Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles

Fostering Fluency through Wrong English: Working with
What Learners Have
Joel P. Rian
Hokkaido Information University
Email: <rianjp48@do-johodai.ac.jp>
Teaching English at Japanese universities is one of the most challenging jobs I have ever had. It has also,
by far, been the most rewarding. I taught first as a full-time contract teacher at Sapporo Gakuin University,and am currently tenured at Hokkaido Information University (HIU). I also teach part-time at Hokusei
Gakuen University.
Among the variety of classes I have taught—including presentation skills, academic writing, seminars, andmy all-time favorite, English Language History—I have mostly taught compulsory EFL classes to non-English
majors: so-called “general English” classes that are required for graduation by students in all majors. These
classes, as many of my colleagues who teach the same classes have similarly observed, tend to be populatedwith students of lower levels of proficiency. Their attitude toward being in these EFL classes varies, but it isfair to assume that, above all, they are there because they have to be.
Teachers’ motivation to teach general English classes varies too. Over time, some teachers succumb todemotivation. They slog through them for the same reason as some of their students: because they have to.
I have only been teaching at university for 10 years now, but in that short time, I have learned how to relishgeneral English classes. My students are—for the most part—talkative, engaged, and they use English for themost of the class. Understandably this surprises some of my colleagues. A few have asked what kind of magic
I use. One thing I love to do in class, I respond, is to encourage wrong English.
Wrong is not the right word. What I mean is, I deemphasize accuracy. I want what so many of us as EFL
teachers want: for my students to talk in English, to each other, in class. So, I simply redefine what
acceptable English is. I embrace a philosophy of anything-goes-as-long-as-meaning-is-negotiated: as long as
one person tries to convey meaning, and as long as the other person tries to understand. For example:
A: You. . . free. . .
B: Free?
A: Free time. . . you. . . are you. . . free time?
B: Are you . . . what mean?
A: You are. . . you have. . . free time. What you do?
B: Ahh! Game.
A: Oh! Game! Me too!

This is a perfectly acceptable rendering of a more native-like exchange:
A: What kinds of things do you like to do in your free time?
B: I like to play video games.
A: Oh! Me too!

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles

Teachers of compulsory English classes at Japanese universities routinely—and accurately—point out
student resistance to engaging in English conversation in class. The literature on Japanese university
students’ EFL anxiety reflects these observations (see Williams & Andrade, 2008; Cutrone, 2009; King 2013).
Getting students to engage in English conversation may seem a particularly herculean task in someclassrooms—ones that many of us are familiar with: non-English majors in compulsory classes withcollectively low proficiency and low motivation (e.g., McVeigh, 2002; Kikuchi, 2015).
So when I find myself not dreading these classes like some of my colleagues, sometimes I doubt myself.
For the most part, my students are awake, engaged, and use a lot of English with each other in free
discussion on a given topic.
I’m not feeling the same disenchantment as some of my colleagues are. I must be doing something
wrong. I have fun watching my students have fun, as they fumble with their rudimentary proficiency,
inadvertently bending, twisting and fracturing the rules of English that other teachers sweat so hard toteach. It seems like my classes aren’t serious enough.
The truth is, I take my job very seriously. For lower proficiency learners in compulsory classes at a nonprestigious university, the reality is that they have had a lot of English language forms pushed upon them,again and again, in order to get through high school. Now, here they are at university, and who am I to getthem all to use the “be” verb perfectly? Not that that’s bad, but I would simply rather not. Instead, I wantthem to use what they know right now. This is usually more than they collectively think, and when I getthem to realize it, the magic starts.
How do I get them to reveal what they know? By virtually doing away with requirements on form. In the
research there is a long-standing debate about how and what kinds of language form are ideallyincorporated into EFL classes (see e.g., Ellis, 2016). My classroom design a significant departure from thetraditional prescription of language forms. That departure is summarized below.
A topic is introduced to the entire class. I do this every two weeks. It can be any topic that can be talked
about from opposing viewpoints. Fast food tends to work well as a starter topic. Arguably, fast food ischeap, convenient and fast, but (again, arguably), it’s unhealthy. My HIU students tend to love the topic ofvideo games. Potentially, they’re a communication tool. You can learn things from them. They’re fun. But
they’re also addictive, eat money and time, and not the real world.
Students are put into groups of three. They have an all-English (or mostly English) conversations forabout 10 minutes. The rules: (1) all English, but just use whatever you can; don’t worry about grammar; (2)not all members can take the same position (e.g. fast food is good, fast food is bad); and (3) keep theconversation going.
Groups change members about every 10 minutes, and the conversation starts again. Sometimes I walkaround and listen in on conversations. Occasionally I join them if I feel like it, or if I see them struggling too
much. Between rotations, I elicit some of the language the students used, and write it on the blackboard.
Sometimes I suggest other phrasings or introduce vocabulary and simple phrase structures. Or, I offer
phrases that other classes have come up with over the years. Frequently, I observe groups coming up withideas and expressions that are passed along to other groups when they change members. Students borrowand recycle them when they join other groups. This act of pilfering and recycling words is something that I
heartily encourage.
There are two conversation tests per semester. I prefer to call them performances, not tests. In
randomly chosen groups of three or four, on a given topic with arguable viewpoints (e.g., “Video games are

