Material Thoughts

An in depth look at the educational materials we take into our classes

Here’s a question for you. Don’t think about the answer; just give your immediate response. Who produces textbooks that have more opportunities for communicative language practice; western or Japanese publishers? I suppose that many chose western publishers. I hope also that many more would have reactively balked at the question; we have come a long way from simply categorising activities as communicative or not, and with the very term communicative highly malleable anyway, answering the question may have been for some frustrating. Yet at some level, my question is not so absurd. However we define communicative in our own minds, there is a typical cry that locally-produced (LP) textbooks are rooted in grammar-translation and western-produced (WP) ones are based on some kind of communicative methodology. A brief look through LP texts will show immediately that this is patently not true.

I will offer two apparently conflicting rationalisations for a seeming cultural divide in how LP textbooks and WP textbooks view communicative activities. One will suggest that there are no actual differences and the other advocates that there are differences and that the differences lie in how the textbooks are used in the classroom.

The ‘no-difference’ argument
Taking representative 28 textbooks aimed at the university market for lower-level learners of English, 14 each of WP and LP, I found that the average number of activities per unit was just over 15 for WP and 11 for LP. The number of activities that were designated as pair, group or other communicative-style was as a ratio to the total 0.31 for WP and 0.20 for LP textbooks. A statistical test showed that this difference was not significant. In other words, there was a slight difference in absolute numbers but nothing to shout home about in the number of communicative-style activities in WP textbooks.

Some of you are crying, “Hey, that can’t be right.” There are many ways of defining communicative, and I used Littlejohn’s. Andrew Littlejohn produced a lovely taxonomy of textbook activities that labelled them according to whether or not they were ‘student-to-book’, ‘student-to-teacher’, or ‘student-to-student’. If a textbook rubric directs students to ‘read’, ‘write’, ‘tick’ or whatever, these are ‘student-to-book’ activities and I do not count them as directly communicative. If students are asked to ‘tell a classmate’, that is. When seen in this light, very few student actions are really communicative. And I am being generous. A hard-line attitude takes the view that no teacher/ textbook directed action is truly communicative. This minefield will be traversed in a later blog.

The ‘difference’ argument
Teacher authority
If you’ve ever experienced a sense of lack of respect from your students even though you’re trying your level best to provide an environment where learning can develop, try this: give up ten minutes of your communicative activities for a mini-lecture on some cultural aspect of the lesson, some more detailed grammar explanation beyond the immediate need of the class but obviously connected, some involved linguistic analysis of the text in question. Just ten minutes. And if you can do it in Japanese, all the better. You might feel a charlatan, delivering useless information beyond the heads of the students. Then watch the respect level rising. You’ll see pens and notepads come out for half the group; heads down for the other half. Some students will take on intense serious expressions; others will look bored. In other words, you’ll be entering the world of a typical lecture scenario utterly familiar to Japanese students, and they will subconsciously enter their default study mode in response. And they will see you as a teacher.

Incidentally, this dichotomy is institutionalised. Even though many of us are ‘lecturers’, our English classes are ‘jisshu’/ ‘practical training’ and students are awarded 2 credits. Lectures, or ‘kougi’, get 4. Of course, ‘jisshu’ given by native speakers of Japanese teaching English also get 2.

LP textbooks look thin having far fewer activities per unit than their NLP counterparts. But what they offer is a platform for being ‘teacherly’. Without needing rubrics to tell teachers to translate or students to expect translation, the text will find itself miraculously in the L1. Without much, or any, cultural explanations students will suddenly hear stories of the related culture – remember that professors will have chosen books they can explain. Without any detailed grammar point printed in the pages, the blackboard will be full of structures and explanations. What appears to be a terribly thin textbook contains the seed for teacher-centred rich class environment full of linguistic and cultural information.

Japanese teachers know that students expect the whole textbook to be covered. They also realise the practicality of an ‘only one correct answer’ educational culture. Having a slim volume in hand and giving students full explanations in their mother tongue is a recipe for satisfaction (if not language learning!) It is worth bearing in mind that LP textbooks are written by those who have succeeded in learning English. Many honestly believe that the grammar translation + cultural explanation approach works because it gave them the necessary background to pursue their interest in English.

