Japanese ESL Learners A CRITICAL EVALUATION

A CRITICAL EVALUATION FOR YOUNG JAPANESE ESL LEARNERS

Until recently, Japanese education was essentially patterned on the classical European approach. Classical or traditional European education has now given way to modern education in most of Europe. It was elitist and non-utilitarian. Its major preoccupations were to develop certain intellectual disciplines and to acculturate to the national ethos. Thus, a French or German secondary school boy or girl knew the complexities of French and German grammar, could translate the language of Goethe into that of Racine--or vice versa, knew the laws of physics and chemistry, could handle calculus, and could recite the names and dates of enthronement and decapitation of kings over the centuries. What those children could not do was to converse in a foreign language, readily adapt to other cultures, explore the unknown, survive in the world of work, be creative, enjoy life. Methodologically, they were the victims of brain-washing techniques, also known as rote-memorization and learning of facts and data; they were not acquiring concepts and encyclopedism (paradoxically, a product of French intellectualism).

The Japanese, excellent emulators, crammed their children's head with data while failing to develop broad-minded universal explorers and creators. World War II was a turning point in this insular, narrow-minded, uncreative attitude. Suddenly, Japan was no longer an isolated string of seismic barren isl

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proach to second or foreign language learning. TRP's focus is on moving the entire body in response to commands. The method has met with much success, particularly in such countries as the U.S.A. and Sweden. Nakata believes that the brain's right hemisphere is responsible for body movement, and that TPR exploits this faculty. Since children normally use their whole body in play and conversation, and--if allowed--in more conventional forms of learning, it makes sense to believe, and experience has shown, that stressing body movement is essential to a child's learning. Nakata, thus, adopts Asher's method. Yet, she diverges from it, as she is of the opinion that it fails to exploit the brain's left hemisphere and its ability to process speech. Therefore, her MAT adds TALK to the TPR approach. She finds that children are eager to talk--however rudimentarily--and readily combine body movement with speech expression. She claims great success in having children understand and speak English in a very short time--with high retention as well as acquisition rates. To Nakata, children are malleable, eager to learn. They learn faster than adults do. This is not a view shared by all teachers and psycholinguists. Mitsue M. Tamai (1991) is an

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