Historical change, historical fossilization

Last weekend I was a witness to an historical change in Japanese education. On Saturday and Sunday (January 21, 22) was the Heisei 18 大学入試センター試験　(The National Center for University Entrance Examinations). 82 national universities, 72 operated by local governments and 440 private universities use the unified tests as reference for screening candidates. About 551,300 students took part in the unified examinations. The number of students taking the test is 3.3 percent down on last year. The tests were given at about 721 venues throughout Japan.

What was historical about this year's test was that there was a listening component in the English language section for the first time. That part of the test was, in my opinion, a great logistical accomplishment. It was great to be there when it happened.

What has also become an historical fact, an unpleasant one, is that the English test contained a question that was unanswerable.

First, the listening text. The test was given during the last period on the first day of the exams. Since each test venue is slightly different, the test planners decided to produce and distribute small IC chip players for each of the test takers. Each of the players for over 500,000 people was tested before the test and shipped to the test venues with IC chips on which the test was recorded, and a set of smaller sized earphones that could be used by people with ears smaller than the standard sized equipment. These were distributed to the test takers. The instructions were printed on their test sheets and were explained by a proctor in each room, and the listening test proceeded. It was great to be in the room. Everyone pushed their start buttons at the same time, and as they listened, the room was absolutely quiet. In all of the other tests, there was a constant rustling of papers, clatter of pencils, clearing of throats, but in this test, it was perfectly silent. Until, that is, they reached the end of one of the problems and marked their answers, which they did in perfect unison before the next question started. Then upon instruction from their machine, the removed their earphones, completed their tests, and waited for instruction from their proctor, all without a single word being uttered by a human.

My thoughts were, "Only in Japan could this work." Total obedience to authority. (Through fear of course. No one in the room ever stopped to consider if what they were doing was alright. Fear of what might happen if they behaved in an unacceptable manner controlled their actions.) Everyone obeying the unspoken rules. Not a single scrap of trash left in the room after the test was complete. 500,000 test takers all over the country listening to the exact same passage on their own individualized audio units (which worked with a mere 0.08% failure rate) without the slightest hesitation or pause to consider their personal wants, needs, or opinions. What was it? Frightening? Theater or performance art on a grand scale? Maybe it was both, but it was certainly impressive.

The press focused heavily on the failure of the machines. "This situation must not recur next year," said one editorial. Where is the failure of a manufacturer turning out over 500,000 machines that work on the same day, at the exactly the same time with a 99.92% success rate? Has this ever happened before in the history of manufactured goods and electronic products? Yes, there were some people who were inconvenienced, and striving to improve conditions is great, but this was a huge success.

" In an entrance exam, fairness is of utmost importance," runs the line in the same editorial as above. If that is true, then the test makers, teachers, parents, and test takers should focus on the far more faulty work of the test creators. Here is one question from the English test, not the listening. Tell me the answer.

Choose the word with the most stress in the following sentence in large, bold type.

Janis: Oh, thanks, Tom. I'm the only one without an umbrella. Everybody else checked the weather report. Why didn't I check it?

1. didn't 2. I 3. check 4. it

I'd say it could be any word other than #4, it. What's the correct answer? I have no idea. Is this a fair question? No. Could it potentially mean the difference between a student getting in to his or her school of choice or not? Yes.

These kinds of questions happen almost every year. Other people must see these questions and wonder, too. I'd say they need to stop making this kind of test question at least.

Is English worthy of being a required subject at Japanese universities

Yesterday I talked with a colleague about whether English should be a required subject at university. We talked about several issues that I thought about later and replied more thoroughly in this way.

First, you said that we don't know if the students will need English after they graduate. You are right, but that doesn't mean much in anacademic sense. For example, it doesn't matter if a person will use algebra after they graduate, but everyone learns it in junior highschool. I have never and will probably never use algebra in my dailylife, but I sure learned it in school. The point is that society says an educated person knows this stuff. If a university says, in response to student, parent, and social needs, that graduates must know some English then they must know some English. If it isn't a priority for those groups, then we don't need it.

A university is obliged to educate people according to societys expectations. This isn't a trade school, so we don't have to expect that skills students learn here will apply directly to post-graduation life.

