The Language Teacher
July 2001

The Need for Change in English Writing Instruction in Japan

Akiko Takagi

Institute of Language Teaching, Waseda University


Native speakers of English often have problems understanding academic papers or letters in English written by Japanese students because of the ambiguous nature of the Japanese writing style, which is sometimes transferred to English writing. One of the reasons why Japanese learners have difficulty communicating through writing in English is that translation and grammar rules are still emphasized in English writing classes in Japanese schools (Hirayanagi, 1998). In Japanese high schools, it is common for teachers to concentrate on grammar and not have students write paragraphs in English (Kogo, 1999).

As is well known, preparation for entrance exams is one of the biggest motivating factors for learning English. Although some universities include free composition questions in the English composition part of entrance exams, many translation questions can be still seen. To obtain a high score on the writing segment of the test, Japanese teachers emphasize large amounts of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and well-used expressions and have students practice these types of questions (JACET Kansai Chapter Writing Teaching Group, 1995). In addition, writing skills are not fully taught even after writing classes were introduced into the Japanese high school English curriculum through the 1994 change in teaching guidelines by the Ministry of Education. The 24th Research Group of the Institute for Research in Language Teaching (2001) points out that one of the problems lies with authorized English writing textbooks that have grammar-based syllabi. Since the grammar translation method has been embraced by the school system, most university students lack experience in writing extensively by the time when they enter a university.

This paper examines the results of questionnaires, which were given to twenty-five Japanese students studying at an American university. The intent of the survey was to investigate and compare the writing experiences of these pupils in Japan with their experiences in the U.S. From the results of the questionnaire, I will present three specific suggestions for teaching English writing to Japanese students. (1)

The Survey Subjects

Twenty-five Japanese students who have lived both in Japan and the United States were surveyed about their writing experiences. While the number of students involved in this study is too low to make any sweeping generalizations, the results of the present study do provide some educational implications for EFL writing instruction in Japan. The questionnaires were provided in an open-ended format. All 25 students responded. Four of the respondents were studying at the English Learning Institute within the university, 9 were undergraduates and 12 were graduate students. All of the students were volunteers enrolled in an intensive English program or in a regular university course as full-time students. The survey considered the following areas: writing experience in Japan, writing class experience in English speaking-countries, and writing for academic purposes in the American context (See Appendix 1).

Survey Findings

Writing experience in Japan

When asked about their English writing experiences in Japan, 11 students answered that they did have writing activities in some of their English courses -- five in high school, five at the university level, and one at the British Council. Only two students who had been taught writing by native English teachers. As for the activities they encountered in their regular English classes, 20 students said that they would translate Japanese sentences into English, 15 students wrote English sentences to practice grammar and vocabulary, and 12 combined short sentences into one paragraph. Only one student had written more than one paragraph in English in high school. In universities, eight students had experience with writing paragraphs. The results were as expected: Japanese teachers in high schools usually do not have students write paragraphs in English because such writing is usually not required for university entrance exams. For teachers and students who are concerned with the entrance exam (and most are), there is little incentive to teach and learn how to write paragraphs in English. However, in the university, the situation changes somewhat, because, with a shift of focus from passing exams to communication, the reason for learning English is different.

Some students complained about the style of writing instruction in Japan. Students perceived that writing classes were useful for understanding grammar and remembering fundamental English constructions. Only two who had had writing classes in Japanese universities answered that the class was useful. They commented that the courses helped them gain the necessary skills to write a paper and to become accustomed to English writing styles.

From the survey, no one referred to the organization and content of what was written in their classes in Japan. It appears from the information gathered, that in general, students who went through the Japanese education system had a lack of experience with English written communication because of the emphasis on prescriptive forms and mechanics. According to the responses, no students had experienced peer evaluation, and 11 out of 25 students had not experienced any stage of process writing. What is interesting is that this problem is not limited to high schools. In universities, some Japanese teachers still use the traditional method of grammar translation to teach English writing.

Writing experience in the U.S.

Many of the students in the survey felt that they did not receive proper English writing instruction in Japan. On the other hand, the responses about writing experiences in the U.S. showed that all of the students who took writing courses in the U.S. had positive opinions about their writing courses. This is in direct contrast to their experiences in Japan. From their experiences, it was elicited that the organization of paragraphs was the most useful information the students learned. Many of them had their first experience of writing more than one paragraph while learning about the organization and transitions used in essays in English. Students did not seem to concern themselves with English grammar because they paid closer attention to the organization, content, and length of paragraphs. As one student mentioned, "The difference of the writing instruction is clearly contrasted between grammar and organization." At the tertiary-level ESL classes in the U.S., both foreign and domestic students are required to write essays, and undergo a process of writing instruction that requires a considerable amount of revising and editing.

