The Language Teacher
02 - 2003

Why English Teachers in Japan Need to Learn Japanese

David Barker

Hokkai Gakuen University, Sapporo




Employment requirements for foreign teachers in Japanese higher education institutes have changed over the years, and many job advertisements now include a requirement phrased along the lines of "a working knowledge of Japanese." Glick (2002) says that some universities may still prefer teachers who do not speak Japanese, but in general, employers are starting to ask for at least basic communicative competence.

I will consider the role of L1 in the learning process, but I will argue that there is justification in separating this debate from the question of whether or not the teacher needs to learn the students' language. I will also argue that in spite of the support which the "English only" dogma has attracted, common sense dictates that L1 will always have a role to play in the language classroom. Finally, I will suggest that there is no excuse for long-term teachers of monolingual classes being unwilling or unable to learn their students' language.

Using L1 in the Classroom

There has been a gradual move over the past few years away from the "English only" dogma that has long been a part of the British and American ELT movement. There is now a great deal of research that supports the use of the students' first language in the classroom. Auerbach, (1993, p.9) concludes from her research that the evidence "suggests that the rationale used to justify English only in the classroom is neither conclusive nor pedagogically sound." Although this quote refers to ESL, I would argue that it applies equally to the EFL classroom. Furthermore, many have argued against the "English only" dogma on the grounds that it only ever became so widely accepted in the first place because it made things easier for teachers and publishers. As Swan (1985 part 1, p.85) pointed out, "this (dogma) has made it possible for us to teach English all over the world without the disagreeable necessity of having to learn other languages."

In spite of the fact that a great deal of research has suggested that the students' L1 can actually be a useful tool in the classroom (e.g. Atkinson (1987), Ogane (1997), Burden (2000, 2001), Weschler (1997), Cole (1998)), many still persist with "English only." Of course, arguments in favour of this approach hold a lot more water when they are made by teachers who have the ability to compare different teaching methods. While there are many monolingual teachers in Japan who advocate "English only," it is surely not logical to argue that something you have experience of is more or less effective than something of which you have no experience at all.

The whole issue of teachers speaking/using the students' language is an extremely emotive one. Apart from the pedagogical issues, wide-scale acceptance of the need for teachers to learn Japanese would lead to the exclusion of monolingual teachers from the job market. I am not going to argue that teachers in Japan who do not speak Japanese are deficient, but I will suggest that making the effort to learn the language would have great benefits for them, the students they teach, and the institutions that employ them.

A Distinction between Using L1 and Being Able to Speak L1

A great deal of research and writing has focussed on whether or not L1 has a place in the classroom. Of course, any answer other than a straight "no" leads to other issues, such as who uses it, when, and what for. Polio (1994, p.153), commenting on Auerbach's (1993) survey question "Should ESL students be allowed to use their L1 in the classroom?" makes the point that "this question is essentially unanswerable without more information and thus the results uninterpretable. What is meant by "use," "allowed," and, most important, "ESL?"

There is, however, another issue that I believe should be regarded as distinct from the "L1 in the classroom" argument, and that is the question of the teacher's language proficiency. It is too big a jump to say that a ban on L1 in the classroom means that there is no need for the teacher to learn it, although many seem to accept this as a natural progression of reasoning. Prodromou (2002) makes the distinction in his survey of 300 Greek students, although he finds little difference in their answers to "should the teacher know your language?" and "should the teacher use it in the classroom?" suggesting that his students also tend to view the issues as one and the same.

But even if we ignore any pedagogic concerns, it is clear that a bilingual teacher will at least be able to speak to other members of the school staff and play a fuller role in school life. Some may say that there is a downside in that if students are aware that the teacher speaks Japanese, they will give up trying to speak to them in English. There may be merit in this, although any student who is not sufficiently motivated to use the teacher as a valuable practice partner probably has a fairly limited language learning future anyway. We should also remember that whilst it is easy to pretend not to be able to do something we can do when it suits us, the reverse is, unfortunately, not so true.

