TOEIC study

Today I only had one class, a class that the university set up to build students' basic academic skills. There are three disciplines available to students, Japanese, Math, and English. All three of them are set up to encourage students to take standardized aptitude tests in all three areas. The class that I'm teaching is also set up to encourage students to take the TOEIC Bridge test. There are three of the original ten students left. Everyone else lost interest. There is no obligation for students to take the classes. The are not for credit, and there is no requirement that they must take any exams at all.

All three of the students left in my class are signed up to take the TOEIC test in July. I'm happy for that. They said that they were most interested in improving their listening skills.

I was looking up some information on the test in general to see if I could find any hints on how to study for it. The TOEIC people produced a document, "TOEIC Can-Do Guide." There was some interesting information on who much academic background test takers have. Two statements that were of particular interest to me were:

"Most test-takers had never received English instruction outside of their formal schooling (primary school through university). However, of those who had, more paid for their own English instruction. That is, fewer had their employers pay for it. Those who paid for their own language training tended to score slightly higher on the test than those in company-sponsored English classes."

"Years of study (during school years) seemed to have a fairly consistent and positive relationship with TOEIC scores (Listening: r = .233, p < .001, Reading: r = .290, p < .001, Total: r = .274, p < .001). However, years of
study in English courses (self-paid or employer-sponsored) were generally not related to improvement in TOEIC scores (e.g., Total: r = -.003 [company-paid], p = .407; r = .013 [self-paid], p < .001)."

The lessons, study at school, and if you do go out somewhere to get some learning, pay for it yourself.

busy couple of days

Geez, where does the time go? Yesterday was classes from 9 to noon. Meetings from 2:30 to 6, and more classes from 6:30 to 9:30. This morning it was back in the saddle with two classes back to back, trying to fix up my web browser which had gone funny, and now off to teach the kids at The Children's Place.

Tomorrow will be laid back. (He says.)

The New York Times: An Aging Island Embraces Japan's Young Dropouts

There is alot to discover in a Ney York Times article about an island where children who have refused to attend school have been going.

For example:

"Japanese schools do not take punitive actions against parents of elementary and junior high school children who fail to attend classes; in fact, as long as they are enrolled, as required by law, they graduate. A result is that in 2002 more than 131,000 children nationwide, including nearly 3 percent of the junior high school population, did not go to school."

First, I did not know that schools avoid going after parents, nor did I know that 3 percent of the jr high poplulation refuses to attend school.

I've written about this before because I work with a group of children who are refusing to go to school. They are interested in English so they come along on Wednesdays and we do stuff together. They are fun, maybe a little fragile, but they are kids.

I'd like to know that, with the social pressure to conform, if 3% of the kids outright refuse to attend schools, what is happening with the other 97%. Who is satisfied and flourishing in the environment?

Joi Ito's Web

Joi Ito's Web is an interesting read by an interesting Japanese businessman. More about the individual from CNN.

Culture

Saturday was the latest installment of the Yokkaichi Teachers' Initiative. The day was, as usual, broken up into two parts. The morning was devoted to a writing workshop. The afternoon was a workshop on using culture. In the workshop on writing up the teachers' accounts of their action research projects, Andy showed the teachers how to organize the material. We worked with them to get a start on writing up the first couple of sections, one on goals, and the other on writing the background information on their projects.

After lunch Andy led another workshop, this one on using culture in the language classroom. I guess the biggest learning point for me was the realization that teachers thought that when they used language they had to focus on the cultures of the target language. It was our contention that in learning more about themselves as well as others that they were better able to appreciate various people's styles of communication. One topic that came up, that I am especially fond of using in my classes, is names. I ask my students about their names, where they got them, what the kanji means, where their family names came from, and what their names might mean in English. Very very few students can tell me anything about them at first. After a bit of prodding and interrogation under bright lights, they start coming up with ideas. They also have homework to find out about their names. Then we discuss other naming customs around the world.

My impression of the activity in general was that the teachers were happy to find another approach to incorporating culture into their classrooms, one that may not take some much time or imagination.