So today, I went to the library to check out some books for my sociolinguistics research proposal, which is to investigate the effectiveness of the English-only language policy in SILS. In terms of what I really don't know, and unfortunately at one small section of the library my scope expanded far more than I thought. This could be graduate school research material haha. I need to ask the professor if there has been any major research on SILS since it's inception (obviously there was a lot that went into planning it's design, need to find that as well. Might have to look through Japanese research @__@). Also I have crappy luck, and hate the Japanese abhorrence for lateness; here, you don't pay a fine for overdue library books, instead they bar you from checking out books for two weeks!! So much more of an annoyance/bother/obtrusion/面倒臭い！！！And just when my resolve had settled to do all this research and read all these books, I get hit when I will not be busy at all (I need something to do on my plane rides too lol). Just realized I will need to buy presents for the people I'm going to see.... hadn't thought about that... Also need to right about Taka's birthday, Nagoya, and Rakugo, look into SILS internships, WAVOC, yell at the travel agent for my Seoul ticket, post the transcription from my presentation on friendship inside SILS, about joining a Yosakoi circle and also transcribe the notes I made for myself on my phone during my first days here. Just reminding myself but don't know how effective that will be.
Anyway, gonna write down everything I wrote down on my hand (should've just gotten some paper...) before it fades away, expound on my ideas later and use this as a platform (start) to narrow my focus for the term paper and presentation. Then get started on all my other work -____-;; And hopefully use Sunday (my birthday) for a little traveling around the city and buying the gifts for people (I am a terrible gift giver, btw... and that reminds me, need to tell Haskins to tell his mom about omiyage and つまらないものですけど which I should have used as a teaching oppurtunity that night. There was an extremely similar situation in one of the books I looked at about JFL learner's interactions with their host families -- the Japanese think those kinds of expressions are limited to them!! I guess it doesn't help that there are a lot of people who are impressed with their own gifts but...)
Anyway, the list! Before I get distracted again. Some are book titles, some are quotes, some are vague references to topics I found in some of the random books I pulled out.
- Teacher learning as Language Teaching (don't know what this means anymore... maybe "in" instead of "as"? So maybe this book was just interesting for my professional development lol)
- L1 (first language) classroom use (use in the classroom): obstacle or resource? (aka L1 in the ESL classroom, representing freedom, rebellion, etc. Negotiating classroom interaction) [Specific Book: Resisting English imperialism in English Teaching]
- difference between 日本人 and 帰国生 in terms of language use within SILS, people to be interviewed are Sao, Tatsuya, Ray/Johnny, Nao
- World Englishes
- "Expressive Japanese" -- book title that sounds like it can brush up my language skills. Also will be applying myself more to using the language, studying, and interacting with Japanese people. Looked at a book on language study strategies, and it was actually pretty enlightening. Near-native fluency, it said, is usually achieved within 5-17 years of study, if at all (apparently it's rare unless you go into something that demands the language ability), and I'm already on year 6... or 3, depending on how you count lol but that's just to make me feel better -____-;;
- Features of Japanese: is there anything special about it that would make the fluent speakers want to use Japanese during the classroom? During presentations, friend groups, speaking to the teacher, etc (Comparison to ESL classrooms, there was a book that went in depth into a group of Tamil students, who when asked to either make the lines for or describe a comic and do a sort of presentation (a presentation of sorts lol, gotta remember to use more complicated grammar patterns every now and then, in Japanese too! Ingraine that stuff man), translated the comic/lines, discussed it in depth in Tamil and what they wanted to do, and then when done made the presentation in English. It was a lot more in depth thinking than would have been if it had just been in English, so is there something similar that goes on in SILS? lol and what does this say about English ability of students involved???)
- SILS students' English ability; confidence (and hesitation: 何言ったらいい？ and other small utterances) and being unable to speak (not proficient in) English by the time of graduation. Also if Japanese education style -- in other words not asking questions (apparently an asian thing?) -- is prevalent from the teachers as well, or being combatted at all
- Is there a reward/punishment system for using non-Japanese languages? (for example, in elementary schools)
- Am I going to look at students other than Japanese who are not native English speakers too?
- SILS role as international escapism (something like that, in one of the articles from Godzilla class) for Japanese women, and men too, and if there is any effect on 就職 or the types of companies that students apply for -- although the job market may have changed much more quickly than the publishment of that article...
- SILS as an immersion school of sorts for older students; can look into effectiveness of this method, and things like bilingual education. Indeed, one of the strategies for gaining good profiency in a language is studying abroad (for grad school for example), where you can take course work course work in the language; basically what so many international students are doing already in the US -- I wonder what the market is like nowadays for places like Japan and China (in terms of US->there interaction)? anyway, there was an interesting question in one of the books, something like "Who is really being immersed" in an immersion school? And are there negative consequences on the native speakers who attend immersion schools, as teachers use simpler grammar and sentences to avoid complications in the classrom? Also, to reach the near-native fluency level, I read it's important to study but also to play, and increase the use of grammar and vocabulary you use and learn, and that's especially the kind of thing study abroad is good for. There are also people who have never studied abroad but have reached the highest highs of language ability, and what those people did was to surround themselves with native speakers in their home towns, in effect creating a study abroad for themselves at home. Very interesting. (Also a sort of similar thing to remaining in your own ex-pat community... something I think is really bad and should change about international schools... if I work for one, I would probably request to be sent to live further away from those communities...)
- Are there non-native English speakers other than Japanese in the English classes? What are these classes like? And what do Japanese students who don't have the requisite English ability do during their first few years at SILS?
- Could do a sociolinguistic description of the social structure of SILS, going more into the divisions between and within the SP1, 2, and 3 categories. Which means more interviews with students.
- Is the language use within SILS simply learned (socialized) usage? i.e. what is "appropriate" is learned through sempai-kouhai system, ostracization from peers, acceptance by teachers,
- Teacher talk: Bilingual accomodation for non-native speakers in the classroom, and also the teachers themselves when they are not fluent.
- Why use English in SILS? (Back to planning and "immersion education") Is there an encouraged type of English being spread?
- Am I going to look at the use of languages other than English and Japanese? (Chinese, Korean etc, even though Japanese or English becomes a lingua franca when groups from diverse backgrounds get together)
- "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" Ludwig Wittgeister(sp?)
- Need to look up the giants of sociolinguistics
- Language use as a purposeful means of inclusion or exclusion of others (language accomodation from ex french-english english-tamil when tamil speaker says hi to tamil and english-tamil responds in french to keep conversation going)
- Effect of the presence of 商学部生 on language in SILS building
- something about 国際化
- Translation theory and 通学, different relegations of language for specific functions (ie to describe cultural contexts, or whether students think in japanese or english when talking)
- Corpus and status planning inside of SILS
- What questions do I want to ask students on the survey?? This will impact the kinds of responses I get, as well as whether I should provide Japanese translations/versions to each of the questions... Also have to see what I would do with those and how many I would want to give out... and whether I should talk to the 商学部生 or not....
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