EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Japan in the Past 25 Years by Charles Adamson, Ph.D., Professor and Deputy Director of the Language Center, Miyagi University
Our presenter has been teaching English in Japan since 1976. He was one of the founders of JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) and has published and spoke widely on a variety of subjects including methodologies, CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), testing, and complexity theory. Over the last 25 years, EFL has been altered almost beyond recognition.
Methods have come and gone. This presentation will give an overview of what has happened, including the LL (Language Laboratory) boom, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Silent Way, eclecticism, CALL, and more. The speaker will do this by relating his own experiences during his 25 years of teaching EFL, concentrating on what he has used, what he is now using, especially how he got from there to here. A continuing theme throughout will be "needs analysis" in the original meaning of determining what the students need, not just what they want. A continuing question throughout will be "Why?" Paralleling this personal growth, the speaker will also discuss changes in the profession and in JALT.
Sunday, December 8th, 13:30-17:00 (Bonenkai will follow); Kijo Plaza (10-minute walk from Tsuchiura Station, across from Kijo Park); one-day members \500.
This month, the Mother's Network will have a potluck party. Let's talk about a year full of joys and enjoy a variety of tastes from all over the world. We look forward to seeing you there.
Date and Time: December 9, Monday, 11:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. (the reception starts at 10:30 A.M.)
Place: PLATFORM (Purattofoumu), Takezono 1-2-1. (1st floor of Toshi Kodan Tsukuba Kaihatsu-kyoku, which is south of the Chuo2 Parking Lot across the street and east of the Oshimizu Park.) There is no parking space at PLATFORM. Please use toll parking lots nearby (around 160 yen/hour).
Fee: There is no fee, but as this is a potluck party, please bring a dish with enough for about four persons. If possible, please also bring plates, cups, and utensils for your own use.
Inquiries: Ms. Nakamura (phone 090-5316-2221, Email sao@mail1.accsnet.ne.jp) Please let us know as soon as possible of your intention to attend, the number of your kids you bring, and if you need a ride.
As we are reaching the end of the year, many people in the world are getting ready to celebrate Christmas. In the last Coffee Hour of this year, Ms. Irma G. Kuwahara will introduce you to one of the loveliest traditions of Mexico, "Las Posadas".
Christmas for Mexicans in a traditional setting and in rural areas is a celebration of the Nativity. This means the birth of Jesus Christ. These celebrations comprise the "Novena" or the nine days before December 24th. These Posadas are an enactment of the search for lodging of Joseph and the Virgin Mary who were called Pilgrims and who were traveling to Bethlehem for the Census according to the Scriptures. Each family in a neighborhood will schedule a night for the Posada to be held in their home. Every home will have a Nativity scene. The Hosts of the home are the innkeepers, and the neighborhood children and adults are Los Peregrinos, who have to request lodging through singing a simple song. All carry small-lit candles in their hands and four teenagers of about the same height are chosen to carry "Los Peregrinos", which are two small statues of Joseph leading a donkey and one of the Virgin Mary riding a horse sidesaddle. The head of the procession will have a candle inside of a paper lampshade that looks like an accordion but open at the top and it is called a "Farolito" or little lantern.
Ms. Irma G. Kuwahara is from Mexico City and has been working at the JICA Training Center as a Spanish language instructor. She loves to work with these talented people who are sent around the world. She lives in Ushiku City and is taking Ikebana lessons at the Tsukuba Information Center.
Date/Time: December 18 (Wed.)14:00 to 16:00
Guest: Ms. Irma G. Kuwahara (Mexico)
Place: Tsukuba Information Center
Tsukuba University is offering an open class in volleyball as part of their service to the general community. 72 women will be accepted into the program, which runs from Jan. 11 to Feb. 22 on Saturdays (with the exception of January 18). There is also a class on Monday, Jan. 13, which is a holiday. The times of each session are from 1 to 4 pm. While any instruction will be in Japanese, non-Japanese speaking foreigners are welcome to participate, as much of the content can be understood from simply observing. Likewise, someone who wants to practice their English is likely to be there to help when needed.
So if you want to get some exercise and meet some new people, this is a good opportunity. To apply, visit the "Kyoiku Kokai" office on the second floor of the main administration building at the University by Dec. 12. You will need a self-addressed, stamped (90 yen) envelope for them to mail the acceptance slip in. The cost of the course is 7,800 yen. For further information, call 0298-53-2216.
Assuming you're one of the many foreigners who will be stuck in your home away from home during the holidays, please read on. If you are one of the "lucky" ones to have your pricy reservations for a trip home, then Bon Voyage!
