Volume 24 Issue 3
Winter 2017

Learning Learning
Short Articles
Reflections on Learning and the Japanese Classroom
Matthew Hollinshead
Kanda University of International Studies
Abstract

The social nature of language is clear. However, for teachers concerned with the day-to-day runningof a classroom, this can sometimes be an aspect that slips into the background; not in the sense of afailure to think about the pragmatic aspects of the language we are teaching, but rather in respect to
how our students are using an unfamiliar language to navigate through the society of the classroom.
This short research article looks at the reflective journal of an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT)
attempting to understand better what is being asked of students as they attempt to manage
themselves in a small but important social setting (the English classroom) using the tools of alanguage with which they are not yet completely familiar. In this research article I identify the main
themes of the journal and then go on to examine these themes as they apply to a specific context.

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Keywords: journal writing, teacher reflection, sociolinguistics, learner identity,,,

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ociolinguistics is the study of why people speak differently in different social contexts as well as
the social functions of language and how social meaning is conveyed (Holmes, 2008). In order tounderstand my role as a teacher better, I wrote reflective journal entries over the course of one
academic year teaching at a junior high school in Japan. My aim was to examine the dynamics ofclassroom-as-society and its interaction with language. The validity of such an approach seemed to me tolie in the nature of language learning which requires the learner to expose themselves in a way that ismuch more personal and potentially threatening than other fields of study. Language learning is social by
its very nature, as is teaching; therefore, a sociolinguistic approach appeared justified. My purpose in thisREFLECTIONS ON LEARNINGSHORT RESEARCH ARTICLE |35

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short article is to examine those reflections, identify the major themes that occur throughout, andconsider how they might apply to the classroom.
The diary
Four personal diary entries were written at regular intervals throughout the course of the year. No strict
structure was imposed prior to writing, the intention being simply to note, as they arose, thesociolinguistic aspects that presented themselves for notice. These reflective journal entries (RJEs)
sought to examine what was being asked of the students, specifically as members of a social context andnot simply as isolated individual language learners. Two major themes emerged from the diary:••identity
the role of the teacher.

Each of these themes will be looked at in more detail below.
Identity
Identity concerns how a person conceives of him or herself in the world and how they seek to convey
that message to others. Chryssochoou (2003) states that identity “is a particular form of social
representation that mediates the relationship between the individual and the social world…Its functions
are to inscribe the person in the social environment, to communicate peoples’ positions and to establish
relationships with others” (p. 225).
One aspect of identity that garnered a lot of attention in the RJEs was the use of the learners’ firstlanguage in the classroom. I reflected that if language helps to convey identity, then by barring the use of
the L1 in the classroom teachers are effectively negating the identities of the vast majority of theirstudents. The entries expressed a belief that the suppression of the learners’ identity is too high a price topay for any of the perceived advantages of an English-only classroom.
In addition to concern over learner identity, the RJEs made regular mention of the identity of theteacher. I expressed concerns about the extent to which the teacher is justified in imposing their identity
upon the classroom material and the learner. Summarized, the crux of my reflections on teacher identity
revolved around the question of balancing the essential need of the student to retain their identity while
they struggled to learn a second language, and the need for the teacher to remain mindful of thepotential for their own identities to become the dominating factor in the classroom by virtue of theircommand of the subject matter and their position of power.
The role of the teacher
Throughout the journal entries there is quite naturally a preoccupation with the role of the English
teacher: What is the traditional view of the role of the teacher? Is this view compatible with effective
language learning? How do I conceive of the role I must play in my students’ learning? Harmer (1995)
writes of a movement in language teaching towards shifting authority from the teacher to the student
and that this “has …been seen as a way of making students the investigators or discoverers of facts
about language rather than just recipients of information” (p. 337). This accurately summarizes my viewof the role of the teacher.

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The RJEs contain several mentions of the role of the teacher as a bi-directional conduit through which
language may pass as learners “discover” it, rather than as a source of knowledge dispensed to recipients.
The journal entries express particular concern with teachers becoming arbiters of language, judging whatis acceptable or even “good”, and what is inferior or unnecessary.
Common theme: Power
While the above constitute the two dominating topics as they present themselves throughout the journal,
one major unifying theme undoubtedly connects them both: power. There is an almost ubiquitousconcern with issues of power throughout the RJEs.
In terms of identity, much of the issue revolves around the power inherent in the position of teacher. Allteachers bring with them ideas about their own identity and the teacher-student relationship. In thejournal I was often concerned with the power of the teacher to impose their beliefs upon students. Moresignificant however is the crucial role that identity plays within all of us and the ability of the teacher tosignificantly diminish or even disregard those of his or her students through decisions made in theclassroom.
The role of the teacher is a topic so laden with issues of power that it might conceivably be called theunifying theme of these diary entries. The RJEs express concern with who decides which material tocover, who decides which forms of English are ok and which unacceptable, the necessity of students
being able to trust the teacher with providing their education, and the conception of the teacher as acompanion on the learners’ journey towards English acquisition.
The classroom
Having identified the major concerns shown in the journal, the next step was to examine those themes
in a specific context—as mentioned earlier, a junior high school located in a very small town in rural
Japan. The role of an assistant language teacher (ALT) is to assist a lead Japanese teacher and the role isincidental, in many ways, to the running of the class. Each of the 12 classes taught by the author contains
between 32 and 38 students and standards of behavior vary considerably between classes.
What becomes obvious upon even brief reflection is that a gulf exists between the theory and thepractice of the classroom—the most obvious fracture occurring around the role of the teacher, and so I
will cover this area first.
The role of the teacher
While it is easy and certainly useful to formulate a philosophy of teaching in isolation, the RJEs showedthat in doing so I had presumed a kind of “ideal learner”. This learner was mature, motivated,responsible, and committed to the journey of discovery upon which I had conceived of the teacher as
being his or her companion. Unfortunately, this learner is often somewhat chimerical.
In the context of this junior high school a major role of the teacher is that of classroom manager. Asstudents move through the first year to the third, not only do they develop as people, but they undergo akind of evolution in their approach to English. Despite this, each year group, for differing reasons, isactively managed by the teacher. This proved quite instructive as I developed my conceptions of the role

