In sucha context, the teacher’s knowledge of the students’culture is less important. However, in an EFL
situation, the teacher is usually the sole mediator
between the two identities, and having knowledgeof more than one culture is highly beneficial.
Second, Da Silva points out somemethodological concerns about the study. Although
I accept these reservations, we did state that “there
was no attempt made to ascertain the reliability or
validity of the survey.” In addition, the purpose wasto make “practical administrative and teaching
recommendations.” In a sense, the paper is anattempt to justify many of my own intuitions, andthe rather prescriptive conclusions reflect the roleof this paper as a practical policy statement rather(If any readers would like to continue this
discussion by email, Brian Cullen can be contacted
at: brian@celtic-otter.com )Have you been to any good
conferences lately?
Why not write up a report for
On CUE? (See Brent Poole’s
conference report on pge 27of this issue.)Contact the editor, Michael
Carroll<carroll@andrew.ac.jp>
23

Right to Reply

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

BookReview

On CUE

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Ten Books I can’t
do without
John Burrell
Tokai University
Many English teachers have their favorite
collection of books they cannot do without. Not
textbooks, but resource books that have activities
and materials that are used to supplement a coursebook or even build an entire course. In collection
there is a minimum of overlap in the activities andthey contain almost every type of activity possible
for language classes. Not every book in the list will
provide material for every class. However, thesebooks have consistently provided me with usefulmaterial in a variety of teaching situations.
For some instructors printed resource books may
seem like a thing of the past due to the availibility ofsuch resources on the internet. However, I still preferhandling books. I often have difficulty finding
materials on the web because of the sheer volume
of materials out there. I often become sidetracked
or just waste huge amounts of time waiting for pages
to load on a slow connection. I do use the internet
as a resource, but thumbing through the pages of
my books for old (and new) activities is easier andmore comfortable for me.
Number one on my list is Grammar Practice
Activities by Penny Ur. I picked it up by chanceover ten years ago and I still find myself looking at it
first when I need something for a class or course.
Using the book is very easy. If your class is working
on prepositions you go to the chapter on
prepositions and see if any of the activities fit yourneeds. When you have found a suitable activity,
you’ll see that the instructions are very clear andconcise. If pictures or diagrams are required for theactivity they are provided. In addition, Urs’ bookhas almost two hundred activities, making it a very
good value indeed.
The next book is Penny Ur and Andrew Wright’s,
Five-minute Activities. While the activities aresupposedly only five minutes in length and are best
suited for warm-ups, icebreakers and transitions,almost all of them can be extended, some to almost

30 minutes. Unfortunately they are laid out inalphabetical order according to the name of theactivity. However, the index has them listed undergrammatical structures and functions, and I’dtherefore suggest going straight to the index whensearching for an activity.
Carolyn Graham’s Small Talk is another one of
my indispensable books. Jazz Chants are widely
known but more teachers should realize that they
are not confined to younger students or casualclasses. In fact, they can be effective in more
“serious” classes also. I have used the chants in thisbook with students ranging from elementary school
to adult classes ranging in size from four to forty. I
usually use the jazz chants as an introduction to a
new structure or function. I find that starting a classwith a jazz chant relaxes students and often puts
them in an upbeat mood. While Graham has anumber of other books on jazz chants, I personallyhave found Small Talk to be the best. It is organizedby functions, making it easy to find a chant that issuitable for a particular lesson. After using the chants
for a while, more advewntrous teachers may start
to make their own.
Games Language People Play by Jerry
Steinberg and 101 Word Games by George P
McCallum are two very similar books. Between
them they have over two hundred different games
suitable for all levels of language learners. Of thetwo, Games Language People Play is a little easier
to use because the games are listed undergrammatical structure in the index. Although bothbooks are compact and inexpensive, together they
provide a comprehensive overview of possible
language games availible.
I own both The Oxford Picture Dictionary
and The New Oxford Picture Dictionary and they
are great resources for providing supplementary or
essential vocabulary. One or the other would do but
I use both. The New Oxford Picture Dictionary’s
pictures are a bit simpler and the book itself is smaller.
The Oxford Picture Dictionary has some uniquecontent as well as covering all the same ground. For
example, it has a brilliant page on the blended family.
I have had great success with this as a supplemental
material when teaching the family. I also chosemonolingual editions because having the definitionsin the students’ first launguage seems to defeat the
purpose of a picture dictionary. I have also foundthe teacher’s guides for both of them to be useful.
24

On CUEteachers have more than a few books that are kept
because they “know” that someday they will be
useful. The above books have proven very useful tome and I am confidant that they will continue to be
useful for as long as I am teaching.