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles
good or bad?”), students have to navigate an all-English conversation for about 10 minutes. They can use
halting, clumsy utterances with mime galore if they want. If the others get the main idea, it’s OK. If not,they can ask for clarification. And even if they can’t convey exactly what they mean, or if the conversation
stalls, they can reset it using something like “Anyway, I think (video games are not good, because…)” andcontinue the conversation.
A 20-minute writing performance precedes the conversation performances. Each student writes afictional conversation between two people on a given topic, each from an opposing viewpoint. They cannot
use any Japanese, but they can use sloppy grammar and horrible spelling if they want. I don’t care. I’minterested in the ideas they come up with. In some cases even I won’t understand what they wrote. In thatcase I’ll mark it with “What do you mean?” Grades of A, B, C, D are holistic: The more they talk and/or
write, the better their grade.
Amid the wreckage of atrocious spellings and helter-skelter grammar, some truly amusing exchanges ofphrases and ideas emerge. Here are a couple of in-class group discussion excerpts from spring 2018:

A: “Do you like English?
B: “No.”
A: “Why?”
B: “English is difficult. I don’t like grammar.”
A: “Oh. Grammar. Me neither. But. . . I like talking.
B: “Oh. I don’t like talking.”
A: “Why?”B:“I can’t speak English.”

A: “. . . But . . . you talk English now. . .”B: [smiles sheepishly]

A: “I think video game is good. I like play video game. You?”
B: “No.”
A: “No?”
B: “No.
A: “What mean no?”
B: I think . . .no touch game. I think video games is. . . should. . . don’t touch.”
A: “Don’t touch game?? Why? What do you mean?”
B: “I think video games is perfect. So . . . wonderful. It’s god. God is no touch. God is...” [makes handstogether praying gesture, bowing head]
A: [pointing, emphatic] “You. . . pray video games??” [praying gesture] “Not play??” [using gamecontroller gesture]
B: “Yes! Game is god. God is pray. [praying gesture] God is don’t touch.

