How to Teach Reading in the Beginning 50 Hours

How to Teach Reading in the Beginning 50 HoursAuthor(s): Tamie KamiyamaSource: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 8, No. 2/3 (Jul., 1973),pp. 47-54Published by: American Association of Teachers of JapaneseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489198 .

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47

HOW TO TEACH READING IN THE BEGINNING 50 HOURS*

Tamie Kamiyama (Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri)

The audio-lingual method has been used widely and commonly in the teaching of foreign languages, and the teaching of Japa- nese is not an exception. It is certainly true that one cannot teach a foreign language effectively without using this method when one accepts the premise that learning a foreign language means reaching the point where one is able to communicate in the target language. However, in the Japanese teaching situation at the college level, instructors always have to face special prob- lems and conflicts regarding this teaching method. Unlike the case of purely alphabetic or phonetically written languages, in Japanese, in the earlier stages, reading tends to retard or interfere with speaking rather than help it. Yet at the college level, there are always some categories of students whose pri- mary need is to learn reading as quickly as possible. Pedagog- ically, it is obvious that ideally we should organize different groups and use different teaching methods and materials corres- ponding to the students' goals and desires. However, in practice it is impossible to do so in the normal academic situation. When we try to combine the teaching of reading skills with training in spoken Japanese within a limited time allotment, the result seems to be poor.

In my past experience in summer institutes, I have had many students who walked into a Japanese second year class without having had any training whatsoever in the reading of Japanese. Given the limited hours for most elementary courses, it is a very difficult task to teach students all the various required skills. Moreover, widely used textbooks in elementary courses in this country were designed to meet merely the requirements of spoken language, not of reading. Because of the fact that textbooks were written in r5maji, training for reading Japanese characters is entirely dependent upon the instructor's teaching philosophy and methods. There are no ideal systematic teaching methods and materials available in the field of Japanese teaching. However, since this teaching task must be done, how can the results at least be improved? How much can students better their reading comprehension in Japanese (not rZmaji) while they are concentrating on learning how to speak?

*This paper was originally presented at the meeting of the Modern Language Association in December 1972.



48

In this paper, I will discuss how Japanese reading can be better taught in the beginning 50 hours of an elementary course on the basis of my conviction that proper training at the ear- liest stage is the key to successful teaching in the reading of Japanese. I shall discuss this problem under five topics.

1. Romaji reading is a waste of time:

To teach ramaji reading or writing is a waste of time except in a strictly conversational course. When the students' goal includes reading in Japanese, it is better to start to teach hirangana reading from the beginning. The quickest way to teach the 46 basic letters of hiragana is not to teach them in a.i.u.e.o. order but to teach them in sentences with instruction in sentence patterns. In the first class, after basic pronunciation practice, give the first sentence pattern in the textbook, for example, "Watakushi wa gakusei desu." orally by pointing out the hiragana sentence on the blackboard. On the second day of class, instruct students how to write this sentence in hiragana. In the following class, give a dictation quiz on this sentence. In this manner, instructors can introduce the 46 letters of hiragana in the beginning three weeks with hiragana writing practice. All students learn how to read and write hiragana in 12 class hours completely while they are learning basic pronunciation and sentence patterns orally. In the beginning when the new semester starts, the student's curiosity about Japanese writing is usually very strong. RTaji writing and reading often disappoints students. While students are still anxious to learn something different, take advantage of the psychological moment and teach them hiragana very soon.

2. How to avoid hiroi-yomi:

I have heard the criticism that if you teach hiragana too early, before students speak Japanese very well, they start to commit hiroi-yomi such as (wa-ta-ku-shi- wa . . .). Yes, it is true. Sometimes, students are encouraged to do so by getting the wrong reading training regardless of when they start to learn hiragana. In order to avoid this, in the very beginning when students learn hiragana, do not give them the opportunity to practice hiroi-yami. Since hiragana is a syllabic system, once you emphasize that aspect, students start to read each letter rather than whole words. From the



49

beginning when the instructor reads hiragana, he must read at normal speed, and must not read individual letters.

3. Is Rodoku important?

After students learned how to read hiragana, r5doku is a useful technique to improve their reading skills. Reinforcement of correct pronunciation and intonation can be done only through rodoku. During the pattern practice, or conversation in the classroom, a student's pronunciation can reach the acceptable stage quickly through correction by the instructor or by imitation. However, when a student reads a long piece of material aloud, by himself, his weaknesses become much more obvious; therefore, it is much easier to reinforce correct pronunciation. Also, students have no opportunity to keep their hiroi-yomi habit if they learn how to read fluently in the early stage of reading practice. Stu- dents can learn the natural speed of reading through rodoku training.

