The Current State of Japanese Language Education in Australian Schools

3.5.2 Culture in the Curriculum (Cont.)

As ILL does not promote a ‘cultural syllabus’, there is little agreement on the elements of culture with which students should be familiar, and they are sometimes chosen in a rather haphazard way. The emphasis on learning intercultural skills rather than cultural facts may have led teachers and students to underestimate the importance of a rounded and nuanced knowledge of a particular culture to underpin intercultural competence. It has been taken to imply, misleadingly, that the same cultural sensitivities are important in dealing with all cultures. Textbooks rarely include a truly intercultural approach, and thus teachers are often expected to design all such materials themselves. Given the limits of their own cultural knowledge, their time and expertise, and the challenging nature of designing really good ILL materials, it is not surprising that some of the materials are less than ideal.

The teaching of Japanese also provides an ideal opportunity to link with the study of Asia in other curriculum areas. However, this is rarely exploited to its full potential. In primary schools, Japanese is often the poor cousin, tolerated but not considered central to the main curriculum and Japanese teaching staff are often part-time and impermanent. They are marginalised from the process of setting the wider curriculum at the school and the potential for providing a key link into studies of Asia is often ignored. In secondary schools, despite attempts in some recent curriculum frameworks to promote cross-disciplinary approaches, subjects are generally still taught within disciplinary ‘silos’.

There are some excellent materials starting to emerge relating to teaching about culture and society, for example, the ‘Art speaks Japanese’ materials designed by the Japan Foundation (and used in Case Study 6, page 54). However, it is clear that considerable work remains to be done on establishing the role of cultural and intercultural skills in the Japanese curriculum as a whole, and providing up-to- date and engaging materials to help teachers deliver on the full potential for sociocultural and intercultural learning presented by Japanese language learning.

Case Study 5: Transition into Secondary Using a ‘Japanese Passport’

Using the Languages Innovative Schools’ Project Grant from the Department of Education and Children’s Services, SA, a high school teaching Japanese took the proactive step of liaising with the five local feeder schools to ensure that the students’ prior learning was acknowledged and taken into account when they began their secondary schooling. Together they designed a ‘Japanese passport’, a document which detailed the Japanese language skills and knowledge students had acquired by the end of their primary schooling.

Issues

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  Students arriving at the high school from various primary school Japanese programs had a range of knowledge, skills and abilities.
  
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  Teachers at the high school recognised the need to better understand the learning of Japanese in the primary school program.
  
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  The primary school teachers wanted to better understand how to help students transition to high school Japanese language education.
  
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  All teachers wanted to maximise the benefits of students’ learning.
  
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  Teachers wanted to establish links between the primary and secondary schools.
  
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  Teachers wanted to formalise recognition of learning and highlight the transportable nature of their Japanese language skills to students and to the wider school community.
  

Project Details

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  Teachers from the primary and secondary schools worked together to develop a detailed curriculum that suited the needs of the student community, and detailed outcomes in the ‘passport’.
  
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  The ‘Japanese passport’ included details of topics, linguistic elements and script and was completed on the basis of what the students felt they actually knew for reception and production.
  
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  Students were given the passport in the final term of their final year of primary school and worked independently on tasks to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to the teacher, who then ‘stamped’ their passport indicating that they had successfully mastered the basic knowledge required.
  
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  The detailed ‘Japanese passport’ for each student at the primary school was then passed to the secondary teachers.
  
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  Due to the variation in time allocation at the feeder primary schools it was not possible to have agreement on the content of the primary programs. However, this was not seen as a major problem as the ‘Japanese passport’ was a document for individual students to use to show their competencies.
  

Outcomes

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  Greater understanding between the primary and secondary teachers of the skills and knowledge acquired and required at both levels.
  
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  Opportunities for discussion of curriculum and transition issues relevant to both school communities and joint curriculum development.
  
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  The passport served as a motivating factor for some students in consolidating their knowledge as they wanted to have their skills acknowledged with a stamp in their passport.
  
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  The ‘Japanese passport’ provided secondary teachers with detailed information on each student’s experience and ability.
  
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  The profile of the high school was raised and students and parents became more aware that they could continue their learning of Japanese in a meaningful way, with their prior learning being taken into consideration.
  
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  The passport proformas are available to other schools within the government system wishing to introduce the ‘Japanese passport’.
  

Comment

Transition is more successful when primary and secondary schools and teachers have the opportunity to work collaboratively. Greater understanding between the teachers in the primary and secondary schools can act as effective and valuable professional learning. Within a formal framework incorporating planning, execution and review, teachers can design programs to ensure positive outcomes for students, maximising Japanese language learning opportunities.