Kazuya Sekiguchi Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
This is an excerpt from an installment of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series, continued from last week, focuses on helping children develop communication skills.
OSAKA--Juku cram schools are basically for helping students catch up with school studies or pass entrance examinations. However, one juku chain has gone further by introducing a course to help its students improve their thinking skills through dialogue-based classes.
Ruijuku, a chain that operates 25 branches in Osaka Prefecture, launched what it calls a "honkaku (full-scale) course" last year.
A recent class in the course, held at the main office of the chain in Yodogawa Ward, Osaka, began with a Japanese translation of a poem by the famous Chinese poet Tu Fu (712-770).
"Kuni yaburete sanga ari," lecturer Satoru Yano, 24, recited. (The line means, "Though the nation has been defeated, the hills and rivers remain as they were.") The students repeated the words after him, before writing the lines down.
The course aims at helping children develop "full-scale" thinking skills that enable them to come up with flexible ideas. In a standard 90-minute class, the first 30 minutes are dedicated to listening comprehension and speaking--the reciting of the Chinese poem being one such example.
The students also practice deep breathing to improve their concentration, before moving on to discussion sessions between the lecturer and the students on various topics.
"When people talk about environmental problems, what are the issues they raise?" Yano asked.
"Acid rain." "Destroying the ozone layer." "Decreasing rain forests." The students responded in quick succession. Then the lecturer posed the next question. "Well, why does acid rain happen?"
The day's class was attended by 25 students, ranging from third-year primary school to second-year middle school students. The wide range of ages reflects Ruijuku's belief that it is important for children to learn about opinions that they would not ordinarily hear in discussions among children of their own age group. The chain initially recruited students from the fourth-year of primary school to those of high school age for its honkaku course.
With classes held once a week, the course has attracted about 160 students. Ruijuku aims at increasing the number to about 400 for the new school year starting next month.
Topics featured in the course generally deal with social issues or topics that have something to do with school subjects.
For example, the concept of "burning" is featured in the course as something related to science. The challenge to students goes as follows: "To put out something burning, you should decrease the temperature of the object by pouring water on it. However, there is a metal that can also burn in water--even below the freezing point. Why is this possible?"
The honkaku course pursues this kind of "why?" question giving students time to look into something that they would not usually be asked to do.
Since its establishment in 1975, Ruijuku has become known for sending many students to prestigious public high schools in the Osaka area. However, Koji Kitamura, 45, head of the chain's public relations office, pointed out that what children study at school and for entrance examinations has drifted far apart from what they need to survive in real-life business and social situations.
"We wanted to help our students develop full-scale thinking skills that would benefit them in the future," Kitamura said in explaining why his juku launched its honkaku course. "A juku is a place that should make up for what schools lack. Consequently, the roles juku are supposed to play have been changing."
Ruijuku formed a project team consisting of its younger lecturers, whose discussions eventually produced the idea of launching dialogue-based classes.
"Children can develop their thinking skills through dialogues by which they accept others' opinions and express their own. Expressing their ideas can itself be good training for students," Kitamura said, quoting some of the project team's conclusions.
"When the students get feedback on their own ideas, it can be very motivating," said Nobuhiro Yasunishi, 32, one of the lecturers in charge of the course.
Discussions in the honkaku course can go beyond the classroom. The students can contribute new opinions and questions they come up with outside the classroom to a Web site exclusively for the course--a process that requires the dialogue skills necessary to convince others.
The Web site will be opened for general access beginning next month, involving the public in the children's discussions.
School focuses on self-expression skills with systematic curriculum
KANAZAWA--Divided into groups of three, first-graders at Yonaizumi Primary School began reading children's books to one another one day in early February.
"Please read in a big voice and in a way your friends can understand with ease," their teacher reminded them from time to time.
This was an exercise in preparation for an event later that month to welcome preschoolers who will enroll at the primary school next month. The school hoped the exercise would also present an opportunity for students to improve their ability to express themselves.
The public primary school has set self-expression skills at the top of its educational agenda for this school year and hopes to help its students develop these skills in every aspect of their school life under a systematic curriculum the school has devised.
In another class the same day, second graders were practicing a song they would perform for a graduation ceremony this month. Rather than giving a direct explanation of the idea of a "crescendo"--a steady increase in volume--the music teacher asked the children for their opinions.
"Before singing the song, let's think about which parts you should put your feelings into," the teacher said.
Essay writing provides another example of the school's self-expression policy. When Yonaizumi students write essays, they are encouraged to correct one another's work and discuss their essays together. In this way students can improve their skills of writing and dialogue at the same time.
Yet another opportunity for self-expression comes in the form of one-minute speeches students are encouraged to make during the 20-minute homeroom period before the day's first class.
Under its systematic curriculum, the school has also compiled a clear guide as to what activities should be used to help develop self-expression skills, with arrows suggesting which of these activities are related.
Second graders taking a Japanese class in September discussed how you could talk to your friends so they understood you more easily. A social ethics class practiced giving compliments to one another in October.
Since it was established in 1983, Yonaizumi Primary School has emphasized the importance of its Japanese classes. Despite this clear focus, though, the school noticed that many students remained relatively poor at expressing their own experiences and ideas.
"We found that our traditional methodology had reached a dead end when it came to further improving their abilities," said Principal Yasuhiro Kanaya, 53, reflecting on the time when he was transferred to the school in 2002 as vice principal.
During the summer vacation that year, the school's 24 teachers read between them all 293 published textbooks available for primary school students. Each teacher wrote a paper on the books he or she had read.
The teachers' reports revealed that while every textbook featured units that had something to do with self-expression, they were not well organized--with some contents overlapping not just classes but actual grades.
Then the school formed a committee to review the school's textbooks and activities so a more systematic curriculum promoting self-expression could be formulated.
"It was tough going until we began to see how [the textbooks' contents and school activities] could be related to one other, from one grade to another, or among subjects," said Hiroshi Hashi, 44, the teacher in charge of the project at that time.
Even after compiling the curriculum, the school has still been reviewing it.
"For the past year, I can say that our students have improved their skills far beyond our initial expectations partly because the teachers themselves have also improved their teaching skills," Kanaya said. "Ultimately, the children have also been improving academic skills in other subjects than the mother tongue."
(Mar. 21, 2006)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20060321TDY16001.htm
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