4. How to train "quick reading":

Everyone is aware that maintaining natural speed during spoken language training is important. However, in reading training on the elementary level, speed training seems to be completely neglected. It has been said "accuracy comes first, speed follows later naturally." Generally, elementary courses are so crowded with the introduction of new sentence patterns and vocabulary that there is no time left for reading training. It is important for the student to make a habit of reading as quickly as possible. In order to give this training, when instructors prepare quizzes, tests, and reading materials, they should always design the materials so as to be completed within a limited time. Instructors cannot give the same evaluation to students who read given material in five minutes that would be given to others who take ten minutes even if their comprehension level is the same.

Now, what is the goal of reading speed on the elementary level? I used the word "quick reading" but I really refer to a natural speed of reading. In the beginning 50 hours, the goal is merely to attain a normal speed of reading. Again, here, reading has two catagories: one



is to read aloud and the other is to read silently. Of course, reading comprehension generally means silent reading. Reading certain materials aloud is a very artificial situation in onets daily life. However, in the beginning of foreign language training, it has an important function as mentioned in (4) above. I do emphasize both types of reading in order to increase the student's reading speed.

I have tried a small experimental test for students using reading material which I prepared. Normal Jap- anese reading speed has been reported as 280 letters a minute (including kanji). I have used the reading material which I have prepared for the last week of the Fall semester. (See appendix). That is to say, twenty les- sons of the textbook Intensive Course in Japanese and 50 class hours have been devoted to this training. In- cidentally, this year I have changed from Niwa's Jp- anese for College Students2 to the Intensive Course textbook. My reading materials include about 140 words, averaging four letters per word and, therefore, a total of 560 letters. At normal speed, one should be able to read this within two minutes. Further, a total of 107 kanji and 19 katakana are included in this reading material. Although the textbook does not introduce kanji yet, I have introduced 75 kanji in 50 hours with hiragana and katakana.

I have tried the following test on each individual student:

Step 1. I gave the material to the student and asked him to read it aloud. It took four minutes for a good student and averaged seven minutes for weaker students.

Step 2. I asked the students to do silent reading while thinking of the content. It took three minutes for good students and seven to eight minutes for weak students.

Step 3. I asked for an explanation of the contents in English. It took one to three minutes.

Step 4. I gave the student ten minutes to practice reading by himself.



51

Step 5. I asked the student to read the same material once more aloud.

Through this small test, a few things became clear. My findings were as follows:

1. All students who took the test achieved the same result. That is, students took two minutes less than the first time when they read the same material in step 5.

2. In the early stage of reading training, the weak students took the same time in both silent reading and rbdoku, while good students took less time in silent reading. Of course, in silent reading, time was measured when students responded, "I have fin- ished." So, there is no way to judge how well they read.

3. It is important to give students an opportunity to find out how much they can improve themselves by practice in a short period of time.

4. Repetition in reading is the key point in the im- provement of skills in reading.

5. Repetition of reading in different contexts is important:

It is obvious that repetition is the most important part of language training. In oral training, although a great amount of time is required, repetition is a rela- tively easy pedagogical device. However, in reading training, it is very difficult. There is no reading material for the beginning students to practice reading skills except textbooks. Almost all elementary textbooks are designed only to teach spoken Japanese. Sen- tences in textbooks are usually short and simple. Therefore, instructors have to prepare great amounts of reading materials which give students the opportunity to read the same patterns and vocabulary in different contexts. Besides the textbook, two pages of supplementary reading materials per week were prepared by myself. The average page of reading material contained about 140 words. However, 20 to 30 of these words are re- peated in the material. Students must be exposed to new words and sentence structure through reading material at least five times, intensively, before they are



capable of reading new material in different contexts with competence.

The above mentioned five techniques produced certain ex- pected results. That is, 17 students in my elementary course have been making much better progress in their reading skills compared to the group who were taught by the romaji method in the beginning three weeks. The techniques produced windfalls.

The following are unexpected findings:

1. There is no confusion at all between the usage of par- ticles in writing such as wa and ha, wo and o, e and he.

2. Rapid mastery of correct pronunciation and intonation; particularly, long and short vowels.

3. Easier transition can be made between reading and writing.

In conclusion, the methods and techniques I have been using, obviously, run counter to current popular linguistic theory as to what is the ideal way of teaching a foreign language. How- ever, after many years of teaching experience, and given my responsibility of making an impossible task possible in a limited time, I feel there are no alternatives to using this Spar- tan linguistic method in an elementary first semester course for which the class time allotment is only four hours a week.

Notes

1Intensive Course in Japanese. Japanese Language Promotion Center. Tokyo: Language Services Co., Ltd.

2Basic Japanese for College Students. Tamako Niwa and Mayako Matsuda. University of Washington Press, Seattle.



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How to Teach Reading in the Beginning 50 Hours