ESL Learning by Japanese School Children

The sources of the Japanese social mold

Japan is a naturally poor country, where nearly 130 million people are crowded along a strip of land on the Eastern border of a couple of islands. The Japanese, one of the most homogeneous societies in the world, have found it necessary to band together in a few liveable areas for sheer survival against the rugged mountains and snowfalls, the frequent devastating earthquakes, the destructive typhoons and their consequent landslides and perennial floodings.

"Without local grassroot cooperative efforts, the society could not have endured" (Duke, 1986, p. 42). Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that "a strong consensus has always bound the Japanese through their history, probably as a result of the insularity and of the struggles they have had to face in order to attain a minimum of creature comforts which are constantly menaced by calamities whose latest mishap could be an economic recession" (Leclercq, 1984, p. 97).

During the feudal Middle Ages, group loyalty became institutionalized under the pervasive influence of Confucianism. Moreover, the shogun and samurai social organization demanded strict loyalty--the price for being allowed to live and be fed. The first and most immediate social group, however, had been and has continued to be the family. The next group owed loyalty had been and continues to be the working-unit

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predominant trait of the Japanese child and adult is loyalty to the group. As Duke (1986) notes, "It is the stuff of 'being Japanese'" (p.25). Loyalty starts in the family. What brings glory or shame on one member of the family reflects on the other members. It goes on and is behaviorally and organizationally instilled at school. Each class (kumi) consists of 40 to 45 first graders in one class assigned to one teacher, often for a two-year period. "Belonging is the sine qua non of Japanese society" (Duke, 1986, p. 27). The Japanese is often ill at ease when confronting a situation alone. The child learns his place, his relative permanence, his security, and the sanctity as well as the restrictiveness of belonging to a group through the kumi. Kumis, in turn, are divided into smaller groups, the hans, which remain intact for prolonged periods for specific purposes, and are headed by their respective han-chos, the elected group leaders. The han-cho leads through consensus rather than through autocratic imposition. Humility is cherished, if only because, as an old Japanese saying goes, "The nail that sticks out gets knocked down." The leader's prime responsibility is to harmonize group attitudes: han and kumi decisions must be made th
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1942
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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