Cultural Conundrums: Teachers On Task

Kate Elwood, in her latest column in The Daily Yomiuri, discusses the differences between American and Japanese teaching styles and the amount of time spent off or on task as teachers. The results aren't so surprising really:

Ah, the secret lives of teachers. I hadn't speculated much about the lives of my teachers when I was a student in the United States. Or so I thought, and then I realized that I knew quite bit about many of them so I hadn't had a need to contemplate such things. About Mr. O., a history teacher, I remembered that he preferred beer to other stronger alcohol, the name of his wife, and an interesting episode from when he was a young boy in which he had been given a baked apple by a nun at his Catholic school when he was sick. At the time we were told this particular vignette we were studying the French Revolution and in retrospect it does seem a pity that I remember the particulars about the fruit dessert so vividly but nary a detail about Robespierre bar his name.

Regarding a math teacher, Ms. G., I knew even more personal information. She was single but had once been engaged to be married until her fiance got cold feet and broke it off. These facts were not simply a rumor, but information that she had freely given when a student asked if she were married. And the stories could go on. Of course, some teachers did not reveal much about their private lives, but perhaps the great amount that I knew about others had satisfied me and certainly convinced me that all teachers have their own interesting outside-of-school existences.

In Japan my students are very interested about my personal life and when I give them a chance to ask me questions after their introductions inevitably these questions come up: How old are you? Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend? What do you think of (Japanese girls, Japan, this school)?

The applied linguist Patricia Mayes has written a whole book analyzing three Japanese cooking courses, with classes once a month for six months, and three American cooking classes, with classes once a week for six weeks. In the chapter related to differences on the discourse level, she notes that while the American teachers as well as students frequently engaged in personal stories, jokes, or gossip, all of the Japanese teachers' lessons were entirely task-oriented, with no personal stories, jokes or gossip at all. In addition, the Japanese students did not participate in the discourse as speakers but only as listeners.

Mayes compares the content of one of the Japanese transcripts with one of the American transcripts. In the Japanese class, the teacher explains how to use daikon radish, then demonstrates how to make buri to daikon no nimono (boiled yellowtail and radish) and subsequently shows how to make sekihan (azuki beans and rice). And that's what she does, step by step, very efficiently and very knowledgeably.

The American teacher explains how to make beef carbonade and gnocci. And that's what the teacher does, but also he: 1) finds a spider in the pan and jokes about the extra protein it will provide; 2) makes a joke about the handouts; 3) makes a joke about the woman from the registration office; 4) explains beef carbonade is from Belgium and talks about his old boss who was Belgian; 5) tells a story about his first experience working as a cook in a French restaurant; 6) tells a story about a friend and his kitchen; and 7) tells a story about a woman buying milk at the supermarket that day.

***

Mayes further notes that the Japanese lessons were generally unidirectional with little backtracking, while the American lessons were less well-organized, with the teachers moving back and forth between the recipes they were demonstrating. A Japanese corollary of "a place for everything and everything in its place" seems to be "an order for everything and everything in its order."

I think I reveal less as an ESL teacher, than I did as a high school English teacher in America. Possibly because it seems tedious to do so in simple language, but then again I will make comments regarding my likes and dislikes as well as make comments about student answers to questions in class. Generally try to stay on task, but high-level classes can easily sidetrack me when they ask my opinions on articles we are reading about politics or other controversial topics.