Imagine that you're pushing your shopping cart down the aisle at Seibu, humming along with the "Muzak-to-shop-by" wafting down at you from the PA system: "I'll be home for Christmas," when the depressing thought hits you that this year, you won't be home!!! Before you slide over the edge into a "Blue Christmas", consider some opportunities which may help to make the season bright.
In addition to various public concerts and exhibits, churches in Tsukuba are hosting special celebrations. The International (English) Christmas Worship Service at Tsukuba Gakuen Church (behind the gas station a half block up from the Epocal Convention Center) will be held on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 22nd at 2:30 pm., followed by refreshments in the Christian Center next door. Earlier in the day, the 10:30 a.m. Japanese service (which is translated into English over earphones every Sunday) will be followed by a Christmas luncheon with lots of good food. Visitors are welcome. Also, there will be a Christmas Eve Candlelight Service Dec. 24th at 7:00 p.m. featuring a well-trained choir. It will be followed by Christmas caroling at several locations. Another event of interest to parents of younger children will be a church school Christmas party with Santa on Saturday, Dec. 14 at 2 pm. This will be followed by the annual Christmas dinner for the international community at 6 pm. Turkey is provided, but you are asked to bring a dish or drink to share. There is also a free organ concert on the 15th at 4 pm. For more information, call 55-1907.
If you are a bit homesick for Christmas lights (or if you come from a country where that isn't such a tradition, and just want to see them), the Tsukuba Christian Center/YMCA is decorated with thousands of colored bulbs. There will also be an "open house" every evening from Dec. 20th through 24th from 6 to 9 pm with various goodies and drinks prepared for those who would like to come and experience a little of the Christmas spirit. On Christmas Eve, the open house will begin immediately following the candlelight service.
The Tsukuba Catholic Church in Matsushiro has the following Christmas/New Year's season schedule for the international community: Saturday, Dec. 21 at 10 am, Children's International Christmas Mass and party; Sunday, Dec. 22, the regular 8 am English mass (same as every Sunday); Christmas Eve Mass 7:00 pm (Japanese). On Christmas Day, there is a Japanese Mass at 10:00 am. A New Year's Eve International Mass begins at 10 pm, and a New Year's Day Mass in Japanese begins at 10 am. For information, call Father Narita at 36-1723.
The Nozomi Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tsuchiura (Komatsu 3-23-27) also has special holiday programs, including the following: Christmas Sunday will be held Dec. 22 10:30, with a children's Christmas program on the 23rd at 2 pm. There will be a Christmas Eve service at 7:00 pm followed by a potluck. The New Year's Day service is at 2:00 pm. All activities are bilingual, English and Japanese. The church is also beautifully decorated with lights and a nativity scene that is well worth seeing. It is located a little over 1 km south of Tsuchiura Station on the edge of a steep hill overlooking the city. For further information, call Glenn Hieb at (0298) 21-3578.
The Tsuchiura Christian Church has the following activities: A bilingual Christmas service will be held on Dec. 22 at 10:30 am followed by a pot luck dinner at 12:00. For more information, contact Paul or Faith Axton at 56-2167. Tsuchiura Megumi Church, located near the junction of Tsuchiura-Gakuen Sen and the 6-go Bypass will have two Christmas services on Dec. 22 at 9 am, 10:45 am, with an evening service at 6 pm The Christmas Eve candlelight service on the 24th begins at 7 pm. For further information, call 22-2244. There is also a free flute concert on Sat. Dec. 7 at 2 pm. The Assemblies of God church will feature a Christmas program on the 15th at 10:30 am that will be followed by a pot-luck dinner at 1 pm. Activities at this church are mostly in English (with Japanese translation over headphones). For further information, call Pastor Tony Shreffler at 57-9006.
If it's the secular shopping hoopla that you miss, you'll love getting yourself trampled while checking out the seasonal offerings at the department stores. The real stampede, however, is in Tokyo, and for merry masochistic madness, a day at Akihabara or Harajuku is unsurpassed as pure holiday in"SANTA"ty!.
Christmas cakes have become a Japanese tradition as well established as New Year's "omochi". Our advice, however, is to go easy on these white, strawberry-topped concoctions, sweet enough to give Santa diabetes. You may well be invited to one or more "bonenkai" (forget-the-year parties), where you will be enticed to down enough beer and "sake" to make you forget not only the year, but your name and how to get home. While we naively hope for sobriety in this season, we realize that there will be some plastered gaijin here and there. If you end up being one, don't drive! The police are lurking in wait to lift your driver's license.
