Readers of this issue’s Teaching Assistance column can pick up practical ideas on how to teach an English education course to education majors. A graduate student reveals how learning English can be encouraged from the very first day of classes through role-plays and social interactions with peers in the classroom. Grounded in the author’s readings on social constructivism and her understanding of active learning, this essay offers a practical strategy for role-playing a scene from a film to help teachers and their students who are beginning a new semester to seize the day.
I enrolled in an English teacher training program offered by a graduate school at a private university in Kyushu in April 2023. Soon thereafter, I was thrilled when a professor asked me to be a Teaching Assistant (TA) for an English Oral Communication class, a required course for first-year majors in foreign languages. This paper will highlight the teaching strategies I observed and my experiences assisting students in this conversation class. I will introduce my ideas about how Japanese students can be motivated to speak in English and why it is important for teachers to adopt active learning strategies.
I have always really enjoyed learning foreign languages, and setting a personal goal to become proficient in speaking English as a foreign language has helped me deal with challenging situations in my own life. When I was a high school student, my father passed away, so I was really depressed. For over one year, I focused on studying English intensively on my own and that concentration helped me to feel better. I received a pre-level 1 certificate on the EIKEN language test.
My dream is to become a certified English teacher for junior or senior high school students. I have wanted to be an English teacher ever since I graduated from college four years ago. Even after graduation, I visited the school almost every week and voluntarily took part in two classes. This social interaction deepened my confidence to communicate in English. In addition, I helped my college juniors to practice for a rakugo performance in English. Rakugo is a traditional Japanese style of storytelling. When students recited their stories, I tried to make them feel excited about public speaking so that they would not lose their motivation.
I hoped that the opportunity to be a TA would make my life brighter. I trained for my position by reading about active learning (AL), and by taking part in role-plays with classmates at graduate school. To motivate the students and allow them to take part in the class, I was informed through my readings that AL could be useful. According to a Nikkei Shimbun (as cited in Iron Will English, 2022) report on the current reality of education in Japan, the linguist, Shirai Yasuhiro claimed, “English education in Japan has an overwhelmingly small amount of input.” He meant that it is important for learners to have access to large amounts of comprehensible listening and reading materials. Students in Japan have few opportunities to express and describe themselves fully, so students tend toward introversion. Perhaps students need to dig deeply into whatever learning resources are available and deepen their interest in a particular topic rather than simply skim it. Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (n.d.) defines AL as:
an approach to instruction that involves actively engaging students with the course material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, role plays and other methods. Active Learning approaches place a greater degree of responsibility on the learner than passive approaches such as lectures. Active Learning activities help promote higher order thinking skills such as application of knowledge, analysis, and synthesis. Active learning activities engage students in deep rather than surface learning, and enable students to apply and transfer knowledge better.
In my graduate school classes I learned that AL is based on the theory of constructivism, which emphasizes that learners construct or build their understanding. Social constructivism suggests that learning happens primarily through social interaction with others, such as a teacher or a learner’s peers. Jean Piaget (1896–1980), a psychologist and founder of constructivism, researched the cognitive development of children, observing that their knowledge was individually built up, bit by bit. In the process of making meaning, children replace or adapt their existing knowledge and understanding with deeper levels of understanding. Learning happens as knowledge moves from short- to long-term memory. University of Minnesota (n.d.) claimed the outcomes of AL include: “The benefits of using such activities are many, including improved critical thinking skills, increased retention and transfer of new information, increased motivation, improved interpersonal skills, and decreased course failure.” Research by Owens et al. (2017) revealed a mutual influence between active learning and emotional states. AL affects student motivation positively. In turn, the overall impact of motivation moderates key learning characteristics, such as attention and memory consolidation.
Once I had deeply studied theories connected to AL, I helped my graduate studies professor of English teach his first class for first-year non-majors. At the beginning of the class, he showed a ten-minute scene from Dead Poets Society (1989). In the film, the English teacher Mr. Keating, who was played by Robin Williams, took his students to see photographs of their seniors and read out the poem, To the Virgins to Make a Much of Time by Robert Herrick (1648). My professor performed in the same way in this class. Due to the large number of students, he assigned them to two groups. I led 22 students to a flower garden on campus, where I recited Herrick’s poem (see Figure 1). Then I guided the group to a mural. I performed the same way that Mr. Keating did in the movie. I asked each student to put their ears to the painting, and then I whispered, “Carpe diem, carpe diem.” When I spoke to the painting, my students were intrigued, though they seemed confused and did not appear to understand why I was whispering at the painting (see Figure 2). One female student said later, “I was nervous.” Some of the students looked like they were embarrassed to follow my instructions to look at the faces of their alumni on the mural, but most students wrote positive comments in their daily journals. For example, another female student wrote, “The teacher was really friendly, and I enjoyed taking the first class.” Another female student said, “I had a good time.” One male student claimed, “It was my first class, but I was relieved that there was no difficult English. I want to do my best and enjoy English.” One female student admitted, “It was my first class. It was difficult but a lot of fun. I would like to do my best next time.” I realized that most Japanese students were shy, and this behavior affected their actions in the class.
From the outset of a lesson, it is important to inform students of the learning purpose and meaning. The course of study for junior and senior high schools clearly stipulates that English learning should have learning objectives and incorporate the students’ intentions into the learning activities. According to Inagaki and Hatano (1989), “when people feel a real need and have a purpose, they are naturally willing to study. Therefore, if you can present the purpose of learning at school and make students feel the necessity, they will naturally be motivated to learn” (p. 41).
I observed firsthand from my teaching practice that if there is necessity and intellectual curiosity, people will naturally learn. The most important strategy to motivate students is to show them ways to constantly take part in every class, whether it is reciting a poem, performing rakugo or reenacting a dramatic film scene. AL encouraged the students I encountered in my classrooms and provided them with an opportunity to talk about themselves. I feel closer to achieving my dream of becoming an English teacher. In the future when I teach foreign languages as a professional, I would like to emphasize the importance of setting goals and incorporating AL to create inspirational lessons for all my students.
References
Herrick, R. (1648). To the virgins, to make much of time. Hesperedes.
Inagaki, K., & Hatano, G. (1989). Hito wa ikani manabunoka: Nichijyōteki ninchi no sekai. [How people learn: The world of everyday cognition], Chūkoshinsho.
Iron Will English. (2022, January 29). Nihon no eigoryoku wa sekai kara okure? Nikkei Shimbun [Is Japan’s English language level low? Nikkei Shimbun] https://ironwill-japan.com/english-lowering-nikkei/
Owens, C., Sadler, D., Barlow, T., & Smith-Walters, C. (2017). Student motivation from and resistance to active learning rooted in essential science practices. Research in Science Education, 50(1), 253–277. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-017-9688-1
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (n.d.) What is active learning? Active Learning. https://www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/active/04_what_is_act...
University of Minnesota. (n.d.). Why use active learning? Center for Educational Innovation. https://cei.umn.edu/teaching-resources/active-learning/why-use-active-le...
Weir, P. (Director). (1989). Dead poet’s society [film]. Touchstone Pictures.