|
Post by regi2 on Apr 24, 2008 7:52:42 GMT 8
Blood boiling, and I was reminded as to why I am departing soon...
At one of my sho schools, a teacher persistantly write up katana for anything we do. And I mean anything; its a 4th grade class and she still writes the katana sounds representing apple. For goodness sake. Apart from talking to her about the reason katana and English are two sperate entities (tried that); erasing it AS she is writing it and taking some deep breaths, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to combat this growing epidemic in schools here? Alternatively, any JTL's, any valid reasons why it is used?
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on Apr 24, 2008 8:28:38 GMT 8
The reasoning (if you can call it that) for JTEs to use katakana is...you ready for this?....it won't come as a surprise....so the kids can read the words. Before your head explodes and mind-numbing anethesia fluid flies everywhere, try to remember that the average English teacher teaching in JHS doesn't know crap about anything outside of 'we-are-english-borgs-who-stopped-questioning-the-quality-of-english-garage-spewed-from-the-government-english-textbooks'. You can't blame it on the JTEs for trusting the crap textbooks because most of them have never lived outside Japan for more than a couple of months. Coupled with a society that is never taught to question authority/policies, the average JTE teaches based upon their senpai of the English teacher before them, which most likely also used superscripted katakana for lower-level English students and then trickled down into the regular English classes, until at some point in Japan's English classrooms, katakana was acceptable as the superscripted pronunciation for English words...despite the inability for katakana to produce accurate English sounds.
To answer your question about your ES teacher writing katakana on the chalkboard, do you think you may have chosen 'Japanese methods' of trying to solve your problems up to this point? By 'Japanese methods', I'm suggesting the ways you explained above sound like passive aggressive solutions rather than simply telling the teacher not to write katakana in your ENGLISH classes. I would simply tell her katakana was created to help Japanese people in their everyday society have the ability to SOUND OUT foreign words coming into Japan but it does absolutely NOTHING to help a student in English class READ THE ENGLISH WORD. I think katakana and the IPA alpahabet are quite similar in these ways; while having both of them are good reading practice of the IPA and katakana symbols, they are both crutches that do nothing to help the student read the English word proper.
Another suggestion is maybe staying away from anything that requires writing on the chalkboard.
|
|
|
Post by jed on Apr 25, 2008 12:52:06 GMT 8
good advice but in my experience they don't listen to ALTs too much for sure its worth a chance, try them but don't lose any sweat if they don't change. We (ALTs) don't register in the pecking order hhhmmmm?
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on Apr 25, 2008 13:25:21 GMT 8
Hell, if a elementary school homeroom teacher doesn't listen to anything the ALT says, despite the ALT usually operating in the 'primary teacher' role, I think there is a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
|
|
|
Post by jed on May 15, 2008 16:01:56 GMT 8
yes, you are right, there is indeed a bigger problem that needs to be addressed
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on May 16, 2008 9:47:44 GMT 8
Another idea for the teacher to passively get the clue is to do a katakana vs. English lesson. There's a game on the site for elementary school called Clap the Halls with Katakana. This activity is meant for Christmas but the idea behind it could be changed and used for any class. It tries to show the difference between the two by counting the sylabbles in English words and their katakana counterpart. I'm doing a Phonics seminar next week for ES school teachers and I'm thinking of doing this type of activity to show them katakana is not a superscripted-pronunciation alphabet.
|
|