I could be way wrong here but isn’t expressing one’s thoughts something that isn’t done in that society. Would make sense that they would have a hard time sharing them in any form.
They struggle with anything that’s not rote memorization and requires thinking.
One thing that really made me upset when I was an ALT was that the teachers didn’t focus on a communicative approach or foster active thinking. The classes could have been so much better if they weren’t so focused on tests.
You know what else? Teachers struggle with grading open-ended questions because you can’t make a checklist that every answer can conform to exactly. The kids aren’t alright, but the adults ain’t exactly beating them
Some of us learned the “5 paragraph essay” approach to explaining a concept or opinion, which can be modified or condensed for shorter explanations. In Japan, they teach (or at least did) ki-sho-ten-ketsu. It actually derives from Chinese storytelling and it’s woefully inadequate for expressing logical thought, but yet it’s often still used for that purpose. There are 4 parts. Introduction, development, twist (sometimes a perspective shift), and conclusion.
This is a very simplified example, but if you wanted to talk about “reasons why ramen is popular”, you’d spend a long time discussion the history of ramen and a detailed explanation how its made, then recent advances and changes in ramen and current trends/popular styles, then you’d completely swap up and start talking about spaghetti (or some other tangentially related thing) and how it is different, but yet has influenced or been influenced by ramen, then finally you’d give some data on the number of shops in Japan and around the world, how many people eat it, etc., and “demonstrate” that ramen is popular. Notice very little of that actually answers the question WHY it’s popular, other than it’s not spaghetti. The underlying reasons, like much of communication in Japan, is all in the context… surely it’s obvious from all that I said WHY, but it’s rarely every communicated directly.
Contrast this to essay-style: Very short intro. Then thesis: ramen is popular because it’s cheap, quick, tasty, and filling. Info and evidence on each of those points. Conclusion: Yup, basically what I just said, so go eat more damn ramen! It’s direct and to the point. It attempts to answer the question, without making you guess what I’m driving at.
Edit: I’m an American living in Japan, and I regularly deal with Japanese presentations and business communication. Don’t get me started on Japanese slides… they’re so bad.
When I think about leaving my home country I see articles like this and realize “oh… it’s going to be the same situation no matter where you go in this world huh…?”
Simply put it’s one of the major gaps in Asian cultures is the lack of the Socratic method in education.
Just the kids, huh?
This is definitely an adult problem no? Adults are the ones who created systems where “standout too much is bad” while the education system they created did not encourage something like opinion and debate at all.
They had trouble with this 15 years ago as well.
Man a whole lot of blanket statements about Japanese culture and society being thrown around….
British classical education values argumentation. It viewed math as bitch work. Japanese education seems to be the opposite
Also travel the world — one thing you’ll realize is that everyone hates something about their education system and envies some other system
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They are… Dumb?,! ？
I could be way wrong here but isn’t expressing one’s thoughts something that isn’t done in that society. Would make sense that they would have a hard time sharing them in any form.
They struggle with anything that’s not rote memorization and requires thinking.
One thing that really made me upset when I was an ALT was that the teachers didn’t focus on a communicative approach or foster active thinking. The classes could have been so much better if they weren’t so focused on tests.
You know what else? Teachers struggle with grading open-ended questions because you can’t make a checklist that every answer can conform to exactly. The kids aren’t alright, but the adults ain’t exactly beating them
Some of us learned the “5 paragraph essay” approach to explaining a concept or opinion, which can be modified or condensed for shorter explanations. In Japan, they teach (or at least did) ki-sho-ten-ketsu. It actually derives from Chinese storytelling and it’s woefully inadequate for expressing logical thought, but yet it’s often still used for that purpose. There are 4 parts. Introduction, development, twist (sometimes a perspective shift), and conclusion.
This is a very simplified example, but if you wanted to talk about “reasons why ramen is popular”, you’d spend a long time discussion the history of ramen and a detailed explanation how its made, then recent advances and changes in ramen and current trends/popular styles, then you’d completely swap up and start talking about spaghetti (or some other tangentially related thing) and how it is different, but yet has influenced or been influenced by ramen, then finally you’d give some data on the number of shops in Japan and around the world, how many people eat it, etc., and “demonstrate” that ramen is popular. Notice very little of that actually answers the question WHY it’s popular, other than it’s not spaghetti. The underlying reasons, like much of communication in Japan, is all in the context… surely it’s obvious from all that I said WHY, but it’s rarely every communicated directly.
Contrast this to essay-style: Very short intro. Then thesis: ramen is popular because it’s cheap, quick, tasty, and filling. Info and evidence on each of those points. Conclusion: Yup, basically what I just said, so go eat more damn ramen! It’s direct and to the point. It attempts to answer the question, without making you guess what I’m driving at.
Edit: I’m an American living in Japan, and I regularly deal with Japanese presentations and business communication. Don’t get me started on Japanese slides… they’re so bad.
When I think about leaving my home country I see articles like this and realize “oh… it’s going to be the same situation no matter where you go in this world huh…?”
Simply put it’s one of the major gaps in Asian cultures is the lack of the Socratic method in education.
Just the kids, huh?
This is definitely an adult problem no? Adults are the ones who created systems where “standout too much is bad” while the education system they created did not encourage something like opinion and debate at all.
They had trouble with this 15 years ago as well.
Man a whole lot of blanket statements about Japanese culture and society being thrown around….
British classical education values argumentation. It viewed math as bitch work. Japanese education seems to be the opposite
Also travel the world — one thing you’ll realize is that everyone hates something about their education system and envies some other system