ESL Teacher’s Activity Kit and ESL
Teacher’s Holiday Activity Kit by Elizabeth Claire
would at first seem to be useful only for those whoteach children, but this is not the case. If you doteach children, these are the first two books I would
recommend. With just ESL Teacher’s Activity Kit
it is possible to set up an entire children’s program.
It is an amazing book with an enormous amount of
information and material in it. However, there is asurprising amount of material that can be used with
beginning level college students in both books. I use
the TPR lists with my university students as both
instruction and as a diagnostic activity on the firstday of class.
The last book is Teaching Pronunciation by
Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna M. Brinton, andJanet M. Goodwin. It is a book used for teacher
training and so does not have as many ready to go
activities as the others. However, it does have very
useful appendices with assessment and diagnostic
materials. It is a book that requires time to study
and is more demanding on the teacher but is thebest text I have found to provide supplementarymaterial for pronunciation.
These are the books I would not want to bewithout. They take up very little space and their total
cost, while not insignificant, is not too onerous. Most

References
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D.M., andGoodwin, J.M. 1996 Teaching Pronunciation
Cambridge: CUPClaire, E. 1998 ESL Teacher’s
Activity Kit Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
Claire, E. 1990 ESL Teacher’s Holiday
Activity Kit West Nyack, N.Y. : Center for Applied
Research in Education
Graham, C. 1986 Small Talk New York: OUP
McCallum, G.P. 1980 101 Word Games New
York: OUP
The New Oxford Picture Dictionary 1988
Oxford: OUP
The Oxford Picture Dictionary 1977 Oxford:
OUP
Steinberg, J. Games Language People PlayUr, P. 1988 Grammar Practice Activities
Cambridge: CUP
Ur, P. and Wright, A. 1992 Five-minute
Activities Cambridge: CUP

Projects from the
University
Classroom

Q
Another
CUE Publication

A collection of seven input-driven projects forsale through CUE.

Edited byKeith Ford and Eamon McCafferty
Y 2,500
25

BookReview

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

Cyberpipeline

On CUE

Cyberpipeline:
Linguistics andneuroscience
Steve Snyder
Kyushu University of Healthand Welfare
Forty-four Reasons W;hy theChomskians Are Mistaken.

http://language.home.sprynet.com/chomdex/
rea44.htm#p

It is not particularly surprising that some debates
never subside. To be sure, how the questions cometo be framed over time helps to keep the fires ofindignation burning; Personally, I’ve always thoughtthat the real reason some debates go on and on isthat there simply in not enough information to resolve
them. A classic example of this is the so-called
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis— which actually refers tostring of statements that neither Edward Sapir nor
Benjamin Whorf ever stated. If you hatetransformational grammar (TG or TGG) anduniversal grammar (UG), or if you love it and have asense of humor, you may wish to visit a web site
entitled Forty-four Reasons Why the Chomskians
Are Mistaken.
The name alone should tell you that these folks
don’t like the Chomskian views on language in a big
way. It is pretty hard to talk about language learning,
language in general, cognitive science, or a numberof other topics, without having to deal with positions
that Noam Chomsky has presented. You will only
find a very negative rejection of Chomskian theory
in this site... in fact, it borders on reactionary.
Nevertheless, some of the points raised are usefulwhen thinking about the many topics that Chomskian
views have touched, and that we inevitably encounterin our work and research. The site is just contrary
enough to be stimulating, and for that reason alone
it can be helpful when wrestling with suchfundamental ideas. In my case, I found myself
deconstructing arguments on both sides as I read.
I must confess that I found this site during asearch on what one would think to be a radically

