Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto

Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto is the ninth largest city in the world by population - over 17 million people - 2,500 people per square km.  I'm soooo excited to move there.  When I lived in Maine, I wanted to move to Boston, the "big city."  When I first moved there, I remember feeling overwhelmed and lost, even like I didn't belong.  Now that I've been in Boston for about 5 years, I know it like my own house.  Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto: I'm ready to be overwhelmed again!

Osaka: 

Why Move Back to Japan?

This is the question I've been trying to answer, for myself, for the last couple of weeks since I got offered a job in Osaka. Here's what I've reasoned with myself:

• professionally, I'll get solid full-time experience teaching Business English, including opportunities to create materials and incorporate what I've learned during the last year in my masters in TESOL program
• personally, I'll be able to meet with old friends living in Japan
• make lots of new friends and get involved in a new international community in Osaka
• there's soccer, salsa, samba and capoeira in Osaka, and obviously I will also be able to explore Japanese arts and culture more too
• I love Japanese festivals
• great food, and hopefully I can learn more about Japanese cuisine and how to actually cook it
• as a "tourist," I can explore Japan more 
• I want my family and friends to come visit so I can show them around 
• I can learn more Japanese
• I want to ski, surf, hike and bike in Japan
• I can photograph, record and write more about living in Japan
• I'll learn more from a different way of life than continuing my current routine

So, I said Yes to Japan.... I'm moving back in 2 months!

Learning a foreign language when you're not in a foreign country

Well, I'm preparing a final 20-page paper for my "Second Language Acquisition" class.  I'll summarize the most interesting points here:


Students learning English in other countries (EFL) are just as capable of learning pragmatics (the meaning behind what we say as opposed to the literal definition) as ESL learners, they just need competent teachers who are able and willing to directly teach how English speakers accomplish certain things with language in an appropriate way, such as requesting, inviting, refusing and commanding.


A student's motivation plays a big role in how much he learns in language class.  In other words, you have to actively negotiate meaning, notice differences between your first language and the second language, and make an effort to practice the language as much as possible. You can't just passively sit in language class for an hour 3x a week and "absorb" the language.


Group dynamics in the classroom are also really important.  If the group norms are positive, students will be motivated to perform more, and vice versa if the norms are not so good.  This is especially true for teenage learners, as peer pressure is really strong at this point.


Older language learners actually learn faster than younger language learners at first.  After about a year, the younger learners will surpass the older learners in an ESL setting.  There hasn't been any research about whether younger learners would surpass older learners in an EFL setting.  In conclusion, age is no excuse for not trying to learn a new language.  The most important factor in learning a new language is to be aware of your first language's grammar and use and try to notice how the foreign language is different.


Intercultural communication is as important as learning the structure of a language, if not more important.  Grammatical fluency is not the same as cultural/pragmatic fluency!  Be a bit of an anthropologist and you will have much more success in communicating in your new language!  Also it is important to establish your foreign language identity, keeping in mind the norms of the new foreign language. Try to ADD to your existing first language identity, instead of subtracting from it.


What I'm learning is that people's top 2 excuses for not picking up a new language: 1) I can't afford to study abroad and 2) I'm too old to learn, are not true at all!  Even if you opt for the "I don't have time" excuse, it is still not entirely true.  If you focus your efforts and have realistic goals, you can at least learn enough to interact with people from that language group on a basic level.

handshake, kiss, or??

I met an Albanian today for tea. When we greeted each other for the first time, he went for a handshake and I went for a kiss on the cheek. I didn't even think about it, I did it out of habit, knowing instinctively that when I meet a European or South American, you kiss on the cheek. He probably thought that when meeting an American, you shake hands. We were both accomodating to each other's cultural norms but it was just as awkward as if we hadn't!
For the last 8 years, I've been doing everything to learn about different cultures and languages. Sometimes I think I am well prepared as a multi-cultural communicator, but then again sometimes when both people are well versed in many cultures, and accomodate for each other, there is no way to know "who has the ball in their court" culturally.

