…Really!
So… “it” started yesterday. “It” is what I would like to refer to as, the apocalypse. I was walking home from work, but the wind was so strong that I could barely keep my footing. Little did I know, it would get worse. I in the past two nights, we’ve gotten 10 centimeters of snow within the course of an evening. This morning, I was surprised to walk out of my door to find the hallway near the exit of my apartment building plastered in snow. The wind and blown the door open in the night and showered the inside wall with the equivalent of a paintball-gun shootout – except frozen. I went outside in my boots and trudged off to work with almost no visibility in a complete white-out. The wind and snow were nailing me in the face the whole way there. When I came in to the office, one co-worker who was near my locker taking off his boots greeted me with “Oh! Sugoi!” (oh! wow!) upon seeing my matted hair and wet face. I went on to learn that a number of schools had been closed due to inclimate weather. Then… the walk home was the WORST! We have a good 2 feet of snow that has been on the ground since it fell. It’s packed down tight, so people just walk on top of it. On the way home, I tried to walk on top of it as usual, but to my surprise, i fell through. I got stuck in one spot, waist-deep! The wind had been blowing the powder so hard all day that some areas had solid snow, and others only appeared to have solid snow underneath. Instead, they were the remnants of snowbanks and layers of snow that had blown off of roofs. Buildings all over the city were plastered in snow all on the sides where the wind had slammed piles of snow into them with suck force that it stuck. As I walked between buildings, aside from the struggle through deep snow in some areas, I was mostly OK. But, when I came to intersections of the streets, where there was open space and no buildings to block anything, it was basically just a wind tunnel. I couldn’t keep my footing at all. I’m guessing the winds were at least 60mph, and on ice, it was just impossible. It got knocked down 3 times on what is usually just a short 5 minute walk home.
Needless to say… I’m in for the night! That’s enough of that. I’ll be camped out in front ofmy heater until the blizzard moves on out of here!! Tomorrow I have to teach at Wakkanai KouKou though… and it is up a NOTORIOUSLY steep and icey hill. That walk ought to be interesting…. I think I may need climbing gear.
So, I recently tried out snowboarding (and loved it), and today I had a chance to give skiing a shot. Because it is winter and the waters between here and Rebun Island are icey (yes, the ocean can freeze, we get a freshwater stream down from Russia, and yes we get ice drifts), turbulent, and generally temperamental, the ferry only goes out and back once in the day. That means that instead of leaving Rebun Island when my school visit is over, I have to stay until 5:30 (I’m off work at 5) and then take the 2 hour ferry back at that time. Sooo… I have a lot of time to waste! Usually, the schools stick me in a room with a book to waste 2 hours (unless I manage to convince them to let me visit other classes or club activities). Today, however, the vice principal, who has a ski instructor’s license, offered to teach me to ski. So, I brought my gear along with me and headed out to the town ski-jo. It was supposed to be just me and the teacher, but I managed to convince him to take some of my elementary school students along too. They all have the necessary gear because they all take skiing in gym class anyway, and I thought it’d give me a chance to interact with them outside the classroom.
We got out to the slope, which isn’t very big, and I saw the un-sophisticated rope-lift they use. I was a little worried about figuring out how to use it, only to find out that I wouldn’t be anyway! It turns out, because it was my first time, I had to start at the bottom of the hill and walk up. I didn’t have to go all the way up, he just wanted me to learn down at the bottom, not to far up. I can say this much – side-stepping up that hill was painstaking and not especially rewarding. Skiing is a lot harder than snowboarding and there’s a lot more there to deal with! Also, it didn’t help matters that my 7 year old students went flying past me. Also, it didn’t help that they felt they REALLY needed to encourage me as I wobbled down the hill. “Oh! You’re doing so great!” It should have been the other way around, right? Me telling them that? Haha, oh well!
So, I guess now that I have experienced both, I have to say that I definitely prefer snowboarding to skiing. Also, my students are too cute for words in their little pink snowsuits and bunny-ear hats. Ok, that’s all for now… I’ll let you know if I take up any new extreme sports while I’m here.
If you don’t understand the reference in my title, please go to I Can Has Cheezburger?!
So, yesterday Chris and John came up to Wakkanai so that we could go snowboarding on the ski-jo (ski slope) here. It was really fun, really painful, and probably exactly what I needed. Getting out and being active felt really good, and I definitely tired myself out pretty well. I am borrowing a board and boots for this season from a co-worker, but I have all my own gear other than that.