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

different topic: mirror neurons. You may or may
not have heard about mirror neurons, but in eithercase you are probably wondering what they haveto do with Chomskian theory. Basic to a numberof ideas attributed to Chomsky is the modularity
hypothesis, which asserts that language function in
the human brain is the result of a modular component.
Indeed, modularity is a bit of a sacred cow amongsome neuro-cognitive psychologists, because there
is a fairly long history of evidence to support thisview. Mirror neurons have reopened this debate ina fundamental way. Reasons 31-33 on this rather
contentious web site put forward some of theevidence favoring the opposite of modularity— selforganization of the brain— and puts us immediately
into what some in the field consider the hottest topic
of the century. If you can’t stomach the rest of thesite, please be sure to at least read reasons 31-33.

Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Goes Hollywood
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/
observer/1001/hollywood.html

This site is a fairly light and easy to read
introduction to some current topics in neuroscience
related to language, such as generalized physiologicalreactions, cognitive control and mirror neurons.
Written with a sense of humor by a student ofneuroscience this article helps to connect lessobvious implications of this research, namely
extensions to social life and human development.
(The discussion of mirror neurons is a very goodstarting place.) It seems that the dividing lines
between categories such as psychological and social,cognitive and affective, perception and action, motor
function and cognition, human and nonhuman areblurring at an increasing rate.
The article is from the Observer, a periodical of
the American Psychological Society and is available
on their web site. In contrast to the first web site
above, this article is very balanced, and gives acaution about rejecting evolutionary explanations toquickly. The many ideas are dizzying, and it raises
not only your interests but also many questions as
well. The article is a bit long, but a good read. It
will be interesting to see what debates these new
discoveries rekindle in the years to come.
26

On CUE

Conference
Report: The Fourth
Temple University- Japan Applied
Linguistics
Colloquium at the
Osaka Branch

were native speakers of Japanese, and 4% wascategorized as other.
The instrument itself was based upon 6 scenarios,
which were dichotomized into two scenario groups.
The first one was designed to investigate thefeasibility that the subjects would spend their timeteaching a group of students who had the desire tolearn but were unable to pay tuition fees. The generalfinding with this scenario group parallels researchon teacher motivation by Dornyei and Gardner.
First, there is intrinsic motivation for teaching English
as a foreign language in Japan. Second, contextual
factors such as demands from administrators
contribute to fragility of the profession. Third, theextrinsic factor of compensation was significant visa-vis the time and stress constraints which the
instructors already experience in their profession.
While the first scenario group was designated totap into the activity of the instruction, the second
related more toward the subject matter. The specificfocus was on the external variables that serve toundermine or contribute to the motivation of language
instructors in Japan. In regard to this, there was astronger desire for this population to participate infaculty meetings (without compensation) than toteach more classes for compensation. When the
extrinsically motivating factor of loss of pay for notattending faculty meetings was taken into
consideration, the vast majority of those surveyed
would comply with the demand. Overall, the study
shed some light on some different aspects of our
profession.

Brent Poole
Kansai Gaidai
This colloquium was held on Sunday, February
17, 2002 and was open to the public. There were
34 presenters and most were reporting on researchthat was conducted at universities here in Japan. The
format was rather refreshing in that presenters gave
their talk in 20 minutes and 10 minutes was allocatedfor questions and answers. As a result, thepresenters had to get to the heart of the matter andthe audience had the opportunity to hear a wide
variety of subjects throughout the day. This being acollege and university educator’s journal, this article
will highlight three presentations for the like-minded.