Even if you believe that L1 has no place in the classroom, there is still a (much less often made) case for the teacher at least knowing how to speak it. What is it that English teachers are doing when we walk into the classroom every day? Are we teaching students about English, or are we teaching them how to learn a foreign language? Medgyes (1992, p.39) has not been alone in suggesting that it is the latter, and that native-speaker teachers may not be the best qualified people for the job: "during their own learning process, non-NESTS have gained abundant knowledge about and insight into how the English language works, which might be presumed to make them better informants than their native colleagues."

Regardless of who the teacher is, if we see our job as teaching students how to learn a foreign language, then common sense dictates that we should at least have had the experience of doing it ourselves. Weschler (1997, p.4) in an article strongly supporting the use of L1 in the classroom seems strangely apologetic on this subject. When he says that using Japanese is not an option for most teachers because they simply can't learn it well enough, he adds: "this is understandable, no cause for embarrassment…" Really? So what are we saying to the students? "Come in, sit down, and I will teach you how to do what I, given a huge time frame and optimal learning conditions, have been singularly unable to achieve." How, exactly, is that understandable and no cause for embarrassment? There is also the issue of anticipating and knowing how to deal with problems the students are likely to face. Surely a teacher with a detailed knowledge of the differences between the L1 and the target language will be better equipped to anticipate and overcome these problems, and this will not be any less true because that teacher believes in the "English only" approach in the classroom.

I suggest, then, that we should separate the issue of whether the teacher should know the students' language from that of whether the use of L1 in the classroom is desirable or not. Arguing that L1 has no place in language learning is not the same thing as arguing that there is no need for the teacher to learn it.

What Are the Facts?

So which way does the evidence point? The L1 in the classroom debate is, like many others in ELT, awash with opinions presented as incontrovertible facts. Unfortunately, a small detail often ignored in the rush to label some particular method or technique either brilliant or useless is that nobody really understands how humans learn languages. We would do well to bear this in mind when discussing what we should and should not do in the classroom. As Penny Ur ( personal communication, 11/14/01) says, "there is nothing that should always or never be done in the classroom, and even that is an over-generalisation." The key word must always be "flexibility," since no two classes are ever exactly alike, and no class stays the same from one day to the next. There is very little flexibility in an outright ban on the students' language! Second Language Acquisition research is a field where facts are remarkably thin on the ground and where it is difficult, if not impossible, to make sweeping generalizations that cover every possible teaching situation.

So what can we say, with absolute certainty, in relation to the issue at hand? I would venture to suggest that the following, at least, are undisputable facts:

  1. It is possible for students to be successful in a multi-lingual class or a monolingual class.
  2. It is possible for students to be successful with a native-speaker teacher or with a non-native speaker teacher.
  3. It is possible for students to be successful learning from a monolingual teacher or from a bilingual teacher.

I could go on, but I think the point is clear. There are so many factors involved in learning a second language, most of which no-one understands, that no matter how much research we do, how many surveys we conduct, we are never going to get a definitive answer as to whether it is better to make use of or to bar the students' L1 in the language classroom because there simply isn't one. Unfortunately, the absence of proof does not seem to discourage those who would have us believe that one particular teaching method is more or less effective than another. Another thought from Michael Swan (1985 part 2, p.86) on the results of continually changing and "improving" teaching methods: "the students, as a rule, learn about as much as they did before."

So what are we left with? What we are left with is what most teachers usually fall back on anyway, although at different times they may be made to feel more or less guilty about doing so depending on what is in fashion. What teachers fall back on are instinct, experience, and common sense, and it is from these standpoints that I believe we should be looking at both of the issues in the L1 debate.

Putting Ourselves in Their Shoes

This is something that many teachers fail to do. Too often teachers' beliefs about what we should do in the classroom are just that - they are ours, and they are only beliefs. So what do the students think? Burden (2000, p.6) found in his survey of Japanese students that "across all ability levels, it was felt that the teacher should know the learners' mother tongue." He concluded that "students want the teacher to use the target language exclusively when it is being used in communication, but expect the teacher to have a knowledge of, and an ability to use MT (Mother Tongue) when it is appropriate to explain the usage of English." (p.10).

