I'm also going, looking very forward to seeing the guy live...!

Thanks for posting!

I'm hoping to head there as well! I'm particularly excited to hear about the RTK translation aspect... seems really interesting.

For anyone who was at the event, I'd love to hear what it was like and what Heisig had to say... Did anyone go?

I was there. The event seems to have been set up by a lit agent who was looking to attract more of an audience for the main show, so she called in a favor to Heisig to give a talk beforehand. So his speech wasn't really focused, but this worked out better in the end. He basically talked about whatever he wanted for a half hour or so.

Here are a few things I thought were really interesting, both about his life and the things he's interested in.

- His personal philosophy is to "see things clearly," and this has led him to, among other things, write the kanji book and dedicate his life to learning about the cultural disconnect between the East and West and write books trying to show they're not so different after all.

- More of a paraphrase than a quote: "People that only know one language don't know what language is. When you learn a second one, you can find out what your native language can do, and what it can't. ... Likewise, people that only have one religion don't know what religion is, so I recommend taking up another one."

- He gets very confused if you ask him where he's from. He's lived in Japan for the last thirty-odd years, and it's the longest he's ever lived in one place. He's lived in America, England, Spain, Greece, Nicaragua, and probably a bunch of other places. He speaks a shit ton of languages, and he implied that he was doing the translations of his book himself, though he may just be editing copies sent to him.

- He wrote Remembering the Kanji on his third month in Japan, which was the month after he learned the kanji himself.

- The teachers at the Japanese school he was attending had never had a student learn more than 800 or so kanji. After seeing what Heisig could do, they deemed him as having a photographic memory and asked him not to speak to the other students about his abilities.

- Afterwards, he moved to Nagano Prefecture and lived/worked near/in a grammar school and "learned Japanese from the children."

- He once told a room full of 日本人 kanji teachers that they should "take up another profession" because the method they were using to teach kanji to foreigners was based off of the way Japanese students learn it and, thus, almost totally ineffective.

- Japan could within 15 years have a world-class foreign language education system if they based their method off of successful European models (like Finland's), but the Ministry of Education--according to Heisig, the most conservative ministry in the government--doesn't have enough faith in the Japanese people to enact such sweeping changes. Thus, the current system will probably stay in effect for years.

There were a bunch of anecdotes and stories thrown in amongst all this, and it was all very entertaining and enlightening. A incredibly smart guy, and very kind. If he does another speech sometime, I recommend checking it out.

"Nuns don`t have discipline."
J.W.Heisig

Did anyone have a chance to meet him during the seminar? I'd love to meet him, especially since he is more or less living my dream of moving to Japan and philosophizing. I'm eager to know how he has gotten to where he is now.

A few months ago, I stumbled across a paper written by him. I consider Martin Buber as my philosophical grandfather, and Heisig happened to write a journal article focusing on Buber's philosophy in relation to Kitaro Nishida's entitled Non-I and Thou: Nishida, Buber, and the Moral Consequences of Self-Actualization. After reading it, I was left in a daze of awe and envy. It was an experience similar to how I feel after reading about the incredible progress that some people report on this forum. Inspiring and intimidating at the same time...

Interesting story, thanks for sharing.

I wanted to take the best parts of Downey's post and add a comment, but all he said about Mr. Heisig is so great that I couldn't take just parts and leave the rest out.

I wonder if reading Heisig's works would transfer some of his awesome to me.

To think that completing STUDYING RTK in a couple of months can be a feat, and he CREATED it in his third month in Japan...

Awesome.

Downey, Could you elaborate more on your last point? The one about Japan could have a world class foreign language education system? I don't know enough about its current system and what changes he thinks could be enacted.

Thanks.

I am not Downey, but since I was there I`ll try to answer.
Heisig gave an example of Finland and Estonia as countries with the right approach to teaching English.
As far as I understand, basically they don`t have English classes, but they have classes in English. They explain lessons in English, but never test English or its different aspects.
In other words, it`s something like AEATT method and no exams.

There are many ways to improve the Japanese education system in regards to English without such a drastic step which doesn't work anyways (at least not by itself. I went to a school with a similar system for French and I forgot most of it).

For example: stop hiring English teachers who cannot speak English, stop hiring foreign TAs as throwaway haken labor that only meets students once a week at most, add speaking and composition to tests and entrance exams.

None of those would require a drastic restructuring of the entire school system or requirements to find a large number of bilingual teachers for each subject. The Japanese system isn't failing to teach student to speak English, it isn't even attempting because the teachers cannot speak, on the whole. one of my ex coworkers couldn't speak or understand spoken English any better than her middleschool students (she was incomprehensible). Classes are focused on reading, paraphrasing in Japanese, and passing standardized tests.

