So, I'd like to demonstrate 3 major problems we have in teaching overseas, which will make you understand how unique is the way Japanese volunteers have lived in.
1. Don't speak like a machine gun. I can't reply so fast.
I wonder why teenagers speak like that. Everybody starts talking like artillery at the same time. That makes me astounded and paralyzed momentarily, which finally even makes the atmosphere messier than before starting the talk.
All of typical Japanese people haven't got accustomed to talk like this due to an inappropriate English education. When I was in a junior high school, I didn't have any conversational class in English. Instead of it, we experienced tons of grammatical instructions. Can you imagine them? Before experiencing genuine language, they squeezed too-trivial-knowledge into our mind in a correct-or-incorrect way. Who could get know how to speak English through such an education!?
Surely, sometimes you can see Japanese who can fluently speak in English. However, some of them luckily had an education in private school which has a high quality of learning resources or had an opportunity to study in a foreign county. Others must be the eager learners who have kept training by themselves for a long time.
2. Write down even your name clearly.
I asked the students to take a pretest in order to measure their current understanding of environmental issues and register their names and grades etc. into an Excel worksheet. The most surprising thing was that their way of writing had been messy and impossible to read!! (By the way, I get surprised with their behaviors anytime I visit the classes.)
Of course, even in Japan, you can see messy letters written by students. But, at least through the educational system, we've learnt we should write down your name clearly, not scrawling. In addition, particularly in an elementary school, we basically have a class of calligraphy which, of course, is compulsory to take. That's why we always try to write a document crystal-clearly even with handwriting.
Should I regard it as diversity? Well, so, is it okay if I comprehend your name diversely?
3. Study mathematics harder.
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| Aren't you pretending to think seriously? |
I know well how my English is so poor and hard to understand though, why can't you calculate a decimal number and 10 in less than 1 minute!? Since I heard that math education in primary level is not good in FSM, I somehow made tasks easy to calculate FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. In the result of my struggle, they were hardly able to understand those equations. This fact forced me to realize that some of the activities would be difficult for them, but I don't have enough time to teach them math and skill to do so.
I was not a good learner especially in math, even now though. Such a silly student could do mental calculation quickly in a class and almost all the students could do the same thing on that period. This is one of the biggest effects in the public education system in Japan. In other words, the bottom line in quality of the education is quite high in comparison with FSM. I'm not sure if the Chuukese people recognize this problem or not.
Therefore, I would like them to study math harder than ever. Or your possibilities would be restricted by the immature calculation skill.
Well, here were the 3 major problems Japanese volunteers face in developing countries. I was writing these points as if I'm blaming the students though, viewing from the opposite site, these aspects could be really interesting. Since I have only six months left, I should tackle with these problems sincerely.
↓Here's the link to JOCV blogs. You may find ones written in English. (I haven't seen though.)
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