At first, I nearly died on the ski lift because no one explained to me how it works! Luckily, the attendant helped me out a bit. Then, I sat at the top of the slope for about 20 minutes with John while he explained the basics (this was his 3rd time to go boarding). I didn’t really realize how steep those slopes are, though, and looking down the “beginner slope”, I was pretty sure that there was just no way. I needed a little hill to practice on! As John tried to convince me to go down the hill, a curious, stout, loud Japanese woman began peering at us and immitating our English (this happens kind of frequently. A lot of times when I speak English out in public with my friends, some nosey stranger starts immitating it or yammering on in English to see if I notice them. Of course I don’t mind speaking English with interested people, but I am generally turned off by obnoxious people who butt in). Then, she came over and started trying to “help”, which made me REALLY angry. “OK, You, and Go!” she said that, among other various choppy instructions, and she kept touching me! She grabbed my arms and started pushing me down the hill and she kept trying to stand me in the proper position, but I wasn’t ready to go dwn yet! She wouldn’t leave me alone though and kept proding me, and I had zero interest at all in her help. I certainly didn’t need anyone shoving me and grabbing me. I slapped her hands off of me and said, “No!” and “Don’t touch me!” but she just kept saying “Yes! Yes!” I didn’t want her help and she was being really pushy and trying to showcase her (lacking) English ability. With the recent slump I was in and my disenchantment with Japan since returning from vacation, the last thing I needed was to be grabbed by some woman carrying on to me in Japanese and broken English. For whatever reason, I found it really terrifying.
Finally, only in an attempt to get away from her, did I follow John down the hill. I avoided her the rest of the day there, and actually got pretty good at snowboarding. I can turn around both heel-side and toe-side now, and I can stop and control my speed! I still get scared when I get going really fast, so when that happens, I intentionally crash (which is one way I earned a lot of bruises). Both Chris and John seemed pretty surprised! Chris even said I did the best out of any beginner he had seen, adding “Even compared to the guys!”
I also ran in to a few teachers from the local high school and some students out on the slope. At first, I was really intimidated by that because they are REALLY good, but they didn’t seem to mind at all that I was a beginner and crashed a lot. They just seemed really excited that I was out there doing it, despite all the bruises. Whenever we spotted someone we knew down on the hill, we usually yelled down to them fom the ski lift. John and Chris were doing some pretty cool jumps, so it was fun to be able to watch them and other snowboarders when I was on the lift. Once, they yelled down to me when I had just turned toe-side (which is pretty difficult at first!) and I [stupidly] looked up. Immediatly, I face-planted into the snow. They both had a pretty good laugh about that!
Anyway, I felt so good after doing it, despite all the pain, that I think I want to start boarding regularly! It’s great exercise and a good adrenaline rush -so it’s a great way to de-stress. We are hoping to take a trip down to Nayoro in a few weeks because it, apparently, has the best slopes. It’s also a great way to pass the time in the winter and to learn not to hate the weather quite as much. It’s cold, and we have a LOT of snow, and it sucks, but snow means snowboarding! I guess it isn’t all bad.
I didn’t take any pictures of it because I wasn’t sure how dry the inside of my ski suit would stay, and I didn’t want to ruin my camera, but it was fine, so next time I will definitely bring my camera and take pictures!
So, I know I promised stories about Germany and then never wrote them. I’ve just had a little trouble re-adjusting to being back in Japan. I had a wonderful time in Germany, and you can learn a little bit by viewing that photo album I listed below. I’m hoping to write more when I start feeling a bit better. Luckily, I have wonderful, amazing, supportive friends and an AMAZING boyfriend, so I’m hoping to get out of this slump and start writing again very soon.
This is unrelated to Japan, but I thought I’d share my top 4 favorite songs at the moment, just in case you are bored and want to see what I’ve been listening to:
Valerie – Amy Winehouse
Here in Your Arms – HelloGoodbye
I’m A Man of Constant Sorrow – The Soggy Bottom Boys (from the O’Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack)
Zebra – John Butler Trio
I also can’t explain it, but recently I’ve been listening to a lot of bluegrass and a lot of bossa nova music…. How weird is that? It makes me happy though!
P.S. – I added a new link to my blogroll of travel blogs. That’s Nour – a friend from college (philosophy class, yay!). She’s studying abroad in Amsterdam.
Much love, from snowy Hokkaido.