Writing for academic purposes in the American context

Many Japanese college students often write their essays by first generating ideas in Japanese, then translating them into English. Translation is a common strategy because students were trained to translate in high school. The survey showed that even after some students had writing experiences in the American context, translation was still used when they write academic papers for their classes. For example, one student said, "I usually generate ideas in Japanese at first, so I always find that there is no cohesion in my paper." Some students who still translate from Japanese to English said that they were frustrated because they were not confident about expressing their own opinions. This dependence on translation both as a prewriting and writing strategy decreased for several respondents after they had studied in the U.S. for some time. That is, students tended to modify the way they looked at the writing procedure. One strategy that most students began to use was to "think about the outline in English and directly write in English."

When I asked about the difference between the organization of an English paragraph and that of a Japanese paragraph, 9 students did not answer at all, 2 students answered that the organization was the same, and 14 students answered that they were different. Therefore, about half of the students did not realize the difference or could not explain the differences explicitly. Here it is interesting to note that the respondents' metacognitive awareness of discourse differences between Japanese and English still appeared to be limited although their writing strategies had begun to change through studying and writing in a US academic context. Indeed, those who answered the questions understood the basic variances between the two styles and said that in the English paragraph, the topic sentence comes at the beginning (or the thesis statement comes first), whereas, in the Japanese paragraph, the thesis typically comes at the end. From the information gathered in the questionnaire, it appears that most of the students who studied in the U.S. have not received applicable English writing instruction in Japan and still struggle to write for academic purposes. Based on the responses from the questionnaire, I would like to conclude by making a few practical suggestions for writing teachers in Japan.

Suggestions for Teachers -- Differences of Writing Style between Japanese and English

Awareness of rhetorical patterns

When we consider writing instruction, it is essential for writing teachers to be aware of the differences between the writing style in Japanese and the writing style in English as accepted in the U.S. and Britain, among other native English-speaking countries. More importantly, it is necessary for teachers to make Japanese students of English aware of the rhetorical differences in their writing classes. For native English-speaking readers, unity is important because readers expect and require landmarks, that is, transition statements that signal a change in the topic throughout the piece. It is the writer's task to provide appropriate transition statements in English so that the reader can piece together the thread of the writer's logic that binds the composition together. In written Japanese, on the other hand, the landmarks may be absent since it tends to be more the reader's responsibility to determine the relationship between any part of an essay and the essay as a whole. Japanese readers are required to build transitions themselves in the course of reading an essay organized along the ki-shoo-ten-ketsu guidelines. Ki-shoo-ten-ketsu is a four-pattern-unit which describes the development of much contemporary Japanese expository writing. Takemata (1976) effectively defines their perspective meanings.

(ki) First, begin one's argument.
( shoo) Next, develop the argument.
(ten) At the point where this development is finished, enlarge on the idea so that there is a connection, but not a directly connected association (to the major theme).
(ketsu) Last, bring all of the ideas together and reach a conclusion (p.97).

When writing in English, Japanese writers may experience problems if they transfer the values, organization, and structure of their first language to the second language. As Leki (1991) states, teachers have a responsibility to teach the expectations of an English-reading audience to L2 writers. For example, native EFL teachers can take advantage of their native language background to explain these cultural differences. As a way of developing students' awareness of written English rhetorical patterns, teachers can have students compare two essays on the same topic written by Japanese students and by English-speaking students.

For this purpose, teachers can download many types of essays covering patterns of logical order such as: giving instructions, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, and persuasive arguments. For example, see Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English at http://www.ebaack.com/ (Advanced_Composition.htm, 2001). With actual examples of essays, teachers may explain that native-speaking English readers generally expect writing to be persuasive and transparently specific with many supporting ideas and examples, and also to follow a clear, logical, and linear order of ideas.