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles
A: [laughing] “You are crazy!”This kind of language is what comprises the bi-semesterly performances, as well as the in-class practice.
Groups rotate frequently, and students practice navigating conversations with different partners each time.
There is some irony in the approach I have taken toward my EFL classes. My background with language
learning had been very forms-focused. As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota who doublemajored in English and Latin, I spent years—happily, I will add—fussing over translations of Latin, Old English
and Middle English. For my undergraduate major project I wrote a poem in Latin—a tongue-in-cheek lament
about how it ‘devolved’ into the Romance languages—in dactylic hexameter, the same meter Virgil’s Aeneiduses.
The only living language I formally studied in college was Japanese. I took two years of it, and I was goodat parsing verbs and memorizing kanji. As I recall, there was very little free conversation practice. I had
wanted to visit Japan since I was in middle school, but it was around that time that my dad developed earlyonset Alzheimer’s, which contributed to my putting long-term international travel plans on hold.
So I engaged in other, domestic pursuits. One of these included making my way into proofreading—firstpart-time at the University of Minnesota’s newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, and later full-time at a financial
document printing company, proofreading prospectuses and other finance-related documents. The 1990s
U.S. economy was doing well, and I often got to travel to branch locations within the country often. I even
got to go to London once. Proofreading can be tedious, but I was thankful to get paid to work with language.
I might have continued that, had I not taken a chance to travel to Japan for a 10-day vacation. I so instantly
fell in love with it that I vowed to come back on a one-way ticket, and not as a tourist.
Several years later, I did just as I said I would. What happened after I got over the rainbow (or rather, thePacific Ocean) was yet another challenge. I had only ever really worked with language forms. I studied
them, I memorized them, I manipulated them. But when it came to conversation, I was tongue-tied. All I
could see around me were seasoned veteran expats whose Japanese gushed effortlessly from their mouths.
It felt like everyone around me could fold beautiful origami cranes, while I could only make ham-handed
paper airplanes that dove straight downward despite the mightiest of arm-swing launches.
I wrestled to unravel my tongue. I bought piles of study materials and banged my head against them.
After all, I had gotten decent grades in college. I had landed a job working with English. I was supposed to
be good at language. Now, suddenly, my communicative competence seemed infantile. I felt inept, uncouth,
enfeebled.
All I could manage for the better part of my first year in Japan were awkward, bungling utterances.
Those around me were so kind. They encouraged and complimented me on my efforts. But I was
unconsolable. I couldn’t say what I wanted to, couldn’t understand what I needed to, no matter how many
notes I jotted, or how vehemently I flung myself at my study materials. Why was this taking me so long, I
wondered. I had to do something.
The first thing I did was relinquish the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program job as an ALT, which I
had worked so hard to get, after just one year. I joined an intensive Japanese one-year study program at
Nagoya Gakuin University, then returned to Hokkaido as a private ALT. I then pursued a Master’s degree in
TESOL through a distance program at Macquarie University in Sydney. That is what helped me understand thefoundational background of how languages are taught, learned, studied, and acquired. In turn, thatknowledge helped me finally to accept the good advice that so many kindly Japanese people around me had
been hinting to me all along: What else can you do, before you become fluent and gain confidence, but use
crappy Japanese? It’s all you can do for the time being. If you and another person understand one another,
then whatever you said to each other was, for that instance, good enough.

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles
It was a matter of learning to work with what you have. That was something my dad used to say. It has
also become what I most want my students to experience: to use what they have; to find out what they
have by trying to use it, and in the process add to what they have through observing and interacting withothers. Certainly their reasons and their motivation to learn English may be different from mine. Most will
not jump continents to start an entirely new life on the other side of the world. However, the principle isthe same: You can never really get a sense of what you can do until you try doing it. And through doing it,
you get better at it.
What many of my students have is, in truth, rudimentary. It is clumsy, halting, awkward, and far fromwhat textbooks would have us think we should be speaking. In actual conversations, sometimes it doesn’twork. Through personal experience, I can totally empathize. But when it does work, when meaning is
successfully negotiated, even amid the grainiest of word arrangements, I get to share in their enthusiasm.
That is the joy I find in teaching “wrong” English. For me, it is the right thing to do. At the same time, likemy fellow LD SIG members and teaching colleagues, I am continually learning about learning. In that sense,
learner development could refer to us as well as to our students. We develop through feedback anddialogue, and I look forward to anything that you, the reader, are willing to offer.
References
Cutrone, P. (2009). Overcoming Japanese EFL learners’ fear of speaking. Language Studies Working Papers, 1, 55-63.
Ellis, R. (2016). Focus on form: A critical review. Language Teaching Research, 20(3), 405-428.
Kikuchi, K. (2015). Demotivation in second language acquisition: Insights from Japan. Bristol, UK: Multilingual
Matters.
King, J. (2013). Silence in the second language classroom. Clevedon, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
McVeigh, B. (2002). Japanese higher education as myth. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Williams, K., & Andrade, M. (2008). Foreign language learning anxiety in Japanese EFL university classes: Causes,
coping, and locus of control. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 5(2), 181-191. Retrieved from http://
e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v5n22008/williams.pdf

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