The word 'says' is atrocious · 1:52am May 17th
Now that we've done that, let me tell you a little about teaching English as a foreign language. When you think about what is 'hard' in english, what comes to mind? The first thing we (speaking as an Texan here) notice when listening to another person is their accent. How we say certain words, where the emphasis is put, and maybe if you record yourself and listen back, you think about the direction in which the tone flows, how you go up and down in a sentence like a wave. Whether you're from Texas, California or New York, you'd immediately know who was who based on their accent. A man speaking briskly, to the point, possibly even a little rudely with harsh cuts to his vowels is from up north, somebody who uses a lot of filler words, tends to meander on the topic, maybe a little too friendly no matter who they talk to is likely from out west, and then someone who likes to stretch their vowels and leave off consonants, makes swooping dips in their tones as they talk is like from the south. Generally speaking, this is where you indicate a place and time to your conversation partner, and the more they say, the more judgements you can make to sum them up, form a profile.
Now, this is all well and good for conversation, the hard part (at least in my mind) when it comes to English is keeping a smooth conversation going. I don't consider tenses or forms or what is proper, just that I am being understood and clear during the interaction. But have you ever thought ab out the correct pronunciation of the word 'says'? Read it aloud for me. 'Says.' You just pronounced the letters 'S' 'E' and 'Z' in sequence. Imagine you know very little of the language. Two years ago, after being taught basic phrases, words, and the barest minimum of grammar, you are then introduced to phonics. Your whole language is said as its read. Ne (ね) is Ne, and never anything else no matter what it's touching or what word its apart of. (edit: This is not entirely true for every word, but the sounds themselves never change.) Then you have some random foreigner coming in to tell you that, ackshualli, C and K make the same sound, but some times C and S make the same sound. Y can make four different sounds and where it is in the word and what letters its attached to determines which ones, but the rules are not consistent about what, and sometimes, Y is totally silent too and there for historical reasons. The same rules might apply to other letters too, and it was not until two years ago that you even heard English five times in a week (on average).
The things you never even consider are what come up when teaching this to people who weren't born into it. Consider the word 'uncomfortable.' To you, young Japanese teenager, this just looks like a big string of letters you are vaguely familiar with. Unless you have extra lessons, an English speaking parent, or a really good ALT early on, you have not likely even been taught how to 'break up' words. However, even if you have been taught, how do you break this word up? You've only recently begun to learn the words for parts of speech in your own language, let alone a second one. Do you know what suffixes and prefixes are? or is that something that comes up later in school? You might know the sounds individually, but you've already learned words like 'says' that don't follow any rules at all, so what's to say this one is any different?
All of this is bad of course, but that's just the nature of the beast. English do be like four languages smashed together, codified, and added to over time. The worst thing about English is that the best way to teach it is with the use of swear words. If he fucks, and she fucks, one is fucked, but they're both fucking, and it's fucking great, but one fuck is good and another fuck is bad, and fuck it all, I can't fucking believe it. Noun, verb, adjective, past, present, all in one word in one run on sentence. It's a great word for teaching but vulgar and not one that should be used in regular conversation or with children, but there's no other word quite as versatile. With the best tool unavailable to you, you have to take it word at a time, learning boring sentence after boring sentence and then being expected to have that shit memorized with another set of words and rules to use for the test at the end of the month. Fucked, in a word.
Of course, it hard but not impossible, but it;s not made any easier when you're just taught incorrectly which is where I believe the biggest flaw in the system is. Now, my experience is limited to four schools, three elementary schools and my current middle school, but a concerning trend I've seen is the use of 'so' and 'because' at the start of sentences with no context, or which should be part of the previous sentence. From like, 6th grade to 9th grade (middle school spans 7-9 here), this comes up in personal compositions a lot, and it's always used incorrectly. From my knowledge of Japanese, this is because 'だから(dakara)' 'でも(demo)’ and similar words are used to start sentences in Japanese even though punctuation is fairly rare in this language. (Note: Japanese is written vertically for literature and lines just end or contain big gaps like spaces to indicate the end of a sentence more often than punctuation is used.) Things like that, and the teachers giving out sentences that don't contain articles or are missing necessary information are what worry me.
An example:
She can butterfly.
I didn't want to offend/embarrass the teacher in the middle of class (I don't know her well, but she seems like the sort of hardline type), so I repeated this sentence, but if you had no context, what do you think looking at that? Unless you happen to have the context that this is related to swimming, I assume you thought about the insect and have no idea why 'butterfly' is being used as a verb here. When I correct papers, the most common thing that comes up is missing articles and strange sentence structure. The latter is just the Japanese background interfering with using English, but the former is a reinforced missing knowledge base that's endemic to the system.
English is now mandatory in all schools in Japan starting from 3rd grade, but that was only a recent change as of 2020. The kids I'm teaching now have, at most, four years of English in school, and unlike a place with a totally broken and nearly useless education system like the US, grades actually matter here. Jobs actually look at your academic record and that shit is kept well starting from 12 years old. A declining population, a rise in immigration, a culture unfriendly to but dependent on foreigners, very taxing school years, and teachers only so qualified to do their jobs; it's just a recipe for failure. For as much as I would like it to, I don't see Japan bouncing back to its heydays in the 80's for at least another 20 years, and this only happens if there's no black swan event or new breakthroughs.
Because I like my job, I really do wish I could do more to help, but I'm just the assistant here and not really looked to as the experienced person. It is mildly frustrating for the moment, but I suppose all I really need to do is earn their trust. If nothing else, they expect me to know my language as well as native English teacher should, so that gives me some level of deference.
That aside, I'm seriously considering working toward a teaching license of some kind that I can do online. Want it done right, do it yourself and all that, and to be honest, I really do like teaching when I can. It's just annoying to be given a schedule, ask the teacher what she wants to to today, and be told I am unnecessary. It's more than annoying, that actually makes me upset, but at the same time, I do spend some classes just standing in the corner with little to do. Frustrating, but understandable. Growing pains are indeed that.
Before I go off on another tangent and make this a very long blog, I'll stop there.
Until next time~
-KCZ
Yeah, English is a special kind of nightmare if you aren't immersed in it from Day 1. (And even then, that just means you don't really appreciate how bad it is until you start hearing from outside perspectives.) Best of luck with the student body's struggles.
(Also, full disclosure, I interpreted "She can butterfly." as referring to the culinary technique at first.
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5781065
Like, butterflying a chicken breast? That's impressive, I went to culinary school, but I haven't actually butterflied a chicken in years.
Thanks, I will definitely need it with some of these classes. They'll probably figure it out, but my 6th graders last year were more mature than some of my 7th graders now. Higher grades seem to know better, but then again, one of my english teachers took a page covered in chibi characters with dicks from a 9th grade student this week. Teenage boys are something special.
English is difficult, even for native speakers.
We have so many homonyms and homophones. We are also lousy with homographs.
The best analogy for English I heard is, "English does not borrow from other languages. It hides out in dark alleyways and lures languages in. It then clubs them over the head and rifles through their pockets for any loose grammar and syntax."
5781172
Angles should absolutely not be trusted with a language.