Student initiative helps brush up English skills
Student initiative helps brush up English skillsYoko Mizui Daily Yomiuri Staff WriterNo matter how strict teachers are, students will respect them if they bring charisma, charm and passion to their teaching. Tetsuhito "Tetsu" Motoyama, 36, an assistant professor at Waseda University, is one such teacher. One evening in January, seven students gathered at Motoyama's office at the university's law school. It was their last weekly gathering in a sequence that started in April. Over the past year, the students have discussed various themes such as affirmative action, returnees, Iraq, the declining birthrate and NEETs (people who are not in education, employment or training) in English. These topics were chosen by the students. The students, mainly freshmen and sophomores in the law department, voluntarily gather at Motoyama's office after they finish their regular classes for the English discussions, which are supervised by Motoyama. "We're all fans of Tetsu," said Kimi Kanno, a sophomore who suggested the gathering. On the day The Daily Yomiuri visited, they discussed women-only train carriages. Takehito Terae, a freshman, brought up the topic and handed out a printout from Wikipedia, the Internet-based encyclopedia. "This is an article about women-only carriages, written by a man who is well known as a law specialist. I think this is good as we're all majoring in law. This is the opinion of a man. I'd like to hear some women's opinions," Terae said. The seven students--freshmen Terae and Satoshi Suzuki; sophomores Kanno, Yoriko Suzuki, Yuya Hirai and Kana Harada; and junior Chizu Nakamoto--expressed their opinions and talk about their experiences concerning women-only carriages. The conversation included a discussion of whether such carriages are reverse discrimination against men, and whether they are even unconstitutional. Motoyama sometimes intervened with questions to move the discussion along. All the students agreed that they enjoyed the weekly meeting at Motoyama's office. "This conversation time is very useful for improving my English skills," Terae said. "I think this group is very comfortable," Harada said. "Thanks to Tetsu, we can all work together really well even though we are in different years," Kanno said. Kanno, who taught English at a public middle school in Kochi for eight years before entering Waseda University in 2004, said the group had had a steady number of attendees as "at the beginning, Tetsu told us regular attendance was the rule of this session." Kanno realizes how important it is to be exposed to English. "Entering Waseda, I think it is fortunate that we are in an environment where we have a lot of opportunity to get in touch with English," she said, adding, "As a student, teachers' competence is a very significant issue for me." Kanno, who was assigned to take Motoyama's regular English class when she was a freshman, was so impressed with his teaching that she proposed the optional discussion classes to fellow students at the end of her freshman year after Motoyama had approved the idea. Motoyama was pleased when Kanno came up with the idea. "It is one of the greatest joys of teaching when students come up with such suggestions on their own initiative," he said. Motoyama was asked to conduct a similar kind of discussion group at Waseda four years ago. "Through the previous discussion group, I had got to know well a group of students who were all very eager and full of exciting ideas, so I hoped this would be a similar kind of experience and it has turned out to be," he said. Growing up in Raleigh, N.C., from infancy until he was 8 years old and lived there again when he was 13 to 14, Motoyama graduated from International Christian University and completed a Ph.D. program at ICU last year, specializing in English Renaissance drama. He taught ESL-type classes to non-returnee students on a part-time basis for three years at ICU High School where two-thirds of students are returnees, and gave various English courses at a number of universities before he began teaching at Waseda in 2001. He became a full-time faculty member in 2004. The one practice that Motoyama has adhered to is to use only English with his students, both in and out of class. "Since I focus mainly on academic uses of English in classes, I think of this as a way for the students to get used to the more practical uses of the language," he said. Even at home, he communicates with his father and sister in English. "When I am with students, I completely forget Japanese. I hope that having to deal with someone who speaks to them only in English, for an entire year, will help students overcome any fear they might have toward the language," he said. Motoyama says he is a strict teacher. "I think many students are afraid to take my class because I failed so many students," he said. "But," Kanno added, "even failed students like his class." Reflecting on her perspective as a teacher-turned-student, Kanno thinks "grammar-oriented English lessons," often criticized nowadays, are important for reading reference books and finding information on the Internet, both key parts of studying at a university. "I think students' input of English reading and grammar in their high school days can be a solid base for output at university," she said. Although it might be difficult for the group to continue their meetings in the new school year, when junior students will be very busy, Motoyama said he would be willing to accept a similar kind of group from April, adding "it's entirely up to the students since I think it is important for this kind of activity to rise out of the students' initiative." (Feb. 7, 2006)