21 white American teachers of English (conversation) in Japan
Description
This article is from the Japanese FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu and Olaf Meeuwissen olaf@IMSL.shinshu-u.ac.jp with numerous contributions by others.
21 white American teachers of English (conversation) in Japan
the most important work on the topic has been Charles Douglas
Lummis's essay available in English and Japanese: "ideologie
tositeno eikaiwa" (English conversation as an ideology).
the main point of this essay is that teaching of English
(conversation) in Japan is filled with American racism.
i read the suggestion that Japanese schools should not hire
narrow-minded white Americans as English teachers, but instead
should consider hiring open-minded non-whites or non-Americans:
Singaporeans, Kenyans, ....
i read this suggestion in at least two books, one of them (i
think) was entitled "eigo sihai e no iron".
recently i saw two good illustrations of this suggestion.
1. some English teacher quoted from his Japanese student's
homework without the student's permission solely to
ridicule his/her English.
see also:
http://freespace.virgin.net/r.barnett/jappics/student.html
2. another English teacher rambled on, making inane
claims in snobbish, pseudo-academic language.
summary:
Japanese universities hire foreign English teachers for
helping Japanese students learn (international) communication.
hiring narrow-minded white Americans as English teachers
goes against this goal, as they
1. ridicule Japanese students ; and
2. rather than communicate clearly, confound and
confuse using pseudo-academese.
Continue to:
My Books