December 2nd
Members of the Tsukuba International Network (TIN) were sorely disappointed to find out that their concerted efforts to petition the Immigration authorities to set up an office in Tsukuba have been spurned. Instead of a branch office being set up in Tsukuba, in addition to the 2 small offices in Hitachi and Kashima that focused on the ports there, all is being consolidated into just one office in Mito. This will do nothing to help the foreign residents of Tsukuba and southern Ibaraki to reduce the hassles involved in getting visa renewals, reentry permits, etc. In fact, as the new office is located in the center of Mito, with little if any parking available, in some respects it will be even more inconvenient than the previous option in Hitachi, which was easier to reach by car. It will, however, be somewhat more convenient if you go by train.
The rationale given to this decision was that as a rule, each prefecture is only supposed to have one immigration office anyway. And since Mito is the prefectural capital, it was given the nod over Tsukuba, even though more foreigners live in southern Ibaraki than in the Mito area.
In Jan. 1997, the Alien Times collected over 1000 signatures on a petition to the city to have them request a branch office be established. The city adopted the proposal and officially put in a request for that to be done. In more recent years, TIN pushed hard, formally petitioning the prefecture as well as directly to the Immigration Agency. This push included facts and figures, along with endorsement from research institutions, etc., but all to no avail - or at least it would seem that way.
There is still a chance that the Immigration office will in the end set up a small office to be manned by someone from the Mito office on a regular basis, such as one day a week or something like that. This would be for certain procedures only, such as simple reentry permits, visa renewals, and the like. So, while the international community in Tsukuba is disappointed in this outcome, TIN is certainly not going to give up its efforts in improving life in Tsukuba for all internationals.
The address of the new office is: Tokyo Regional Immigration Mito Branch Office, No. 3 Prince Bldg., 1st Floor, 2-9-12 Jonan, Mito-shi, and the telephone number is 029-300-3601. The flyer announcing the opening states that there is not enough parking at the site, and so "please use public transportation when visiting the office." That would seem to imply that there is some sort of parking available, but not very much. There are, of course, pay parking lots close by if you need to go by car. If you go by train from Tsuchiura (Arakawaoki, etc.), it is a 5-minute walk from Mito Station. Go out the South Gate and proceed across the river. Go left at the first street. The immigration office will be on your right about 400 meters down. You'll walk past a small park and the "No. 1 Prince Building" before coming to "No. 3 Prince Building". The hours they can accept applications are from 9 to 11 am and 1 to 3 pm Mondays through Fridays.
On the 10th of December, the 2002 Nobel Prize laureates will receive their awards. This year 2 Japanese are among them: Masatoshi Koshiba in Physics and Koichi Tanaka in Chemistry.
Receiving the Nobel Prize is one of the best acknowledgments a scientist can receive for his work. During the next Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, on the 10th of December 2002 two Japanese will receive an award, one in Physics and one in Chemistry.
The Nobel Prize in Physics: Observing elusive particles from the sun
In Physics Masatoshi Koshiba, Professor Emeritus at the International Center for Elementary Particle Physics, University of Tokyo, was rewarded for his contribution to neutrino astronomy. With his team, he constructed a very big detector filled with water. This detector was installed in the Kamioka mine in the Gifu Prefecture and was initially aimed at detecting a very rare process: the decay of a proton. Soon, another application was thought up for this big water tank: to detect elusive particles coming from the sun called neutrinos. These particles interact with matter only very rarely and are thus very hard to detect. Neutrinos were detected and Professor Koshiba's team confirmed that the measured flux of neutrinos coming from the sun is lower than expected. Their measurement also confirmed theories explaining that this flux is lower because neutrinos have a slight mass and can change their appearance on their journey from the sun to the earth. For these results, professor Koshiba shares half of the Nobel Prize in Physics with R. Davis (the author of the first measurement of the solar neutrino flux) while the other half goes to R. Giacconi for his work on X-ray astronomy.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: weighting tiny organic molecules
In Chemistry Koichi Tanaka, Shimadzu Corporation, Kyoto, has developed a method to weight tiny macro-molecules such as proteins. Molecules are too small to be weighted with usual scales, but many small molecules can be evaporated, ionized and then accelerated in an electric field. This is called Mass Spectrometry and has been a widely used technique during the past century. But this is not possible with proteins, as most of them might coagulate while heated (as an example, look at an egg which contains a lot of protein molecules: if you heat it, it will not evaporate but cook!). Koichi Tanaka suggested using a "soft" laser to produce the same effect. The energy of the laser must be tuned to have enough power to free the molecules and ionize them, but not too much power in order to avoid burning the molecules. This technique has contributed to a precise identification of many proteins. For this pioneering work he shares half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with J. Fenn (who suggested another method of Mass Spectrometry for proteins) and the other half of the prize goes to K. Wuthrich whose work allowed the visualization of proteins through Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.