Downey Wrote:- He once told a room full of 日本人 kanji teachers that they should "take up another profession" because the method they were using to teach kanji to foreigners was based off of the way Japanese students learn it and, thus, almost totally ineffective.

Well, I kind of agree.. though I wouldn't have put it that way.

Jarvik7 Wrote:add speaking and composition to tests and entrance exams.

This is basically what it boils down to. Students study for entrance exams, and the students who are going to good schools and want to go to good colleges have no time to actually learn a subject. Instead they need to spend many many hours to learn how to take a test, and the test for English (as it is now) has nothing to do with being able to speak and use English.

However, I disagree with what you say about English teachers. For the most part (at least in Kyoto), these days most high school teachers can speak English, and there are even a noticeable percentage who can speak very well. The JET Program has in some ways been inefficient at improving how English is taught (since the JETs are only TAs, and don't have any power really). But what it has done is taught all the English teachers to speak English, since they had no choice but to do so in their work environment. I'd say 70% of the teachers in Kyoto can speak well, and the 30% or so who don't mostly don't because they are shy and don't have self-confidence. I've worked with two teachers who really can't speak English though (among maybe 25 that I've worked with).

wish I could have seen him, stupid work on stupid monday night....

Since this has morphed into a convo about the Japanese educational system, let me toss in the reminder that according to a change in the educational doctrine, active either 2011 or 2012, quite soon at any rate, all English teacher in Jr. High Schools and High Schools will be required to speak English, and conduct classes in English. It was hot news for about 5 seconds last year but everyone (barring the 30-year tenure English teachers who must be shaking in fear) seems to have forgotten about it.

I think the system will eventually get better. The flaws MUST be recognized, or else Japan's current ineffective system of teaching "English" to students will continue to keep private schools like the one I work for in good business.... (conspiracy anyone?)

LazyNomad Wrote:I am not Downey, but since I was there I`ll try to answer.
Heisig gave an example of Finland and Estonia as countries with the right approach to teaching English.
As far as I understand, basically they don`t have English classes, but they have classes in English. They explain lessons in English, but never test English or its different aspects.
In other words, it`s something like AEATT method and no exams.

Where the hell did you get that idea from?

I am from Finland and we start studying English in 3rd grade(at age of 8-9) (in some schools it starts earlier). As our mother tongue is Finnish which has nothing to do with English, it would be impossible to have classes in English and wait for people to understand it. So we have English classes, with normal teaching.

If you want to take your classes in English you need to be in university or some other school near that level.
We also have exams, both speaking and writing all the way from 3rd grade to university and higher.

The reason we are pretty good in English (and maybe some other languages) is that we get constantly exposed to english language. American TV shows with subtitles, Most games are in english and we hate dubs (dubs are mainly for children who can't read)
Our language is also pretty flexible for learning other languages.

====

But I agree with Heisig that japanese could use some changes in their english teaching.
Imo someone who speak english as his mother tongue are bad teachers for (BASIC)English. Best teacher is always the one that shares the same mother tongue as the students, because he has learned the language and knows what problems students might have with it as he has gone trough them himself.

The people with English as their mother tongue are however very useful for advanced English. As they are the most effective when it comes to fine tuning the knowledge about the language from spelling, pronouncing, words etc. But they are not fit to teach the basics.

Finnish way to teach english could be good for japanese tough, we share almost identical way to pronounce alphabets and we always pronounce alphabets in the same way. This could be useful when teaching japanese people to read words/sentences first in their own way and then learn how they are pronounced in English.

Examples for those who speak english as their mothertongue:
- A is always "a" not "a" or "ei" like in english.
car - かｒ - kar/car
baby - べいび　- Beibi

C is used mainly for loan words from English in Finnish, as its basically a letter that binds "k", "k", s and Z in a single letter. Car - Kar, Celsius - Selssious etc.

As we always read our letters the same way, the kids can pronounce even the hardest words just by reading the letters.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language

its sometimes funny to see a japanese word that sounds exactly the same as finnish one but with completely different meaning. There are even music videos with japanese singer but with Finnish heard lyrics.

hilarious

bennyb Wrote:wish I could have seen him, stupid work on stupid monday night....