A Case for the process approach

The process approach has had a widespread influence on the teaching of writing both in ESL and EFL situations (see, for example: Raimes, 1985, 1991; White and Arndt, 1991). In Japanese public schools, however, the process approach to teaching writing is not widely used because most teachers do not require students to write in paragraph form. Since many students will never learn how to organize an essay in written English without writing in paragraphs, it is essential for Japanese to move their focus from solely looking at the essay as an end product to having them view writing as a lengthy process. In the process approach, students experience five phases: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and a final draft. Process approaches allow student writers to think about global rhetorical problems such as audience, topic, and development. Along the way, writers can generate, develop, and organize ideas and then once again devote adequate attention to revising their ideas in the process of revising. (White and Arndt, 1991).

Some students who lack experience in writing long paragraphs in their first language may find writing in a second language extremely difficult, since they are required to perform two tasks at the same time: writing in paragraph form and writing in a second language. However, for Japanese students familiar with journal writing in their L1, writing a journal in English can be a good starting point for learning to write and generate ideas in English, as many researchers advocate (Boyle & Peregoy, 1993; Urzua, 1987). Still, students may be puzzled when teachers introduce journal writing to an English class without correcting grammatical mistakes. Their teachers need to explain how journal writing is effective at increasing their writing fluency and must tell them to be patient in waiting to see improvements over a period of months.

In my college writing class, I had students write in their journals every two weeks. I gave the students topics that would be interesting and familiar to them. For example, I assigned the topics "What do you think about your college life in this university?", "Do you think love and marriage are different?", and "What is your dream for the future?" Despite some difficulty in writing a journal in English at first, they gradually became used to writing it and began to express their ideas freely since I did not require grammatical correctness, to avoid restricting fluency. In addition, they exchanged their journals with their classmates and wrote comments to each other in class, which encouraged their interest and excitement in writing journals.

An awareness of the audience

Although I have proposed journal writing as a first step toward writing in English to promote students' fluency, it is important to note that merely expressing their ideas is not sufficient to become literate. To train successful writers, we must examine a further aspect: making writers aware of the audience. By looking back at the results of the questionnaire, I realize that Japanese students are often unaware of the audience in their writing. This is primarily due to the fact that many of them have not experienced peer evaluation in the classroom, not to mention communication with a real audience in the target language outside of the classroom.

Johns (1993) suggests various ways to communicate with audiences outside of the classroom using written English. For example, for specific activities, students can revise theses for international publications, write letters to English pen pals by e-mail, and can write letters to English language newspapers. If the ultimate goal of writing instruction is to create authentic discourse in English, students should be encouraged to express themselves in English as much as possible. Here, I would like to refer to the college writing class previously cited. In that class, I encouraged students to do a lot of peer evaluation at an early stage. Even if the linguistic level of the students was diverse, they enjoyed having their essays read by their classmates, and at the same time were able to learn from each other by reading other classmates' essays. I prepared a simple worksheet for peer evaluation, and each time the students checked each other's essays and made written comments concerning the content.

After they had begun to realize the existence of their audience, I went on to the next stage to make them aware of an audience outside of the classroom. Since the writing class was only one semester, and their computer access was so limited, they were not able to exchange writing with real audiences. However, for the final project, they produced a homepage to introduce their community to an English-speaking audience. In pairs, they collected information on the places where they live including tourist spots, restaurants, and festivals. Then, they selected one theme and produced a homepage in English. This activity helped the students to be aware of a real audience in order to introduce their community to others by using written English.

Conclusion

This article began with a survey of Japanese students who had experienced writing classes both in Japan and America. The survey showed that most of the students were dissatisfied with writing instruction for a second language in Japanese schools and that they had benefited from writing class experiences in an American university. Three practical suggestions were made which can be applied to EFL writing classrooms based on the implications of the questionnaire. These suggestions focused on: (a) teaching an awareness of the differences in rhetorical patterns between Japanese and English; (b) teaching writing as a process which includes prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and a final draft; and, (c) helping writers to become aware of their audience.

Without being more conscious of the differences in Japanese and English rhetorical patterns, student writers cannot convey their ideas to native speakers of English clearly. In fact, as can be seen from the results of the questionnaire, students had difficulty conveying their ideas in English writing because they had learned only the superficial structure of writing while studying in Japanese schools. Since writing English is one of the basic tools of communication, teachers should teach communication skills that are used in the real world. To realize this purpose, teachers should make their students aware of differences in communication styles as well as to raise the awareness of an audience by using the process approach. To motivate students writing for a real world audience, teachers may begin by encouraging their students to communicate in English via the Internet. By applying these practical suggestions in their classrooms, teachers will see large improvements in both their students' attitudes toward writing and in their writing skills.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Ms. Angela Osterberger, Mr. James Pettit, and the Peer Support Group for their advice on an earlier version of this paper.