Thanks to the work of this year Nobel laureates we have new tools to view our world, both in the sky and in our cells.
You can get more information about the Nobel prize and its laureates (present and past) at www.nobel.se.
On a plumber's truck: "We repair what your husband fixed."
On the trucks of a local plumbing company: "Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."
Pizza place slogan: "Seven days without pizza makes one weak."
In a non-smoking area: "If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
At an optometrist's office: "If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."
In a podiatrist's office: "Time wounds all heels."
On a fence: "Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive."
At a car dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet? Miss a car payment."
Outside a muffler shop: "No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."
In the front yard of a funeral home: "Drive carefully. We'll wait."
At a propane filling station: "Tank heaven for little grills."
On November 28, NHK aired a 30-minute program at 7:30 pm on the conditions faced by foreign workers in Japan. They chose Ibaraki as the focus of the program, since the greatest increase in such foreign labor in recent years has taken place here. NHK reporters spent several days in the port city of Oarai, just east of Mito, filming the lives of the approximately 800 Indonesians working in seafood processing plants there. This represents 4 % of the population of the town and 25% of the workers in the factories. While some of the workers have some Japanese ancestry and are thus able to get working visas, many are "overstay" people who are working illegally after entering Japan on tourist visas.
While NHK was filming on location on Oct. 29, immigration authorities made a dawn raid on an apartment building and arrested 9 "illegal aliens" who now face deportation to Indonesia. This was after a similar raid in September in which 40 were arrested. The NHK crew rushed to the scene of the raid, showing the 90 or so police and immigration officials banging on the doors of the apartment. The following Sunday (Nov. 1), they filmed a worship service of one of the 4 churches set up by the Indonesian community during the last 3 years. (Almost all of the workers in Oarai come from the Minahasa district of Indonesia, which is mostly Christian.) The Oarai Bethlehem Church meets in an old warehouse converted into a church by its 250 members. The NHK staff expressed to the people there their own dismay at the actions of the immigration authorities, and during the broadcast, the announcer and main reporter editorialized about the importance of Japan revamping its laws to allow such laborers to work legally in Japan. In all their portrayals of the Indonesia community in Oarai, they stressed how decent and hard working these people are, showing several scenes of the church pastor serving his people.
In addition to interviewing the head of immigration (who predictably emphasized that they must enforce the law), NHK interviewed local officials in Oarai as well as others concerned about this issue. They all appealed to the government for a solution to this problem. Many of the Japanese workers in the plants are old and despite concerted efforts to attract young Japanese, very few seek employment in such jobs. Thus, these companies are becoming increasingly dependent on foreign labor, without which many would have to close down. Few Japanese are willing to do the "3-k" jobs (which translates into English as '3-d' - 'dirty', 'difficult' and 'dangerous'), and yet without someone to do those jobs, the Japanese economy will further decline. With the aging of society, Japanese population is expected to start declining in 2006, with the working population decreasing even faster.
The program climaxed with an interview of Hidetoshi Watanabe, a representative of a consortium of 90 non-governmental organizations from around Japan that recently formed to coordinate efforts towards solving this problem. The group has presented appeals to various branches of the national government to draft new legislation that would make it possible for sectors of the economy that desperately need foreign labor to continue to exist and provide products and services vital to the nation. All of the agencies involved said they would discuss the issues to see if something can be done, but in the meantime, the "cat and mouse game" being played by immigration will continue, as they insist they will continue to crack down on workers without proper visas. Given the history of "turf battles" common to Japanese government agencies and the slow pace of reform in general, there is probably little likelihood of a quick solution to this problem. NHK is to be commended, however, for its efforts in bringing this issue to the fore.
This time of year always feels a bit like this time last year. As the year comes full circle, last December now seems as close to us - in a way - as the summer just past.
In The Metronomic Society, Michael Young considers this cyclical nature of time as another dimension, over and above the dimension of linear time. The cyclical impression is caused by the daily spin of the Earth on its axis, the phases of the moon, and our annual sweep round the sun. These cycles not only frame societies, but are hardwired into the biorhythms of the bodies of Earthlings. Physicists of different species - even if they disagree on everything else - at least share the same basic units of time.
Now somewhere deep in space, an alien civilization inhabits a really boring neighbourhood where there are no heavenly bodies of note, no great cycles in the sky or celestial chronometers. The natives have no natural rhythm. Life is rather uneventful, with no particular pattern. Like an interminably long phone call, you lose track of where you have been, and where you are going. The local philosophers consider time to be just an endless train journey over a featureless plain (without the view out the side).