I have started a new web album! For those who have never used Picasa by Google, I highly recommend it for sharing photos. Here is the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/casteel.h
Stories soon on my blog… promise…
So, my taxi should be here in about 30 minutes. Then, I go to the station (I’m getting there 45 min early… no reason for that really, I guess I just planned lots of extra time in case something came up) and take my 6.5ish hour train ride to Sapporo. Then, a take a 45 minute train from Sapporo station to the airport. I’m spending the night in a hotel there that is inside the airport (yay convenience), then I take my flight bright and early the next morning! I go to Nagoya from Sapporo (2-3 hours I guess?) then, I go from Nagoya to Frankfurt (11 hours). They are fingerprinting all the gaijin now, so it may take a bit longer – aye. Oh well! Happy times…. just… lots and lots of traveling.
I’m nervous and excited – so I don’t think I’ll get much sleep on the flight.
I’ll update you sometime again once I arrive in GERMANY!
So, today I want to write about something I have experienced at a lot of schools. I really think that teachers here know their students very intimately compared to teachers back home. That’s due in part, I guess, to the small class sizes in the region where I work, but also to Japan’s view of teachers as almost like an additional parent-figure. Not only are they responsible for teaching reading and math, but they are also responsible for teaching the students good behavior, morals, and etiquette (as you can imagine, teacher’s lives are always under the microscope for that reason!). When it comes to their students, the teachers are not quick to pass judgment, as some may be back in America. I’ll use an example from today’s class.
At a junior high school, the teacher wanted to know how the three classes I taught today went. I said all were fine, except one, where the kids were especially talkative and didn’t want to do any work. He quickly pointed out the ring-leader in the class on the seating chart and I said, “Yep! She was definitely the one who started it nearly every time.” This girl would stand on her chair while I was speaking, interrupt me to blurt out things in English like, “Can I have a hug” and that sort of stuff. I was really starting to get impatient with her behavior, so she asked, “Are you angry now?” Of course, I said no. Then, she asked if I spoke Japanese. I had been ignoring most of her questions, but I told her that I did speak Japanese. Then she started asking me things like, “Do you think that boy in the class is stupid?” (In Japanese). I told her I would be happy to speak Japanese with her after class, but that during English class I would only speak English. After that, she pouted a little, but remained mostly quiet. The teacher agreed that she was a problem, but since I knew how teachers in Japan were with their students, I wondered if I could get to the bottom of it. I asked, “Why does she act like that?” and he answered, quite insightfully, I think, “Well, actually she can’t talk to any of her peers in that class. She’s having trouble with them and she feels really lonely. Also, she has been fighting with her boyfriend, and she’s really upset about that. The only way she knows how to communicate with other people or get attention is to be distracting. We have to help her learn how to interact with other people.” I’m taking a lot of liberties there quoting him, because he explained it in pretty broken English, but that was basically his point. I was really shocked! He knew her so well, even though she was quite a bit of a trouble-maker. And that is true of almost ALL of the teachers I have met here. The students are surprisingly open with them and tell them things they wouldn’t tell their friends or parents. Of course, disciplining students, or punishing them, rather, is unheard of in Japan. Students can NOT be sent out of the classroom for disruptive behavior because they “have the right to be there.” Most students don’t act out and do their best not to draw attention to themselves (which is just a by-product of Japanese society, I think). So, really, they generally don’t NEED to be punished anyway. But I couldn’t help but think of how American teachers (I’m talking high school and younger) talk about problem students. Many go ahead and apply a label to the student. He is labeled as a “trouble-maker” without any insight into the problem, and that follows him throughout his school career. Other teachers hear about the problem student, and treat him with disdain from day one. What’s worse is that personal problems which may lead to some of the acting-out may be known, but few teachers seem willing to take on the responsibility of solving those problems. That is the responsibility of the parents, in America.
It’s one difference in Japan that I like. Some students really can be just…. wow… little shits sometimes! But the teachers don’t go on treating them like they could never change their behavior. They really do try to get to the root of the problem and HELP the student, because a student who is acting out isn’t a happy student anyway.
So, I’m going to go ahead and update you on recent events since I will be leaving for Germany soon (Saturday!). Of course I will keep you updated on all of my adventures in Deutscheland.
