Académique Documents
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CLASS ACTS
After an intensive filming schedule in March, we will be editing the Class Belfast, St Vincent College in Gosport, Aldercar School in Nottingham,
Acts video in May and June to produce the final version by September Cantonian School in Cardiff, Tile Hill Wood School in Coventry, Sir
2001. The video – which highlights best practice in the teaching of John Colfox School in Dorset, Dinnington School in Sheffield,
Japanese in UK schools – will be launched at the Symposium on Tavistock College in Devon, Impington Village College in Cambridge,
Japanese Language Education, organised by BATJ, on September 8. Whitgift School in Croydon, Wolverhampton Girls’ High, Bradford Girls’
The Class Acts team would like to say a very warm thank you to those Grammar, Queen Mary’s High School, Walsall, Elliott School and
of you who will be starring in the video, namely teachers and pupils Hendon School in London, Millais School in Horsham and Katherine
at the following schools: Colston Girls’ School in Bristol, County Lady Berkeley’s School in Gloucestershire, not forgetting participants
Upper School in Bury St Edmunds, Ballyclare Secondary School in at the Japanese Language Weekend in the New Forest.
PAGE 2 NIHONGO CENTRE NEWS
New training opportunity for Nihongo Centre
teachers of Japanese Review
The recent expansion of the Graduate As many of you will know, the Nihongo
Teacher Programme (GTP) to include teachers Centre was asked by the Japan Foundation
of Japanese has created a new opportunity headquarters in Japan to commission an
for teachers to acquire Qualified Teacher external assessment of our services in
Status (QTS) via an employment-based route. order to determine the extent to which
On successful completion of the one-year they were meeting the needs of teachers
training programme, co-ordinated by CILT, of Japanese in the UK.
participants are able to work as a Newly The review was carried out from July to
Qualified Teacher (NQT) in a secondary December 2000 and involved in-depth
school in England. This year, three Japanese interviews, focus group discussions, email-
trainees have joined the course, attending based surveys and a questionnaire which
sessions alongside French, Spanish and l to r: Masayo Ward, Yuka Yokozawa & Misa Nakano was sent out to over 750 practising
Austrian teachers. Trainees are matched to a teachers. We are extremely grateful to
school where they work alongside an She has found the sessions on pedagogy at everyone who took the time to participate
experienced mentor, gradually assuming more CILT of particular interest and believes that in the Review, which suggested that the
responsibility in the course of the year. The although conditions vary from school to most important needs of teachers of
programme includes 14 topic-based sessions school, she is learning skills that can be Japanese in Britain at the moment are the
across the academic year with three adapted to any situation. availability of and access to resources
individual tutorials and three full-day visits appropriate to the UK context,
For Misa Nakano, who had taught Japanese
to the school as well as material provision opportunities for professional development
at the City of Bath College for four years
and written assignments. and the ability to network with other
before starting GTP, the placement at
Course Tutor Bernadette Holmes believes Tavistock College in Devon provided her first teachers of Japanese.
that the GTP provides a valuable opportunity experience of the secondary sector and The vast majority of teachers who
for Japanese teachers to gain experience of helped her to understand issues which she contributed to the Review believe that the
the socio-cultural context in UK schools and had come across in Adult Education. For her, Nihongo Centre has played a key role in
the requirements of the National Curriculum. the mentoring sessions are the most useful the development of Japanese language
“I would like to see the Japanese programme part of the programme, giving insights into teaching in the UK. Many felt that the
expanding in the future,” she comments, aspects of her teaching which she might not dramatic expansion of Japanese in the
“and as part of this year’s course I otherwise have become aware of. secondary sector could not have happened
incorporated a series of Japanese modules, without the support and encouragement of
Masayo Ward, also based at Tavistock, had
taught by Yuka Yokozawa, which helped to the Nihongo Centre.
previously taught in the private sector for
remind the European trainees of how it felt
over seven years. For her, it is the Of the 178 teachers who responded to the
to be in their students’ shoes and also
opportunity to share experiences with other questionnaire, 90% had used at least one
provided a very effective practical
trainees that makes the programme of the Centre’s services and as many as
demonstration of what they were learning.”
worthwhile. “When I listen to the other 61% had used more than five services.
Yuka Yokozawa, who currently teaches teachers describing problems that come up Services considered most useful by
Japanese at Impington Village College in in their schools, I feel less isolated and it teachers were the INSET Training Courses,
Cambridge, feels that the GTP course provides helps me to think of how these issues might the Library and Loan by Post Service and
more practical hands-on experience in the relate to Japanese and how they can be
Mado. In terms of quality, over three
classroom than teaching training in Japan. solved.”
quarters of teachers who had used Nihongo
Centre services rated them as excellent or
good. By far the most important factor
affecting teachers’ use of the Nihongo
Reading
Copy the manga onto an OHP transparency
and cut it up into individual scenes. Project
individual frames onto the OHP in random
order and get your pupils to describe what
they see in each scene. Then ask pupils to B can also ask questions such as:
put the scenes in the right order. Finally,
project the whole manga onto the screen,
drawing attention to the strip at the top,
which introduces the characters that appear
in the manga. B listens to A’s explanations and draws in the
Distribute photocopies of page 5 and ask missing scenes. A and B then swap roles.
pupils to read the dialogue in pairs. There are Afterwards, pupils can compare the manga
lots of questions you could devise to check they have drawn with the original on page 5.
understanding. See below for some examples: This activity can also be used to revise
grammatical forms such as:
* =dormitory
6.30 7.15
8.30
10.00
The book is organised in two parts with the and find a quick answer or suitable
first taking grammatical issues such as explanation of a particular word or grammar
versus , tense and aspect and comparing point which my students may come across.
