On Sunday, March 25th Luna's student Atsuko Katanaga made her first ever presentation to English teachers, at a Shinshu JALT meeting in Agata-no-Mori. She presents all over the world, in English, in her field of mathematics. She is a leading expert in singularity (which I do not understand even a little bit) and teaches mathematics at Shinshu University. Her presentation was very interesting, and generated a lot of discussion. In my opinion, maths is a foreign language! Way to go Atsuko - you are inspiring!
Atsuko Katanaga presented her opinions on “The Cultural
Differences in teaching” based on her experiences teaching π.
Katanaga is a senior assistant professor of Mathematics at Shinshu University
and not a language teacher; her audience was quickly assured that she was
nevertheless a master of `foreign languages` - which maths seems to be to a lot
of people (and I suggest especially English teachers!)
Katanaga’s first slide where she proceeded to define π
had everyone shrinking back in their seats. She baffled everyone with a
Japanese pnemonic which is supposed to assist memorising Pi and informed us
that other languages do similarly. She also showed us her π
pies, as promised – π Day is celebrated by mathematicians worldwide on March 14th.
Don’t get it?
Japanese concerns to be languishing in 9th; UK
& USA barely made the top 30.
Questions from the floor pointed provoked considerable
interest:
· Katanaga’s use of ≈ (a
worldwide norm for approximation -and
available in Word 2007) when Japanese schools teach another symbol which is
neither.
·
Katanaga explained that A’ for mathematicians represents “A Prime”. Japanese students are taught to express this as “A dash” – but a dash is _ _ _!
·
Maths is not continually assessed in later
life. Being unable to work out change in a shop does not induce the same
‘shame’ that manifests itself with an inability to communicate with a stray
foreigner. How often do we hear people apologise “I can’t do maths”?
·
Japanese children are not taught to estimate i.e. have a rough idea of what
the answer should be before actually doing the math. Witness some of the
enormous ‘errors’ that were broadcast wrt radiation readings post Fukushima
meltdowns.
‘Nittori education’ policy also came up with ingenious idea
of making π
≈
3. I hope there are no graduate engineers of that era building bridges or
working in nuclear power stations... Reassuringly, π ≈ 3.14 again since 2011.
So much for ‘making things easier’ – struck me that using
katakana achieves the same inappropriate non-result for English language
learners.
Katanaga cited her experience observing a Montessori school
in the USA, where children were engaged in self-reflecting learning at their
own pace, uninterrupted. Children had to understand what they were doing.
Students created their own agenda, chose and solved problems. Images of the
classroom displayed children co-operatively engaged in informal ie tableless
environment vs very predictable rigid & teacher at the front as giver of
knowledge in a Japanese classroom.
Katanaga’s observations of a Scottish
classroom of 14 year olds where learning
was to be collaborative, active and cognitive. The motto “No question is
a silly question” rang true for the audience, lamenting that does not seem to
be the case in Japan. In Scotland the following:
·
Self-confidence – I want to learn
·
Self-confidence – I can learn
·
Self-awareness – I know I can
·
Self-sufficient – I know how to
Self-assessment was also built in, with students using
traffic light analogy whether they ‘got it’ (green), ‘a bit woolly’ (amber) or
‘didn`t go in’ (red)
Nakamura & Seino both then asked if π were
being taught to early in Japan. Katanaga said ‘Yes and no’. You need the value of π ≈ 3.14 to calculate the area of a
circle – it gets the job done. However, to have children exposed to abstract
concepts such as irrational numbers at an early age is counter-productive, and
should be left till later. It occurred to me that English teachers might want
to replace irrational numbers with insanely hard grammar structures. Likewise,
teaching a child to read (phonics) at an early age will give them the tools to
get the job done at an early age – get all abstract and technical later (if you
have to).
This is how she summarised her πspective:
|
Japan
|
overseas
|
Teacher
|
Teach
|
Encourage
|
Students
|
Look, write, think
|
Listen, think, talk
|
class
|
Same age
|
Mixed/streamed
|
Disclaimer: Atsuko Katanaga is my
student, but her presentation was entirely her own work & unpracticed.