1. Onsens – fun for foreigners. Meet interesting people while you’re NAKED.
So, I went to the onsen yet again, but this time it was the one in Wakkanai. I mainly went because my co-worker asked me to go with her, and I guess that’s what women do together here. No, really, I don’t know. It was a fun day – we hung out in her apartment and had coffee, then we went to the onsen. The one in Wakkanai is new, so it’s really nice. And, it has an outdoor onsen on the balcony of the top floor of the building. The water is hot and steamy, just like any onsen, but you are outside in the SNOW! That was a new and interesting experience. However, unlike the onsen I visited in Toyotomi, this one was a bit busier and more crowded. I was afraid of running into one of my students there, because that would have been totally weird! The other difference is that this onsen was in Wakkanai – where xenophobia and anti-Russian sentiments run high. I have been told that at certain onsens in Hokkaido, Russians have been FORBIDDEN to go inside because being in an onsen with foreigners makes the Japanese guests “uncomfortable.” No one refused to let me go inside, but I wonder if the situation would have been different if I had gone there with another foreigner instead of a Japanese person. People mostly kept to themselves, as would be expected. Women seemed to go to the onsen in pairs so they have someone to chat with. That was kind of weird to me because I don’t usually hang out naked and talk to my friends, but whatever. There was ONE woman who blatantly STARED at me for about 10 minutes, but I didn’t really care that much because I was mostly just talking to my co-worker and ignoring other people. Another woman, however, actually seemed delighted that a foreigner would visit the onsen. She asked about a million questions like, “Where are you from?” “Do they have onsens in America?” “Do you like onsens?” I told her, yeah, sure, I like them. They’re relaxing (which is true). I didn’t tell her that it’s totally weird to strike up a conversation with naked strangers. Well, such is life in Japan, I guess.
On the way out, we ran into another (male) co-worker from work in the lobby. Of course, that wasn’t a big deal really, but now I am sure EVERYONE in the office will know that I went to the onsen, which means they’ll probably ask me about it. There is NO SUCH THING as privacy in a Japanese workplace. When I got sick, for example, everyone knew about it the same day and asked me about it as soon as I returned. Now, it isn’t that I don’t LOVE my co-workers knowing how many times I vomited in one day when I was out sick with a stomach virus, I mean, they’re just being concerned… but sometimes I just want to live my life without it being put under the microscope all the time. Sometimes I don’t think it’s so much that people are interested in what I do in my freetime because they are interested in me, but rather, “What is the gaijin doing now?” I get asked some of the weirdest questions sometimes! Like, “What do you eat in your house?”. People really want to know what kind of “gaijin things” I am doing, so doing something like going to the onsen always seems to shock people.
School Visit – lunchtime
So, today’s school visit went pretty much like most… and the part I ALWAYS hate was just the same. I don’t like eating lunches at schools here because I guess people in Japan don’t believe in digesting their food. Everyone eats in about 10 minutes, and I can NOT eat that fast!!! I’m a slow eater anyway, by American standards, but the way the students here eat just totally shocks me. Not only that, but I am the “guest” in the room among 30 or so students, which means I have to talk to everyone, which means I have even LESS time to eat my lunch. I honestly don’t think they could possibly have time to chew their food with how fast they eat! Then, because the remainder of the time after students eat is freetime, they always want me to go play games with them in the gym after I have just scarfed down my lunch in like, 5 minutes. It isn’t like America where we try to rest for at least 30 minutes before running around after eating. I want to tell the teachers that I REALLY don’t want to go run around in the gym right after lunch, but they always get so disappointed! Usually I say, “Um, okay….” with just enough hesitation that someone paying attention would understand that I REALLY don’t want to. Sometimes they make me go anyway and sometimes they don’t. One school made me go run around after lunch after I was just getting over that stomach virus! I was still taking medication for it! God, that was miserable. But no one seems to understand when I am tired at a school… they expect me to be the cheerful, foreign ALT who will come make school fun. Sometimes I can’t do that when I have been traveling all day. I guess if it becomes too much of a problem, I will just refuse and tell them that I am too tired or that I can’t just go run around after I very quickly ate my lunch.
That’s all I really have to say for now. Again, lots of ups and downs. And, of course, I am still trying to decide whether or not to re-contract for next year. It’s a tough decision with a lot of factors that play into it.
I’ll update you on Germany soon!
So just today, two different conversations took place that really made me ask this question. I mean, Japan has been pouring money into the JET program for over 20 years, and English education still isn’t up to par. Why is that??? First I’ll tell the two stories, I guess, then I’ll give some of the possible answers I have heard at the Sapporo conference and elsewhere.