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Winter 2017of teacher.
Sometimes it simply is not possible to hold the learners’ hand on an idealized journey towards English
competence. Learners attend class for myriad reasons and not all of them include the learner’s ownvolition. In this context, many of the most desirable practices in the role of teacher are often supersededby the need to maintain an effectively functioning classroom. A teacher may not always be able to takesuch a “companion” approach with a student who disdains English and is contemptuous of school ingeneral.
Similarly, my “ideal learner” had possessed a degree of competence that allowed the teacher to function
as a conduit rather than an origin of knowledge. Again, this conception needs reevaluating in the light ofthis specific context.
If we can conceive of the points between the “conduit” and “origin” as existing on a continuum, I
believe that all three of the lead teachers at my school swing too far towards the “origin” end. For
example, the first-year students are corrected incessantly by their teacher if their handwritten letters straytoo far from the prescribed norm of the textbook, even if the learner’s handwriting of Roman script
more closely approximates a natural, cursive style of writing. Here, the teacher, together with thetextbook, is the final word.
Having said this, there is obviously the need, at very elementary levels of study, for the teacher todispense knowledge. Low-level learners simply do not possess the necessary linguistic tools to advancein a way that allows the teacher to operate in the idealized way mentioned in my RJEs.
Identity
Very similar to the problems associated with classroom management are those linked to student identity.
The most obvious issue concerns class size. In a class of 38 fifteen- and sixteen-year-old students, thespace for making broad allowances for individual identity is minimal at best. It is not so much theindividual learners are not interested as other learners and their requirements make individualization
impossible.
A further set of issues compounds the problem—the curriculum as assessed by nationwide andprefectural exams leaves teachers with the bare minimum of space in which to improvise. The time
demands on teachers are extraordinary, and reliance on the textbook allows them to carry out all theother functions required of the role. Moreover, a culture of rote learning and teacher-as-origin-ofknowledge means that an approach that largely ignores individuality is the norm and, for the most part,expected. Taken together, there is little possibility of allowing for individual learner identity and there
appears little inclination to do so.
The exception to all of this is the use of the students’ native language (L1) in the English classroom. In
all of the classes a rough estimate of Japanese spoken during class, by both students and teachers, would
be approximately 80-90%. Unfortunately, this is not done for such lofty and idealized reasons as
safeguarding learner identity, but rather because English is approached in much the same fashion as anyother school subject—a series of rules and problems able to be learnt and assessed through pen andpaper testing.

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Learning Learning
PowerUndoubtedly in this context, the teacher remains the source of virtually all power. Teachers act as thebringer-of-knowledge, a role that helps explain the traditionally high esteem in which teachers havealways been held in Japan, but which also means that students have absolutely no input into the natureof their learning. Students remain passive “recipients of knowledge,” varying in their degree ofreceptivity by such things as interest and motivation. That this motivation remains sparsely spread isevidenced by the prevalent distraction and recidivist sleeping on show in most of the classes. There islittle allowance possible or expected for learner identity due to numerous factors, a frustration for me
when I can see learners keen to learn but am unable to offer them time to engage in the material on amore personal and meaningful level.
Conclusion
Keeping a reflective journal over the course of a year provided interesting insights into the dichotomy
between expectations and practice. However, such a confrontation can be of immense value to a teacher,whatever stage of their career they happen to be in. The practical necessities of real life may make ourconceptions and ideals regarding such things as the role of the teacher and the necessity of consideringlearner identity at times unworkable. However, such ideals can act as a spur in all aspects of life and thepresence of obstacles on the road to their attainment is a poor argument against the attempt. Life isseldom simple; there seems little reason to expect the language classroom to be different.

References
Chryssochoou, X. (2003). Studying identity in social psychology: Some thoughts on the definition ofidentity and its relation to action. Journal of Language and Politics, 2(2), 225–241.
Harmer, J. (1995). Taming the big ‘I’: Teacher performance and student satisfaction. ELT Journal, 49(4),337-345.
Holmes, J. (2008). An introduction to sociolinguistics (3rd ed.). London: Longman.

Mathew Hollinshead is a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan. Originally fromNew Zealand, he has been teaching in Asia for 10 years and has a Masters degree in TESOL from theUniversity of Auckland. His research interests include vocabulary, student autonomy, and motivation.
Author correspondence: hollinshead-m@kanda.kuis.ac.jp

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