我孫子市国際交流協会

Subject: Pitfalls and its overcoming measures in direct-teaching method of
Japanese.
Lecturer: Mr. Hiroaki Kitamura, Professor of Department of Japanese Culture, Seitoku University.
Day: Thursday, October 13, 2005 1:30 p.m.-3:30p.m.
Place: Abiko Civic Hall
Audience: 45 persons

The lecture was given under AIRA's auspices as the third of the Japanese teaching method series, next to his speeches of October 2004 and March 2005.
Following is the summary of the lecture.

The direct-teaching method means a technique to teach Japanese to foreigners using Japanese only, which involves 2 meanings. The one is to teach them in Japanese only, and the second is to lead them to remind about the image of an object by hearing the sound of Japanese words.
When you like to say something, you may say it unconsciously. For example, if you stumble you may instantly shout "Ouch!". Any natives of English-speaking world who were taught that "ouch!" stands for painful, would never wait till they might translate its meaning any moment.

Let 's see another example.
When you hear the sound of the word "desk", you may have students pronounce the word "tsukue" pointing a desk or showing a picture of a desk in order to visualize the image of a desk. The sound tsukue must come out of the mouth automatically from the notion of a desk, otherwise a conversation would never be formed.
Here is another example. It's about the ordinal number. When we count the number of animal in Japanese, we use the ordinal number "hiki", however, the sound differs by the numbers, like, "i-ppiki"(one), "ni-hiki"(two), "san-biki", or like differently.
Some linguists analyze the cause of the difference in counting numbers quoting grammatical explanations.
But we usually count in proper way without being conscious about such rule at all.
It is recommendable for Japanese teachers to lead students so as to be able to speak unconsciously.
The direct-teaching method has advantages, however, there are some points to be put in mind.
Since the class is conducted in Japanese, the target language, without using the students' native words, the teaching should be done in the basic words, phrases and sentence patterns which have been taught in the class.
Using new words or patterns untaught would cause confusion among students.
Next, I will tell you about another example which causes occasional headache to foreign students in learning Japanese.
When you explain the context of a chain of action like in the following example,
"I cut radishes, boil them, put soup stock in and finally put out the fire", it is essential to tell in order of the time of each action based on a time-axis.

I like to give some advices to those who are in charge of teaching Japanese language as follows:
1. Keep learning yourself and exchange information among others.
Don't be stingy with giving information kept by you to others.
2. Higher-level ability is required in Japanese teaching vocation.
3. Teachers of Japanese classes like yours should be clearly different from other
schools run commercially. If so required, you are required to be a good adviser or consultant to your students.
4. As supporting measures in Japanese teaching, it would be better for you to add action or movement in addition to explanation in words.
5. Be careful not to be too much logical or argumentative.
6. You should be contented if your students could understand 3 out of 10 that you have taught.

After the lecture was over, some questions and answers were exchanged.
All attendants enjoyed the witty and fruitful talk studded with useful examples throughout the lecture.

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