The ‘difference’ argument, then, centres on how the textbooks are used not on what activities they contain – at least as far as the communicative potential is concerned. What this shows us is a route into understanding the deeper educational culture behind the conception of (so far just one aspect of) WP and LP textbooks. When we prepare materials or select textbooks for our classes we might usefully think about these cultures more concretely.

References
Littlejohn, A. (1998). ‘The analysis of language teaching materials: Inside the Trojan Horse’, in Tomlinson, B. (ed.), Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.

Smiley, J. & M. Masui. (2008). ‘Materials Used in Japan’, in Tomlinson, B. (ed.), English Language Learning Materials: A Critical Review. London: Continuum.

Notes
1. By 'LP', the strong presumption in this article is that these textbooks are written by native speakers of Japanese. This generalisation will be looked at in a future entry.
2. Another presumption here is that the readership mainly comprises foreign nationals. I'd love to know the exact breakdown.
3. For those who know of my personal illness, many thanks for your kind support.

Writing a Japan-based ELT blog on materials should prove interesting. All knowledge in language studies, education, language acquisition, linguistics and so on that impacts on classroom pedagogy is, arguably, relevant to materials and, as such, fair game for inclusion and comment here. This disclaimer aims to displace any residing myth that discussions about materials equals discussions about publishing. Inevitably though, published materials will be a core content element in this blog. In coursebooks we can see how governmental language policies, trends in teaching, innovations in second language acquisition are implemented or not – all framed by the unique position materials have in Japan.

Materials in Japan cannot be characterised simply by the output of the big international publishers. Rather, given Japan’s relative economic power, the various market segments here produce incredibly varied materials in ways that most other Asian countries cannot. The result is a vast plethora of various texts occupying numerous markets reflecting multitudes of beliefs about language learning, socio-political issues as they affect language policy, teaching and so on held by Japan’s many tens of thousand native speakers of English and non-native speaker English teachers.

The situation here is culturally fascinating, and the often myopic view of some western observers on Japan offers an interesting and potentially flammatory counterpoint to the content found in locally-produced texts. Arguments for change – read: the adoption of western texts with according styles of learning, teaching and purpose – are found not only in English-language academic journals and magazines, but also more subtley in internationally-produced coursebooks and by their persuasive authors presenting to mainly western audiences.

‘Change’ was the 2008 Japan word of the year. Also bandied about by various political figures worldwide, ‘change’ is in danger of being misunderstood as it applies to the tatemae/ honne culture here. Slogans are empty, and the promise of change without pre-defined action is meaningless. Change in language pedagogy argued for from abroad risks being marginalised, and public claims by Japanese nationally for change may or may not be tatemae or an empty slogan.

Certainly however Think Tank columnist and materials writer virtuoso Marc Helgesen decries ‘cookie-cutter’ texts from all, most market segments in Japan are still overrun with prescription-copy materials. When prolific author Miles Craven asked attendees at the JALT Materials Writers SIG’s workshop on materials that work in Japan, the unanimous number one feature absolutely required in Japanese textbooks was activities that can be completed with discrete and unambiguous responses. Writing support materials for a Cengage Voice of America listening text, author Gerald Muirhead’s request to include open-ended discussion questions was rejected. On the other hand, much local produce recognises the power of translation and uses bilingual techniques throughout. Some texts even have no English support in the rubrics or activities for a western teacher who knows no Japanese rendering the book unusable for them. The grammar translation system may be a bane to western teachers trying to help students achieve communication fluency, but Japanese expert speakers of English have defended that system as their own route into mastery of English. Textbooks that mirror their method of learning, therefore, become ideal for them and by extension their classes.

Whole hosts of examples may be related that all point to a clear divide between what may be termed western beliefs about education and Japanese ones, with the very strong caveat that all generalisations are wrong.

Over the course of this blog, I hope to expand on these topics and more. The generalisations need to be explored and myths exploded. Japan is a wonderful country that I’ve called home for 12 years now. Teaching, writing and researching in Japan provide questions and avenues for thought unique in the world, and no where can those be seen more clearly than in the pedagogic materials it produces.

Yoroshiku!

• A Communicative Divide
• Scope and Sequence

• A Communicative Divide
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• Scope and Sequence
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