One other point I wanted to make is that English is often saddled with the practicality test when other disciplines are not. Take economics for example. How many students expect to make their livings as economists? Very few, but that is no reason not to learn something about it. Language is the same way. We never know if we need it or not, but that's not a reason not to learn it.

Also, when people say "English", they think about language learning, as
if stringing together some words in the right order is, in the end, very
important. It isn't. We stand to learn a lot more about ourselves, our
culture, our language, our minds, than we do about "communication."

Universities most places don't require languages for communicative
purposes. Ancient Latin and Greek are not offered so that learners can order
food at a restaurant. They are offered so students can know their own
languages better, and to know what great thinkers have said in those
languages in the past.

But then, let's look at the practical side. Would English be of use to
our students? Of course it's useful. That is why so many other teachers
at this university are so good at English, because it is a useful skill. 80% of the
Internet is in English. Japanese, the third largest language on the
Internet, commands a mere 3.1%. Do we want our graduates to have that
difficult-to-obtain, but valuable skill? Of course. Do they have to like
it? Does it have to be fun? No more than any other discipline offered
here at the university like math, economics or local governance. We can
try, though. We can work hard at making it enjoyable, but in the end
language is hard hard work, just like any other skill worth having.

So, do I think English (or some other language) should be required? Yes,
I do.

Rights group reports on Japan's minorities

More bad news for minorities in Japan.

Crisscross - News - Rights group reports on Japan's minorities

Subsidized milk in schools

Just looking at an interview in the Independent Online Edition. There is an interview with an elementary school teacher who talks about the national milk subsidies for milk in public schools. I was unaware that Britain also had this practice. Japan does, too. All of the kids at elementary school get milk for lunch. And like Britain, in the past the children were forced to drink it.

Do lots of countries do this? I thought it was only a Japanese thing. I know when I was in elementary school (some 39 years ago) we got milk with lunch, but I don't know if that is still happening.

We don't drink milk at home for several reasons. First is that cows' milk is fine for calves, but isn't that great for raising humans. There are also lots of nutritional alternatives that don't encourage the mistreatment of animals. The dairy industry does. One quote here that I thought was interesting.

Drinking milk also helps to keep the children calm compared with drinking fizzy pop, which would send them loopy, so I think the Government should definitely do everything it can to encourage children to drink milk.

So schools either have to pander to the dairy industry or to the soft drink industry? Seems like quite a leap to me. I think both of them are lousy alternatives.

Final exams

Today I gave my Basic English class their exams. The exam date isn't until next week, but I gave them the exam so that they could practice. We went over the listening and written sections of the exam so they would all know what they needed to know. This policy follows my theory that English classes should be about language development, and that students who take the time to build their skills should be rewarded.

First, this means that learners have to attend class. Even this seems petty to me, but because most of my students don't have any exposure to English outside of class, this is their only opportunity to come in contact with the language, unless of course they visited my office, watched NHK English programs, attended another langauge school, or used English with their family or friends, which no one does. If they do attend class and have some exposure, then they also should have the opportunity to see how far they are getting in their studies. It's their class. They are paying for it. They should be able to measure their progress. For that purpose we have periodic assessments. I grade those, because it is my job to evaluate the students' progress, but they can take the periodic assessments as many times as they like. (In fact, in one class I teach they have to take them until they get at least a 90%. That is in a class where I enforce learning. They have to master the material before they can move on.)

Finally, the students have a final exam. Again, since this evaluation process has to be developmental, rather than punitive, I gave them the test today. They can learn how to use English to solve the questions, and then on test day, they can show how much they know.

My feeling is that nearly all language assessments could be made public before the fact with the affect that learners' skill would improve. I am dissatisfied with some aspects of this scheme, though. One is that the learners are not making the tests themselves. I have done that in the past, but the products were a reflection of all the other timed, tricky, punitive tests that they had been subjected to until that point. It would take a whole year of work just to get them out of that mind set. Even after one semester of this class, the students were suprised and asked and reconfirmed several times that this was actually the test that they were going to see on test day. They just couldn't believe it.

The other feature of this testing scheme is that the tests are not communcative. The only real communication that happens on the test is where they write their name and the date. Everything else is an immitation of what communication might be like. I would like to change these two aspects of my teaching.