References

Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English. (2001, March 15). Retrieved March 15, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ebaack.com/

Boyle, F. O., & Peregoy, F. S. (1993). Reading, writing, & learning in ESL. New York: Longman.

Hirayanagi, Y. (1998). Writing to improve analytical and organizational skills. The Language Teacher, 22 (12), 21-23.

Johns, A. M. (1993). Written argumentation for real audiences: Suggestions for teacher research and classroom practice. TESOL Quarterly 27 (1), 75-90.

JACET Kansai Chapter Writing Teaching Group (Ed.). (1995). Daigaku ni okeru eisakubun shido no arikata: Eisakubun jittai chosa no hokoku (English writing instruction at the university levels in Japan: A survey of English writing instruction). Kyoto: Authors.

Kogo, H. (1999). Juken benkyo de tsuku chikara tukanai chikara. (The ability which can be acquired and cannot be acquired by study for the entrance exams). The English Teachers' Magazine 48 (7), 20-22.

Leki, I. (1991). Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing pedagogies. TESOL Quarterly 25 (1), 123-143.

Raimes, A. (1985). What unskilled writers do as they write: A classroom study of composing. TESOL Quarterly 19 (2), 229-258.

Raimes, A. (1991). Out of the Woods: Emerging tradition in the teaching of writing. TESOL Journal 25, 407-430.

Takemata, K. (1976). Genko shippitu nyumon. (An introduction to writing manuscripts). Tokyo: Natume-sha.

The 24th Research Group of the Institute for Research in Language Teaching. (2001). Reading, writing saikento. (Reexamine reading and writing). The English Teachers' Magazine 49 (13), 28-29.

Urzua, C. (1987). "You stopped too soon": Second language children composing and revising. TESOL Quarterly 21 (2), 279-297.

White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing, Essex, England: Longman House.

Appendix

Revised Student Survey1

This is a writing survey to investigate your writing experience in Japan and the U.S. I would appreciate your cooperation with this survey. You can answer either in English or in Japanese.

  1. Status: a. ELI b. undergraduate c. graduate
  2. How long have you studied English?
  3. How long have you been here? (including other English-speaking countries where you stayed)

I. Writing experience in Japan

  1. Have you ever taken a writing class in Japan? What kind of class? (e.g., university level, English teachers taught writing in English)
    If you took a writing class, what was the most useful for you?
    Please write an H for high school or a U for university next to each answer you circle in questions 3 and 4 below. e.g., a. translating individual Japanese sentences into English H
  2. 3. Which of the following activities did you do regularly in English classes (any English class) in Japan at your high school or university? Circle as many as apply.
    a. translated individual Japanese sentences into English
    b. wrote English sentences to practice grammar and/or vocabulary
    c. combined short sentences into one long sentence
    d. wrote more than one paragraph
    e. other (Please specify)
  3. Which of the following activities did you do in English classes (any English classes) you took in Japan at your high school or university? Circle as many as apply.
    a. summarizing
    b. outlining
    c. revising and writing
    d. peer evaluating (e.g., discussion with classmates to improve your rough drafts)
    e. term paper writing
    f. none of the above

II. Writing class experience in an English-speaking country

  1. Have you ever taken a writing class in the English-speaking countries? Yes / No
  2. What kind of class? Please specify. (e.g., ESL 407 and 408, two semesters)
  3. What was the most useful for you? Was there any difference between a writing class and an English class in Japan?

III. Writing at the present time

  1. How difficult is it for you to write in English for academic purposes?
  2. Do you know the difference between the organization of an English paragraph and that of a Japanese paragraph? If you know, please explain briefly.
  3. How do you write your paper in English? (e.g., I generate ideas in Japanese first, then translate them into English, I think about an outline in English and directly write in English).

Notes

1 This survey was revised for publication. The actual survey that was given to the subjects contained some obscurities that were clarified orally as they were encountered by the subjects.

 Akiko Takagi received an M.A in TESOL from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1999. She taught at various levels, from kindergarten-aged students to adults, at the Gunma Language Center for two years. She is currently a research associate at the Institute of Language Teaching of Waseda University. She also lectures at Takasaki City University of Economics. <akikot@mn.waseda.ac.jp>

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