The ten Peace Fellows this year at ICU (more on them later)

Rotary both funds and designs a special Japanese course just for Peace Fellows.  Though we will have the option to take more academic Japanese classes during the academic year, this first month of intensive language study has the goal of being able to communicate and get around in daily life.  In other words, we're just focusing on speaking Japanese and not on writing or reading yet.  Personally, I am absolutely loving Japanese class every day not only because it's interesting to learn a new language but also because it's fascinating to witness a completely different teaching style.
We have class every day from 9:30-3:30 with a break in the middle for lunch and then are expected to do a bit of homework on our own every evening.  We have two teachers and they are all business.  On the first day, the first things they said to us (about five separate times) were "don't be late" and "study a lot because there is much to learn."

One of our teachers, Shimoyama-sensei

The language teaching style is quite unlike anything I've ever seen before.  Don't be fooled in thinking that the class consists of five hours of games and interactive activities, rather it's five hours of intense memorization, dictation, question and answer and choral repetition.  We don't do hardly any partner or group work and rarely get out of our chairs unless we're reciting something individually or bowing. There is a lot of pressure and stress in the class especially because there is never any real context for the lessons which teach very different grammar and vocabulary and follow one right after another.  Everyone panics when the teacher enters into rapid-fire question mode in which she shoots individual questions at us which could range from anything like "Why did you come to Japan?" to "What did you have for dinner last week Sunday?" and "What are you going to buy at the supermarket tomorrow?"  You get the idea.  Words that come to mind are: focus, rigid, discipline, intense, serious, respect etc.  There's absolutely no room for "why" questions, creative interpretation or critical thinking.  Alternative learning styles and needs be damned.

The first day was exhausting because of trying to absorb the new type of teaching style along with the huge amount of Japanese thrown at us including a lot of the politeness rules.  We learned right away the extensive respectful dialogues involved in asking the teaching to repeat something or write something on the board and then thanking her etc.  It goes on and on.

My Rotary host counselor

Our first task was to learn how to write our names in Hiragana, one of the types of Japanese script.  We had to do this because the next few days we would have to write it on our own in bank and registration forms.  My teacher took one look at my attempts and said that I needed a lot more practice.  At this point I looked at the clock and realized it had only been about fifteen minutes.  Four and a half more hours to go.

The rest of the day was spent memorizing a short introduction speech.  The fact that we didn't really know what we were saying didn't much matter, only that we got it right.  We went over this again and again, each time standing up and trying to recite it from memory.  Honestly, to me, it felt like memorizing line after line of nonsensical phrases since I didn't understand the specific vocabulary or the function of the particles. The speech went something like this:

Polite phrase to make an introduction
My name is Sarah
I'm from Michigan in the States
I'm a graduate student at ICU
My major is Peace Studies
I enjoy traveling and reading
I hope to climb Mount Fuji while I'm in Japan
Polite closing phrase

Little did we know that at the end of the day we were to have a fancy cocktail reception and give this speech in a microphone in front of many men in suits.  Suddenly the exhaustive repetition didn't seem so ridiculous anymore.  After making our first speech in Japanese after Day 1, we all shuddered in anticipation of what Day 2 would bring.

Giving my first speech in Japanese

1 Comment

1. Dan on August 19, 2015 at 4:21 PM

   HANBAGA