Post by Otaku on Nov 5, 2007 9:03:47 GMT 8
Ahhh, the passive voice. Ever since I was a junior high school student, I was always being told not to write using the passive voice.
Speaking in the passive voice when using Japanese is acceptable, but just like manners, acceptable grammar changes based upon culture. While Microsoft Word is not the Bible of English grammar, it even points out passive sentences and suggests we change them. Most of our scholastic lives we are told not to use this type of grammar. Japan's JHS students have a hard enough time maintaining any type of basic English conversation. Why should this grammar point be taught at such an early stage of language acquistion learning?
Craig Allender, an ALT in the Sendai area, had this to say about the passive voice:
"Confusion, passive confusion. A pointless grammar point, why study the passive voice when the simpler voice is barely understood by many students? The only practical use of this grammar would be when describing an action performed by a great many people, i.e it is sung all over Japan. For students who struggle to express what their friend or even what they did the previous day, this is futile. Therefore, I aim to get the students through it and to show the more intelligent students that there is more than one way to express the same thing. As with most lessons my main aim is to reduce the students' 'affective filter'.
The affective filter is an imaginary wall that is placed between a learner and language input. If the filter is high, the learner is blocking input. The filter turns up when anxiety is high, self-esteem is low, or motivation is low. Hence, low anxiety classes are better for language acquisition. 'Hard' work can still have a low affective filter."
I buy his logical reasoning...how about you?
Speaking in the passive voice when using Japanese is acceptable, but just like manners, acceptable grammar changes based upon culture. While Microsoft Word is not the Bible of English grammar, it even points out passive sentences and suggests we change them. Most of our scholastic lives we are told not to use this type of grammar. Japan's JHS students have a hard enough time maintaining any type of basic English conversation. Why should this grammar point be taught at such an early stage of language acquistion learning?
Craig Allender, an ALT in the Sendai area, had this to say about the passive voice:
"Confusion, passive confusion. A pointless grammar point, why study the passive voice when the simpler voice is barely understood by many students? The only practical use of this grammar would be when describing an action performed by a great many people, i.e it is sung all over Japan. For students who struggle to express what their friend or even what they did the previous day, this is futile. Therefore, I aim to get the students through it and to show the more intelligent students that there is more than one way to express the same thing. As with most lessons my main aim is to reduce the students' 'affective filter'.
The affective filter is an imaginary wall that is placed between a learner and language input. If the filter is high, the learner is blocking input. The filter turns up when anxiety is high, self-esteem is low, or motivation is low. Hence, low anxiety classes are better for language acquisition. 'Hard' work can still have a low affective filter."
I buy his logical reasoning...how about you?