Freeing up Fluency in a Silent Speaking Class / Katakana & English
Yumiko Cochrane; Steve Paton
Yumiko Cochrane - Lost in Katakana: Exploring the efforts of loanword cognates on English Acquisition. Yumiko began by stating that 10% of Japanese words are loan words, and only 6% of that 10% are English based. Looking at the different types of loan words firstly we have true cognates which have the same meaning in Japanese and English. Non true cognates include semantic changes (e.g. viking or mansion), morphological changes (e.g. stainless or ringtone), phonological (the open vowel sound 'katakana English'), or Wasei Eigo which are words unique to Japan (e.g. leiman shock or hi vision). Yumiko's findings were that literal translations lead to dangerous assumptions on the part of students. Once these errors are engrained in students' heads it is difficult to change them. In conclusion she stated that there's no shortcut to English acquisition using loan words, and keen awareness of the problems should be promoted. She instead recommended a 'katakana' of the day where the English and Japanese meanings of words such as mansion or dryer were contrasted.
Steve Paton - Freeing up fluency in a silent speaking class. In Steve's presentation he noted that students in Japan lack a usage of learning strategies. Steve divided these into Metacognitive (organising study activities, self management and self evaluation), Cognitive (repetition, note taking, deductive inferencing and linking new knowledge to old) and socio effective (used in actual communication such as 'can you repeat that?'). Steve stated that these strategies will be most effective if students understand the strategies, believe they're effective and don't consider them too difficult. He outlined a system of assessment points he uses with his students that encourages active spoken participation in class. His participation guidelines for the students were: extend your comfort zone and take risks, stay in English for the duration, communicate with the instructor in confidence, make the most of your English speaking opportunities and be outstanding. He stated that his participation system was a success and students participated much more in class.
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