Saying Goodbyes, Remembering Hellos

Elizabeth, a very strong and outgoing Chinese woman, surprised me when she broke down in tears today in class. We started talking about how far we've come in English since January, the beginning of the semester. She described, in her incorrect and broken but basically understandable English, how when she arrived all alone in the US she couldn't understand anything the customs officials ("police" at the airport) asked her. The fact that this memory made her cry shows how stressful it can be to be an outsider culturally and linguistically. The good thing is, she and all the other students in class have come quite a long way in their language and cultural skills in three months.
Other students from Saudi Arabia described long ordeals at immigration after already having traveled for over 24 hours. Most were extensively interviewed, their belongings searched, some held in immigration offices for over two hours. They needed translators, but apparently there were none available. There was a simple misunderstanding for Mohammad, where the customs official asked him if he was carrying any cash. He said yes, about $900. His English was really non-existent at that point and the official thought Mohammad had said $19,000 or some similarly huge amount. So he was taken in for an interview and search. Only about an hour later did the offical think to ask Mohammad to write down the number, the amount of cash he was carrying. That cleared things up, thankfully.
If we look at these experiences with a positive attitude, we can chalk them up to memorable life experiences. Maybe they will teach us some lesson, or let us see things from another point of view, or at least feel happy about the moments in life when we are doing something more enjoyable than standing in line at immigration in JFK Airport.

I never thought I would ever even meet people from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, let alone get to know them on a day-to-day basis through my job teaching. These are some of the students I work with who are from the KSA. I have to admit that because I knew before the KSA is a very conservative country that I had my stereotypes about how I thought these guys would be, and some of my assumptions were not positive. However, they prove once again that the people of a country are quite different from the country's government policy and government leaders. These students have, perhaps unwittingly, broken down all the stereotypes I once had about the KSA and people from there. I think very highly of them and it is truly a pleasure to spend time with them. I have the best job in the world, which allows me to meet and learn from students around my same age but from very different cultures. 

Field Trip to Old Sturbridge Village

So much has happened in the last year that I don't even know where to begin. I haven't written in this blog very often, so there is a lot of time to make up. But I think instead of glossing over the last several months, it is more interesting to capture smaller moments that represent a greater experience.
With that in mind, here's an account of today (unfortunately I forgot my camera today):
I helped lead a field trip to Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts for a group of ESL students. My group of 10 students were from Turkey, Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Senegal and Taiwan (and maybe a couple other places - I didn't get the chance to ask all of them). I told them they could walk around as they pleased, but they were so sweet and nice that they said no, we want you to come with us! So I walked around the historical village, which is remade to look like 1800's New England, with these students. The guy from Turkey is from a small village there and he said that basically its the same as this historical village. So this special field trip for us became a reminder of his hometown! The potter, the one-room school house, the scythes used to cut grass and the livestock all reminded him of his birth place in the present day. It makes me wonder, what it is that makes a small town in Turkey hold on to these traditions, but a small town in the US so fast to loose them? Is it because Turkey is a much older country, with an ancient culture?
One of the students was a girl from Osaka, Japan, and we talked a little about living there. Then for some reason she was really curious to know if we have bidet toilets in the US so we talked a bit about that, too. Its curious to see what topics come up when comparing countries and cultures.
Unfortunately it started to rain pretty heavily before lunch time, so since we were all pretty cold and wet we ended up leaving a bit early. But the students all seemed to be in good spirits, so it was a fun trip.
Of course I really love the fact that I actually get paid to do things like this with such interesting people. On the other hand, there are times when I wish I was just one of the students and that I could get to know them more personally. Its a different relationship when I am the teacher, even though I have a great report with most students. I think that one day if and when we are not in the teacher/student dichotomy, I could become better friends with these students. But for now, it is what it is. I am just lucky to come into contact with so many people of all ages from all different countries around the world. I learn new things about people and places all the time: for example, today I learned that Turkey and Senegal are both largely Muslim countries, but that Turkey is also home to many Jews and Christians.
The more you know, the richer your experience!