Announcement.

I created a new blog page.
I was first thinking to write different topics for each, but found that it is better for me to put things all together, since I can see the footprint of my thoughts. Therefore, I will post everything on the new blog.

All blogpost will be moved to here.
http://kazkumasthoughts.blogspot.com/


Thank you! :)

A Thought on Blogging

Discussion on the effects of input and output is no more brand-new, but still a major concern in second language teaching area. This widely spread discussion, whether language input enhances language acquisition more than language output or vice versa, is not an applicable idea to second language teaching, but it can be applied to learning in general.

As I have so many things to think to enrich my knowledge and prepare to teach at a school in the future, I came up an idea that I should post more threads on this blog to make the floating ideas in my head clear and organized. In order to do this, I will read more books, news, articles as "input", and blog it as "output".

Until today, I  posted threads which are related to English or education, but I am going to make this blog more general, in other words, with varieties of topics.

"Teachers have to be intellectual." (Noam Chomsky)



So, from today.


From now.

Systematized Classroom English?

After having talked with my friend about concrete techniques for English classrooms in Japan, I came up an idea that it must be helpful for both EFL/ESL learners (especially for EFL) to create systematic vocabulary and phrase lists for classroom-English.

In Japan, the most realistic goal of English education is to achieve a high score in tests, especially for high school, college or university entrance exams. The ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science & Technology in Japan (文部科学省) have issued a new version of the Course of Study (Nation wide syllabus for schools), and in it, they mentioned that one of the final goals of Japan's English education is to achieve a communication competence, but still, how to measure the skill mostly relies on the tests which have basically not changed over years.
So, how can we achieve the goal without making the class an examination-preparation style?
This is hard. This is hard especially in Japan, because we have developed an exam-prep teaching style and it has been successfully surviving over decades.

Well, here comes my friend's idea, "creating a systematic words-and-phrases lists for classroom English". By "classroom English", he means English which the teachers use in front of their students.
Why did he call it "systematic"? It's because the lists are to be created from vocabulary/phrase corpora or some forms of stocks (i.e. Books) which are created based on the vocabulary/phrases for specific tests.
For example, we can create a list based on Eiken (Japan's government-authorized English test), TOEIC, TOEFL , or school entrance exams. If teachers use English in classrooms based on these lists, students will be able to get more input which is their priority.
His idea, I think, is based on the learner's LAD (Language Acquisition Device), in which input becomes intake by noticing, and the intake creates L2 knowledge. The more systematized set of vocabulary/phrases students are provided with, the more likely they are able to learn the input as their L2 knowledge.

I think this is a realistic idea, and I agree with this.
One thing I would like to add to my friend's idea is that the data from which lists will be created can be extracted from words and phrases, what we call, "for communicative use".
Is it difficult to choose communicative words/phrases? Is there hardships which destroy the hoped usefulness of classroom English?

Anyway, I'm happy that you took a look at my post :)
Thank you:)