ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Jennifer Bassett

Kumiko Torikai

Curtis Kelly

Chuck Sandy

Marc Helgesen

Panelists: Jennifer | Kumiko | Curtis | Chuck | Marc
Date: November 2005

Topic: "Sharing Our Stories"

This Think Tank is a follow up to that of September 2005 and the subsequent Think Tank Live event at the JALT2005 National Conference.

Kumiko Torikai

It was the first day of the new semester in 1997. I introduced myself to a first year English class in the economics department, and started to call roll. The list of names I was given from the office was all written in Kanji and in the Japanese way, with family name first. I started to call each name, without thinking, in the usual English way, first name first and family name last, reversing the Japanese order. Everybody answered in English, either “Yes” or “Present, ” until I called the name of one student. Let’s say his name was Masao Suzuki. I called out loudly, “Masao Suzuki,” expecting a “Yes”. However, there was no answer. I called again, a little louder, “Masao Suzuki.” Nobody answered. So I said, “Hummm…Masao seems to be absent…,” and started to mark him absent, when suddenly a young male voice cried out. “My name is Suzuki Masao. My name is NOT Masao Suzuki.” I looked toward the voice and saw a serious face glaring at me. He added, “My parents gave me the name. They named me Suzuki Masao, not the other way around.” To be honest, I was a little taken aback, and I pondered a second. Then I said, “I see. For some reason, I’ve always done this in English classes…but come to think of it, there is really no reason why we have to do it.” Then I asked other students what they thought of this. Deadly silence… Everybody looked terrified. It was the first class and they had no way of knowing how I might react to this. Some of them might have thought I would get angry. I could feel their tension. So I decided to throw away the lesson plan I had prepared and said, “OK. Why don’t we discuss this, because it is an important issue. Feel free to say anything. I am just curious to know what everybody thinks about how Japanese names should be addressed. Discussion time!”

“In 2000, the Council on the National Language proposed that Japanese people keep their names as they are even when they speak English.”

I divided the class into three groups, and after some time, had them report back to the class what they thought. The result was illuminating. One group thought it was all right to call Japanese names in an English way, reversing the order, in an English class, because after all we are learning English. The second group agreed that even in English classes, we don’t have to reverse the order of our names, because Chinese or Koreans keep their way, with family name first. The third group was so divided that they were not able to reach any consensus.

It is interesting to add that a few years later in 2000, the Council on the National Language (Kokugo Shingikai) proposed that Japanese people keep their names as they are even when they speak English. Following this proposal, the media reported the history of English way of calling Japanese names. Apparently, it was during the Rokumeikan Period in Meiji, when people went overboard to imitate the West, believing everything Western was modern, that people started to reverse the order of their names, including the then Foreign Minister in signing diplomatic documents.

Until 1997, I never had any student demanding to be called the Japanese way. As a matter of fact, both teachers and students took it for granted that the Japanese names be reversed to accommodate the English custom, and some students were even happy to be given English nicknames, such as Jim or Mary. However, I feel that perhaps the year 1997 was sort of a turning point, and we have started to have more Masaos. It is my belief that Suzuki Masao, who refused to be called Masao Suzuki, was, in his own peculiar way, struggling to search for his identity. And it seems to me that students in Japan, as well as in other countries, are becoming more and more aware of their identity, if not totally conscious of it themselves. As scholars such as Bonnie Norton, Jim Cummins and Claire Kramsch point out, we cannot teach a foreign language without taking into consideration the students’ identity.

Names are not just names. They represent the students’ identity, their ideology, their perception of the ‘self’, their inner thoughts, emotions and sometimes, their pride.

So, how are you going to call your students?

Panelists: Jennifer | Kumiko | Curtis | Chuck | Marc

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Kumiko Torikai, Rikkyo Graduate School of Intercultural Communication

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