Nihongo Bunpou Handbook two things and three or more things. The
For example, looking up ‘comparisons’ (often
second section looks at conjugations and
Matsuoka Hiroshi (3A Network, 2000) a stumbling block for English speaking
usages of individual parts of speech. This is
learners of Japanese) in the English index
Review by Jonathan Bunt, Associate Director, likely to be particularly helpful for those
takes us to the page where is
Japan Centre North West, University of non-natives who have no grounding in
explained in reasonably complex linguistic
Manchester Japanese grammar and don’t know the
terms which I believe may go over the head
Japanese parts of speech - an area that
This book serves as a splendid resource for of readers with no linguistic background.
most texts and references for English
teachers who have students with awkward McClure goes on to define on the
speakers avoid (wrongly so in my opinion).
questions or who simply want concise, following page and give plenty of examples
A particularly nice touch is to further
comparative explanations of grammatical but perhaps not enough of an explanation,
subdivide the information contained in each
issues. For the non-native Japanese teacher, given that the usage is quite different to
section into ‘at least this much (you should
there is always a temptation to rely on English English.
know!)’, ‘a little bit more information’ and
language materials written for students. The ‘taking it further’. Teachers whose students have completed,
recent arrival of two new English language say, Shin Nihongo no Kiso or Minna no
reference publications (Japanese – a This book is a valuable reference book for
Nihongo Book I or are studying at post-GCSE
comprehensive grammar, Kaiser et al, from teachers. The terminology it uses is clear and
the organisation systematic. It could also level, would, I believe, find this book a
Routledge, and Using Japanese, McClure, from useful reference as it gives a fuller
Cambridge – see alongside for review) allows a serve as a useful double check for teachers
preparing classes with more friendly English explanation than the average textbook or
good comparison and it is interesting to see more basic grammar book. There is an
what are, on the surface, the same things language sources and an accessible source for
those who would like to know more about excellent ten page section on the different
covered in very different ways. conditional forms used in Japanese,
Japanese in order to help their students. I
The Handbook however has the advantage of shall be using the new English publications contrasting their use with English in many
limiting itself to the elements found in the but when issues about what an adverb is cases, which must be read in its entirety in
first 2-3 years of learning and, most and why is non- , non- yet order to be most useful. In this section,
crucially, teaching. This is a teacher’s tool still an adjective arise, I will go to the grammatical terms that may be unfamiliar to
not a student reference. This is most clearly Matsuoka, where I know a clear answer some readers are used, but they are often
shown by a special index linking the awaits me. defined using an English sentence as an
contents of the handbook to the relevant example, which will help to make sense of
chapters of a number of commonly used the information available.
textbooks (Shin Nihongo no Kiso 1 & 2, This book has some excellent content for
Minna no Nihongo 1 & 2, Nihongo Shoho, Using Japanese: A Guide to reference, and I am sure that every non-
Shingaku suru hito no tame no Nihongo Contemporary Usage native teacher of Japanese will find it very
Shokyu, Shinbunkashokyu Nihongo 1 & 2 and readable and helpful at explaining grammar
William McClure (Cambridge)
Shokyu Nihongo). It thus has the huge points which they may confidently use but
advantage of being very firmly grounded in Review by Gillian Hall, freelance teacher of have forgotten (or maybe never knew) the
practical JFL classroom experience and Japanese logic behind. I certainly muttered
requirements while at the same time “Naruhodo” to myself more than once whilst
Although aimed at the higher education
providing enough ‘background’ in linguistics reading it! My guess is that it might be
sector, this reference book also has much to
and theory to give those wanting detailed
offer teachers with post-GCSE students. It is slightly less accessible to native teachers of
consideration something to bite on.
probably best read from cover to cover in Japanese unless their English was
The division of the information is clear and order to glean the most practically useful exceptional or they had a good knowledge
the explanations are relatively jargon-free. information as I found it difficult to dip into of linguistics.
LIBRARY & RESOURCES PAGE 7
After months of
preparations, Japan
2001 will be officially
launched in May –
see our cover
story for some of
the highlights. It
has certainly been a busy year for the
Nihongo Centre so far and in this issue of
Mado, we report back on several current
projects, including Class Acts and the KS3 HOMESTAY UK
Digital Resources pilot, which we are May onwards
working on with the BBC. As you may know,
There is still time to apply for the
an independent review of our activities was
Homestay UK programme, which matches
carried out last year and you will find a
learners of Japanese aged 11 to 19 with
summary of the key findings on page 3. We
Japanese families in the UK for a
very much appreciate the fact that so many
weekend homestay. For further details,
of you took the time to respond to the
contact Homestay UK Co-ordinator
survey and we hope to continue to tailor the
Kazuko Sato at JFET on 020 7630 8696
Nihongo Centre’s services to meet your
or by email to hsuk@jfet.org.uk.
needs. In this issue’s Teacher’s Pages,
Enomoto sensei shows you how to use
manga to motivate your pupils, while the BATJ/NIHONGO CENTRE JOINT
Library and Resources page focuses on two SEMINAR
reference texts for teachers. We’re delighted Saturday 7 July
to announce that our library catalogue is Professor Machiko Netsu of ICU will give
now on-line, and we hope to see you at the a lecture on the Study Seminar (Year
late night library openings, which begin in Abroad) at the Nihongo Centre in
May on a trial basis. London. For further details, contact
Etsuko Yamada on 020 7838 9955 or by
email to etsuko@nihongocentre.org.uk.