|
Post by Otaku on Jun 10, 2008 13:02:18 GMT 8
Has anyone ever taken a look in the teacher's English textbooks? They are full of blue arrows that go up/down and are overlaid over the span of complete, and sometimes incomplete, sentences. I guess this is signal when the voice is supposed to drop and rise. However, people voices drop/rise based upon the individual and the country they are from.
I'm not a big fan of these blue up/down lines.
Thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by jed on Jun 10, 2008 15:14:56 GMT 8
yes, and the Good Lord help you if your natural intonation differs to the JTE Teachers book
LOL
|
|
|
Post by rollypop on Jun 16, 2008 14:50:28 GMT 8
Yeah, it`s another accent issue...they`re basically true for a certain accent. There are well-respected Japanese texts (ie, for English-speakers to learn Japanese) that use them, too. They`re not necessarily a bad thing, but they have to be intelligently used, like anything -- if you don`t want a Tokyo accent, tough.
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on Jun 16, 2008 18:33:58 GMT 8
I can understand intonation arrows for learning Chinese where going up or down might change a meaning, but I don't know why you would need to have up/down arrows to learn Japanese. ‚ A‚¢A‚¤A‚¦A‚¨... always says ‚ A‚¢A‚¤A‚¦A‚¨. Can you explain why there would be these arrows in Japanese learning textbooks? There were none in my Japanese textbooks in college.
Back to English, I do think going up and down when speaking might ENHANCE an English conversation but how many JHS students can hold a real English conversation outside the standard question/answer format?
I'm still not convinced the arrows are needed. Not only are they in the books, I've seen teachers draw the lines over the sentences on the chalkboard when teaching.
I don't think these arrows have anything to do with accents. I think they are a feeble attempt to sound more native. But, what is native? Is it ending a question sentence with an upward intonation or is it ridding the teachers of the Japanese katakana-English sounds? Personally, I think all of these problems could be solved if there were more English used in the classroom.
Any of us that have taken any formal foreign language courses know we are only as good as our teachers. Katakana-English speaking teachers produce katakana-speaking students and the up/down arrows, in my opinion, do little to nothing to make the students sound more native.
|
|
|
Post by rollypop on Jun 17, 2008 13:09:04 GMT 8
What Japanese textbook did you use in college?
Japanese _does_ use pitches, like Chinese, but mostly just for accent. Eg, "ame" on a rising tone means candy, and on a falling tone means "rain". Go to Kansai and it switches.
In English, sentences may become questions when the pitch is changed, especially at the end of the sentence. My guess is the textbook is trying its best to help teachers who may not have access to an ALT to simulate this effect. Again...I don`t think it`s necessarily a bad thing, especially if used with some education. I have one JTE who can understand the tone marks and it definitely has a positive effect on her pronnunciation.
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on Jun 17, 2008 14:08:52 GMT 8
Man, I can't remember the name of the textbook I used in college....it was brown and purple in color. Does that help? The last Japanese college class I took was about 10 years ago. I not TOTALLY against the arrows, I just not convinced they are needed. Looking at a teacher's edition of the textbooks, they are messy enough without these arrows. I also gotta wonder why they are put in the teacher's edition but not the students? Is it to fool the students into thinking the teacher is better at English than they really are? Also, with the amount of information they put in the teacher's edition, I'm almost convinced a non-English speaking Japanese person could teach almost, if not better, than some JTEs I've worked with.
|
|
|
Post by duzzah on Jun 25, 2008 15:49:55 GMT 8
First, hi! I've been lurking quite a while and am just finishing up my year teaching out here. Next year I'll be working in public schools in Seoul (my fiancee is over there... that's as good a reason as any to move). Both my fiancee and I have TESOL backgrounds and I'm eventually hoping to get my doctorate (probably about 4 years off), while she's content with her MaTESOL for now.
As far as the inflections up and down--they are in the language, but the little arros in the books can't portray them very well. We actually have spoken grammars that depend on the raising and loering of tones. One of the most obvious examples is the rising intonation at the end of a question (Japanese actually does the same if you drop the 'ka' but still ask the question).
... The thing is, these jump at different levels, and not just in regard to the previous or following tones. So working on a scale of up or down compared to the previous syllable will not amount to much hen there's a span closer to a musical scale and the tone can jump any number of levels at once. That being said, this part of spoken grammar is probably best learned through experience and exposure to the language, not through a set of arrows feebly attempting to show the concept explicitly.
These tonal jumps are in part how e can change meaning without changing the order of words. This is also a reason why students need to practice speaking, because just because you can rite something doesn't mean you can say it with any particular implied meaning.
For example, you might be able to say, "I wanted to go to Osaka," and depending on the rhythym and tonal jumps it could mean different things.
e.g. I wanted to go to Osaka--normal tone, normal meaning. I WANTed to go to Osaka--but I couldn't/didn't. I wanTED to go to Osaka--however, I don't anymore. *I* wanted to go to Osaka--as opposed to someone else (maybe someone else go to go) I wanted to GO to Osaka--as opposed to... seeing pictures of it? I wanted to go TO Osaka--as opposed to away from it? This structure works better in other sentences, probably. I wanted to go to OSAKA--as opposed to somewhere else.
So e can see tat tone and rhythym can include other implicit information and ultimately change the meaning of the sentences. Now I will bet ya $20 that the JTE textbooks only have one shape for each sentence (neverminding that the arrows are ultimate FAIL, anyway), or maybe two if they want to show how to make a casual question. In reality, though, the tones used can reflect each particular situation.
So besides some subtle changes due to pronunciation differences, I really don't think your tone varies that much from say, mine. However, the support materials here are only ritten to ever really support one tone, and many JTEs seen anything other than that single tonal pattern for a sentence as wrong. In many cases, we use certain sentences primarily in a particluar context which often promts us to say the sentence in the common tone where a JTEs book (besides arrow failure, again) only accounts for a base meaning (or what might be scarier, is that it could select any random one of the correct tones and you could never predict what's going to come).
So anyway, that's my take on the whole situation. The tone and rhythym structure is an important part of the language and serves as a spoken grammar. The arro system in the JTE books, however, fails horribly at trying to illustrate this, and the nuances are probably best picked up through extended exposure to the language and practice. Before then it's just a battle to try and keep them from producing anything TOO horrible and fossilizing mistakes that will haunt them later.
~Curtis
|
|
|
Post by Otaku on Jun 27, 2008 8:14:40 GMT 8
First Duzzah, welcome to the forums! I'm glad you joined in on various discussions. Sometimes I wonder if people surfing through are offended because a lot of the discussions here are usually pretty straight forward and not sugar-coated. However, I believe most of our discussions are logic based and fruitful. BTW, nice first post!
Anyways, I understand what you were saying about tone inflections and rising on a question, however, I think that changes based upon the country from where the person is from and the individual person. Take the following question as an example:
"Do you want to go to the movies?"
I'm from the northern midwest from the states. I would end that question with my voice going up. However, a lot of my British friends, would end that question with their voice going down. It's times like this I wish I could insert a voiced sample into this thread.
Anyways, I think you hit the up/down arrows issue on the head when you said "best picked up through extended exposure to the language and practice." I think with enough exposure and practice, students can choose a speaking style which best suits their own speaking style.
|
|