So today I was at a school and the teacher asked me what my plans were for winter vacation. I said, “Well, I’m going to Germany.” to which he replied, “Oh! Alone??” Sheepishly, I answered, “No, I am meeting my boyfriend there.” The teacher asked, “Is he German? How is his English?” I said yes, he is, and that his English is perfect! He doesn’t even have an accent. The teacher was totally shocked! “How did he learn English so well??” This question has been presented to me before, so usually I just say what little I know about foreign language education in Germany, which is that all students must study English AND another additional foreign language (In Jakob’s case, French). I said that they usually start pretty young, though Jakob started learning English in junior high school. As far as why their English is significantly better, I said, “Well, maybe they have more opportunities to interact with native speakers in Europe.”
Then, this evening, I was talking to my friend Brandon. We talked about various things, including our jobs. Brandon is an English Language Assistant in Austria. His job is pretty similar to mine except, well, it’s in Austria. He said something like, “I don’t want to teach math tomorrow! I hate math.” I asked, “Why are you teaching math, anyway? Aren’t you an English teacher??” to which Brandon replied, “Oh, this is a math class in English. So, I have to teach the student’s things like “square root” etc, in English in their lesson.” I as totally shocked! I asked him how old his students were, and whether or not they understood. He said they understood fine and that they were 14. The students I had just been teaching here in Japan were also 14, but they don’t even understand if I ask, “When is your birthday?” or “Do you have a pet?” So my question then is, why can’t Japan get this foreign language thing right?? The JET program has been in place for 21 years, but I rarely meet anyone who can have a conversation with me in English! Here are some possible explanations I gathered from myself and from other ALTs.
Little interaction with native speakers
I hate this explanation because I have met plenty of people who also have little experience with native English speakers who can speak English quite well! But, I’m trying to cover all the bases… and of course, Europe has an advantage here. Jakob said, “Well, Germany is so involved in the English-speaking world! Ever since the war, more emphasis has been placed on learning English.” It’s true, a German person is WAY more likely to meet a native speaker than a Japanese person. Also, my impression of Europe is that people move about quite freely between countries, especially with the establishment of the European Union. This means people interact with folks from other cultures WAY more. Languages and cultures mingle freely and easily. Many of my students in Japan had never even SEEN a foreign person until they met me. Sure, they have ALTs, like me, who visit their classes… but I have so many schools, I see my students once a month, at best! If they really want things to change, they need a native speaker or a Japanese person who speaks with near-fluency at EVERY school. Which brings us to my next point:
English teachers who actually speak English
I understand how hard it is… Japanese and English are totally different. Most Japanese people will probably never master English grammar or learn to use the articles “a” and “the” correctly. But a LOT of teachers really have NO understanding of English grammar themselves, so how on EARTH can they teach it to their students? I think at the very least, Japanese teachers of English should be taught in college by a native speaker, or should be required to study abroad! I have yet to visit a class where the teacher makes NO grammatical errors in his/her instruction. Usually, I disregard these errors as long as the teacher can be understood, but if they make a BLATANT error, like subject-verb agreement, or they totally invent a new verb form or adjective form, I usually bring it up with them after class. The good teachers are usually happy to discuss grammar with a native speaker and ask me many questions. The not-so-good teachers typically disregard whatever I say with a, “Well I knew that” sort of arrogant flair.
Textbooks and classes that actually teach grammar
So, the students here really DON’T learn grammar at all. They don’t learn, for example, what subjects and verbs and objects and prepositions ARE. They are taught mostly in terms of key phrases. So, one unit may be the “I like _____” unit. Another may be “My hobby is _____.” They students basically parrot dialog straight from the book without understanding the individual words they are using. A perfect example of this was when I recently asked a junior high student, “What time did you get up this morning?” The student had no idea what I asked! He could not understand until I used the style of sentence straight from the text, “What time did you WAKE up this morning?” If the student had understood the individual words, he would have been able to figure out “get up” using context clues, most likely. This is one reason students really can’t communicate! They can’t answer you until you finally phrase your sentence exactly the same way as the one they memorized in the textbook.
Now, there is a counter-argument to this too, and I can see both sides. Many people say that when you first begin learning a language, you mustn’t worry yourself with grammar and details – just memorize basic phrases. I think that’s true! It’ll get you around and it’ll help you to have some working examples to go back to later on when you do lean the grammar. However, there are HUGE limitations to this kind of learning! Also, I don’t think students who have to take English classes EVERY DAY ought to be taught using this approach. These students need some real, solid, grammar instruction.
Translations – Eep!