Requests in Medical Discourse: A
Japanese Doctor’s Use of
Politeness Strategies

Motivation to Teach English: A
Study of EFL instructors in Japan
Walter Kozloski, who teaches at Kobe College,
gave a presentation on teacher motivation in Japan.
According to Mr. Kozloski and individuals in theaudience, the most profound aspect to this study
was that it was the first of its kind in that its focus
was on EFL teaching in Japan. The sample size
from the study was 27 and the majority were facultyat universities in the Kansai area. The native
language of those surveyed was broken down as
follows 59% were natives speakers of English, 37%

In relation to the field of language pragmatics,
Ms. Takako Nishino presented her research on
medical discourse. She examined how one Japanese
doctor who is in his late forties used politenessstrategies when he made requests to his patients.
The data was based upon 180-minute audio
recordings in the consulting room of an orthopedic
clinic which is located in one of the suburbs of Tokyo.
The researcher used dialogue excerpts from 15 of27

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Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

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On CUEthe 28 patients consulting sessions. From that, 59
out of 85 doctor’s requests to patients were
examined.
The basic script of medical discourse is asfollows. First, an exchange of greetings takes placewhen the patient enters the consultation room andafter that the doctor will pose questions to the patient
about his/her condition. Next, the doctor examines
the patient. After that, the diagnosis is announced
by the doctor and the medical treatment plan is given.
Then the doctor advises the patient and answers
any questions. The patient shows gratitude andleaves the room. Requests are usually found during
the examination (Bend your elbow.) and during theadvising period (Take two pills three times a day.).
In the context of this study, there is status
differential between the speaker and interlocutor.
However, the patient is in a position where there isa degree of anxiety and one method to reduce thatlevel is to address the person as a status equal.
During the first consultation with a new patient, thedoctor used polite expressions such as “doo shi mashita?” or “doo sare mashi ta?” and then contingent
upon the context he uses non-polite forms. Fromthe cases that were examined, the polite form wasonly used 12% of the time. Those requests weredirect such as “kudasai” (Please) —> “-te kudusai”(Please do). The non-polite form was used 80% of
the time and they took the form of: direct requests(different from the polite form “te ne (ne)” —> “te(-te ne)” (Do), interrogatives, desire statements,suggesting, and incomplete statements. Imperatives
such as “dame da yo” (Don’t...) were found 8% of
the time. In sum, the doctor utilized both negativeand positive politeness under the constraints of thehonorific system.

Native and Non-Native Teachers ofEnglish at Japanese Universities
Ayako Shibuya, who teaches at Soka University,
examined the different roles that Native and NonNative teachers of English play at Japanese
universities. First, the presenter gave us thehistorical underpinnings of the Japanese adoptionof foreign cultures. Then she explained her study.
The subjects were 3 Native Speakers (NS) teachersand 3 Non-Native Speakers (NNS) teachers andthe data was based upon interviews. Three

Autumn 2002: Volume 10, Issue 1

discussion points came out of the interviews andthey were language and culture, students’ reaction
the issues in the workplace.
In relation to language and culture, the NNS
indicated concern about lack of intuition of theTarget Language (TL) and inadequate knowledge
about the L2 culture. The NS were concerned
about their lack of knowledge of Japanese. Whenit came to students’ reaction, the NNS indicatedthat they were empathetic with their students’
struggle to acquire a second language. On the other
hand, some students when given questionnaires atthe end of the semester were critical of this groupfor their non-native pronunciation. The NS groupindicated that students were curious about their“foreign” teacher and that they took on a celebrity
status on their campus. In relation to workplaceissues, NNS were concerned with their work
assignments while the NS group indicated that they
had a lot of free time but were powerless in thedecision making process within the institution.
Being a member of either group is not anindication of being a good or bad teacher. Factors
such as teacher training, linguistic knowledge andcompetence, and love for students seem to be more
important. Since both groups are dissimilar in somerespects, they play different roles in the university
setting. One NNS indicated that she was good at
explaining the structure of the second language andpreparing students to take standardized tests.
However, she confided that it was impossible togenerate the kind of excitement that an NS teacher
can. Be that as it may, the data indicated that bothgroups are necessary to better facilitate second
language acquisition of their students. Hence, theweaknesses and strengths of both groups serve tocomplement each other. Overall, this research wasvery interesting, but it was limited in the sample size
and the interviews were translated only by the
researcher.
In sum, the one day colloquium had a lot to offer
those who are teaching at a university or college inJapan. There was a great deal of synergy in that thepresenters generally received a lot of constructive
feedback from those in the audience. If you areinterested in participating in it next year’s, pleasecontact Temple University - Japan.

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