In our solar system, however, the celestial mechanics conjure up the impression of more dimensions of time. Our calendar can be arranged not only as a line, but in tables of days and months, time of day against day of week, or months against years: with every cycle we effectively add another dimension. Yet while the temporal landscape may be multi-dimensional, the passage of time is still linear. It is like text in a book - it forms a single trail from start to end, but winds over the two-dimensional plane of the page, and stacks up to form a three-dimensional volume. All dimensions are present simultaneously, but we follow a single track.
Now, in one of those duller corners of the universe, from a species with a temporally-deprived evolutionary childhood, there comes an ambitious alien engineer, who aims to recreate the cyclical nature of time, building it into the architecture of a single space construction. (It is difficult to get funding for creating multiple extra-planetary bodies just for their time effects). In search of inspiration, the alien wins itself an intergalactic fellowship to Science City, Earth.
Finding Tsukuba just a bit too, well, homely, the alien is drawn to Tokyo, with its bright lights and buzz - and best of all, trains, train lines, and timetables. The newcomer especially enjoys circling round the Yamanote line. Once, while paused in Tokyo station, idly staring out the carriage, the alien realizes it can see clearly into the next train, on the adjoining track. Though the next carriage is only a few feet away, it is not directly accessible. Yet it feels - in a way - as close as the other end of the alien's own carriage. The alien realizes that passage along the aisle of its own carriage is like a direct trajectory in linear time, whereas the carriage of the adjoining train is like 'this time last year'. The alien imagines seeing the glow of glittery Christmases past, echoing through several ranks of train carriages, as far as the eye can discern.
But then the carriage alongside is not a different train, but part of the same train, only wound round the whole Yamanote Line, come back to the next track. And the carriage two tracks distant is also the same train, wound round again. (While each track represents a different year, the adjoining carriage is always 'last year', whichever year-track it happens to be on.) From this train of thought, the globetrotting alien gets its idea for fabricating cycles of time in its space-city construction.
The engineer first imagines a grand new Yamanote Line going round not a paltry uptown loop, but girdling a whole planet the size of a city. Let's call the planet-city Edo, the time-warped alter-ego of terrestrial Tokyo. So Shin-Shinjuku becomes the antipodes of Edo-Eki. This planetary Yamanote is calibrated so that each circuit takes a 'day'. (The engineer takes a bit of creative licence, and puts part of the far side in a tunnel, to simulate the passage of night.)
So it takes 24 hours to go round the planetary Yamanote, arriving back at the same place, more or less, a day on.
But you don't arrive back at exactly the same place: you arrive at the track next to the last one. The Yamanote 'line' is a spiral. The carriage you see into on the next track is, this time, calibrated to be 'the same time yesterday'. Like a Tokyo station as wide as a planet, the parallel tracks extend side by side as far as you can see (in the direction of the past, at least).
Except, what this describes is not a planetary globe, but more like a planetary spiral-wound cylinder. And more: it is not a cylinder with a straight axis going off into space. Rather, it curves round on itself, like a giant doughnut. And it takes a year to go round this one. Imagine a translucent space-station-tube of a doughnut, wound round with 365 and 1/4 spiral coils of train track.
But when you go round this 'doughnut', you don't return to the same point, but to a point one space-station-tube-diameter away from where you started. Then, you can gaze back though the translucent glass of the space-station-tube to get a view of 'this time last year'. (At this point, being winter, you are on the flank of the doughnut furthest from the nearest star.)
So the alien engineer has successfully created a time-cycle-simulating space architecture: not a closed loop, but a giant spiral that winds onwards indefinitely (and is, accordingly, forever under construction). Around the turn of the year, the rhythm-instilled inhabitants of Edo toast their founding Engineer, and look backward, and forward, to another winding of the great space-station-spiral, and wish each other a Happy New-Planetary-Yamanote-Year.
(c) Stephen Marshall stephen@cyberspace.co.jp
Playwright Jim Sherman wrote this after learning that Hu Jintao was named chief of the Communist Party in China.
(We take you now to the Oval Office.)
George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China.
Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
(Condi picks up the phone.)
Condi: Rice, here.
George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get Chinese food in the Middle East?
Meetings every Wednesday night at Hot Stuff from 9pm. Future walks and information at eve.bk.tsukuba.ac.jp/twmc. Please contact Tadashi Takemori at takemori@eve.bk.tsukuba.ac.jp.
Join the Ibaraki Hash House Harriers, the international drinking club with a running problem. Check our homepage at ibarakih3.infoseek.ne.jp and leave a message on the BBS.