Whenever I visit a classroom, I speak only English to my students. This is partly out of necessity (my Japanese sucks sometimes!), but also because it is probably the ONLY time they will hear ONLY English. However, many JTEs translate everything I say, IMMEDIATELY. The students never have to figure it out for themselves! Many JTEs say to me, “Oh, they didn’t understand.” But that is when I want to say, “Well! Then let me explain AGAIN!” We can make it work!!! When I taught English to Japanese students from Denso in America, they understood what I wanted with no problem, with a little time and patience, and they also spoke NO English. I think I’m pretty good at communicating with people who have a very limited English ability, so I really don’t think what I say needs to be translated. As long as I am not trying to explain something very difficult, students will understand it! (However, I have had to work with teachers whose English ability is probably lower than many high school students! I have encountered a LOT of problems communicating with them, but usually when it is something difficult, like what should I prepare for a class and how will this be done etc).
EVIL EVIL Katakana
So, Japanese has three alphabets (only two of which I can read well!). One is hiragana. It is phonetic and is used for Japanese words. Another is Kanji, which comes from Chinese and is not phonetic, so you just have to memorize the symbols (all… like… 3,000 of them! Obviously, this is the one I don’t know well). The other is Katakana. Katakana is also a phonetic alphabet, like Hiragana, but it is used primarily for spelling foreign words which have been adapted into the Japanese language…. there’s just one problem! There’s this little thing called transcription. For those who don’t know much about foreign languages or foreign alphabets, transcription is what we use when we try to spell a foreign word, which comes from another language with VERY different sounds and, hence, an alphabet structured to represent THOSE sounds, and try to spell it in our alphabet. Although the Japanese alphabet has more letters than ours (I think there are 40 something in each of the two phonetic alphabets – which are identical in sound but not in their symbols), they actually have fewer SOUNDS. Many many many of our English vowel sounds and some consonant sounds DO NOT EXIST in the Japanese language. As you can imagine, students have difficulty even HEARING these sounds when they listen to English, but transcription makes it worse. Let me try to explain…
In English, letters each have their own sound. We blend that sound with the letters nearby to create syllables. So, in the word “table” t, a, b, l, and e, each have their own sound (except the “e” in this case, which is silent, but moot point). When we spell them out in the word “table”, though, we only have two syllables despite having 5 letters. This is not so in Japanese because consonant sounds do not stand alone, as they do in English. So, they must be paired with a vowel sound (as we have come to know it in ENGLISH anyway, gosh, this is messy to explain!), giving Japanese that uniquely choppy sound. Each “letter” or character is also a syllable. There is no blending. There is no “t”. There is only “ta, chi, tsu, te, and to” to choose from! So, we must spell “table” “teburu,” because we have to choose from those letters. We just have to find letters that sound relatively similar, where the attached vowel sound isn’t TOO far off from the English sound. Also there are no “r” or “l” sounds in Japanese, just a weird in-between sound that is usually dictated in romanji (English letters) as an “r” (but it doesn’t sound like an r or an l, really). There is also no “th” sound, so my name, Heather, is usually spelled “Heza” in katakana.
Here is the Katakana alphabet:
And here are examples of how it works:
ヘーザ=Heza
ヘ=he
ー= a pause in the word
ザ =za
テーブル= teburu
テ= te
ー=pause
ブ= bu
ル=ru
So, why is katakana evil?? Because, when teachers try to teach students how to pronounce English by spelling it out phonetically in katakana for them, as many do with vocab lists etc, it is impossible to teach REAL English sounds! When the kids learn to think about English in Katakana, they ALWAYS pronounce it that way… So instead of saying “first” students say “fa-ru-su-to”. I can understand them, but I can guarantee they would have serious difficulty if they traveled to another country and spoke that way. Also, when I use English to refer to some things here that use their English names, like “ferry terminal”, no one understand me! The ferry terminal here is called “ferry terminal”, using the ENGLISH words, but if I say that to a taxi driver, he has no idea what I want. If I say “fe-e-ri ta-mi-na-ru” he understands.
I swear… sometimes I want to freaking murder the whole alphabet! Katakana is soooo annoying!!!! So what is the alternative? Teach students English the way English speakers lean it! Teach them the words and sounds first, then teach them how to write it! Teach them how the sounds they learn fit into the English alphabet and never NEVER NEVER spell anything in Katakana.
Ok… so, my point is, there is a lot that needs changing around here. I’m just not in a position to do it (though I do voice my opinions pretty openly to teachers and co-workers when I have a chance.)