If that is what students want, is it really so unreasonable of them? Given a choice between learning a foreign language from a teacher who spoke your language and one who didn't, how many teachers would honestly select the "foreign language only" approach? Only those who can say with their hand on their heart that they would have any business at all advocating English only for their students.

What students are asked to do in "English only" classes is staggeringly difficult, although many teachers seem to have no concept of this. When I first came to Japan, I told a friend where I was going and he said, "but you don't speak Japanese!" After ten years of teaching, I find myself agreeing with him. We as a profession do not need to conduct extensive research and complicated studies to tell us what is, to society at large, really just common sense. You may not have to be able to speak the students' language to teach them yours, but if you can, it's going to make things a lot easier for both of you.

Conclusions

I would like to make it clear that I am not suggesting that teachers who do not speak the students' language are "bad" teachers. I do believe, however, that teachers would benefit from putting themselves through the same things they are trying to get their students to do. On a purely personal note, I would be embarrassed to say that I was a language professional and that I had lived in a foreign country for years without managing or bothering to learn the language. Neither do I believe that teachers need to be an expert in the language to benefit from studying it. The experience of seeing things through a student's eyes is enough to change the way anyone feels about teaching. Even if monolingual teachers went through this experience without having any of their opinions changed, they would at least be more justified than before in putting them forward.

It seems that teachers living in Japan either learn the language early on in their stay, or they never learn it at all. Someone who has lived here for two years and does not speak the language will probably still not speak it ten or fifteen years down the line. There is, however, no real reason why this should be so. No matter how long you have been living in Japan, it is never too late to start learning. In fact, those who have been here longer will often find it easier because they will have picked up so much without even knowing it. With concerted effort, anyone should be able to reach a fair degree of fluency with a year of hard study. There are even places where people are prepared to teach you for free! Being a language student makes you realize just how difficult and embarrassing learning a language as an adult can be, and the ability to empathize with your students can only be a good thing. Progressing to higher levels gives you another set of experiences, and the joy of ultimate success is something that you will want to convey to your students at every opportunity. You will be able to identify with what they are going through, you will be able to tell them what to expect, and you will be able to show them how to succeed. That, I believe, is what we are employed to do.

References

Auerbach, E. (1993). Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 27(1): 9-31.
Atkinson, D. (1987). The mother tongue in the classroom: A neglected resource? ELT Journal, 41(4): 241-247.
Burden, P. (2000). The use of the students' mother tongue in monolingual English conversation classes at Japanese universities. The Language Teacher, 24(6): 5-11.
Burden, P. (2001). When do native English speaking teachers and Japanese college students disagree about the use of Japanese in the English conversation classroom? The Language Teacher, 25(4): 5 -9.
Cole, S. (1998). The use of L1 in communicative English classrooms. The Language Teacher, 22(12): 11-13.
Glick, C. (2002). Considerations for securing an English teaching position at a Japanese university (Part 2). The Language Teacher, 26(9): 7-9
Medgyes, P. (1992). Native or non-native: Who's worth more? In T. Hedge & N. Whitney (Eds.), Power, pedagogy and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ogane, E. (1997). Codeswitching in EFL learner discourse. JALT Journal, 19(1): 107-121.
Polio, C. (1994). Comments on Elsa Roberts Auerbach's "Reexamining English only in the EFL classroom." TESOL Quarterly, 28(2): 153-161.
Prodromou, L. (2002). The Role of the mother tongue in the classroom. Issues, 166: 7-9.
Swan, M. (1985). A critical look at the communicative approach (parts 1 & 2). ELT Journal, 39(1): 2-12; 39(2): 76-87.
Weschler, R. (1997). Uses of Japanese (L1) in the English classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, 3(11). Retrieved November 20, 2002, from iteslj.org/Articles/Weschler-UsingL1.html.



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