Since this has morphed into a convo about the Japanese educational system, let me toss in the reminder that according to a change in the educational doctrine, active either 2011 or 2012, quite soon at any rate, all English teacher in Jr. High Schools and High Schools will be required to speak English, and conduct classes in English. It was hot news for about 5 seconds last year but everyone (barring the 30-year tenure English teachers who must be shaking in fear) seems to have forgotten about it.

I think the system will eventually get better. The flaws MUST be recognized, or else Japan's current ineffective system of teaching "English" to students will continue to keep private schools like the one I work for in good business.... (conspiracy anyone?)

That's only a draft guideline from MEXT. Basically, not anything official yet.

But according to it the "Mostly English" classes start in 2013. And it's only for high school and grammar explanations will still be given in Japanese. Grammar is a good 75% of the class too, haha no changes.

Womacks23 Wrote:

bennyb Wrote:wish I could have seen him, stupid work on stupid monday night....

Since this has morphed into a convo about the Japanese educational system, let me toss in the reminder that according to a change in the educational doctrine, active either 2011 or 2012, quite soon at any rate, all English teacher in Jr. High Schools and High Schools will be required to speak English, and conduct classes in English. It was hot news for about 5 seconds last year but everyone (barring the 30-year tenure English teachers who must be shaking in fear) seems to have forgotten about it.

I think the system will eventually get better. The flaws MUST be recognized, or else Japan's current ineffective system of teaching "English" to students will continue to keep private schools like the one I work for in good business.... (conspiracy anyone?)

That's only a draft guideline from MEXT. Basically, not anything official yet.

But according to it the "Mostly English" classes start in 2013. And it's only for high school and grammar explanations will still be given in Japanese. Grammar is a good 75% of the class too, haha no changes.

Interesting. Where did you get this information? I'm curious about the details of it myself

Hmm english native speakers are good when it comes towards advance stuff/general conversations. I wouldn't be able to explain basic stuff in detail. So studying basics from book/srs/sentences. Are the best way for this. But convos are best to do with native-speakers as they can point out any mistakes anyone may have.
I remember in my grade 12 physics class, this guy was ESL. He spoke just the same as anyone living in canada for there whole life. I was like wow, are you really ESL? He did spend a lot of time outside of class learning the language. I believe if you really want to learn it, you gotta invest time outside of class.

It's like this with all the languages. I would be a very poor teacher if one wants to learn Finnish. Sure I could give some basic sentences but I would have problems giving them tips for learning the language because I have learned the language by just listening it as a child. So I do not posses any experience on how hard the language might be for student or what answers I should give to his questions. This non-native > native teacher presumes the teacher has mastered at least the basics of the language hes teaching.

But for advanced english lessons, the natives are perfect as they can fine tune their students in a way no non-native speaker can. This requires no knowledge on the language students use as all the classes can be/ should be done in the language.
I can safely say that we could use a lot more practice for our spoken english, unfortunately the cases where one can actually speak the language are limited.

I am however interested what Heisig might mean with copying our school system for language lessons directed to Japanese people. Our school system ranks pretty well in the world but as our language is still very different from Japanese even with similar spelling it might or might not work for them.

At the moment I think general apathy towards English is the largest factor preventing any education reforms from truly helping. Even if writing, speech, and other skills were required to pass the necessary exams, if "passing the exam" is the student's only motivation then they will only learn the language to the bare minimum to meet that need, and soon forget it all immediately after it isn't necessary anymore.

Japanese people have the same plagued view as the general American population when it comes to learning a second language: the "...huh? Why would I?" response. It simply isn't necessary for their social nor professional functions in life, while seemingly requiring such an extraordinary amount of time and effort that there is no motivation to learn it. So English is learned in the same was that people who loathe math and learn it just to pass their GE requirments, promptly forgetting every single math-related thing for the rest of their lives.

The two reasons for truly learning a language to a high proficiency are: necessity, and passion. I just don't see either of those becoming widespread in Japan anytime soon.

Aijin Wrote:The two reasons for truly learning a language to a high proficiency are: necessity, and passion. I just don't see either of those becoming widespread in Japan anytime soon.

Depends in what way Japan develops in the future. If they are trying to become more international with everything they do it will seriously increase the necessity of the english language.

For us Finns in the past, English was not as important as Swedish and Russian as they are our neighbor countries. But as nowadays the EU and international trade/agreements/business partners etc have increased the importance of English to pretty must to level of "a MUST".
Not to mention there's plenty of foreign workforce coming to Finland now that there is more people retiring than there's coming to work (Birth rates declined dramatically from the 50's)

Most jobs require at least a decent skill in English and thinking about IT related job without knowing any English is madness (not many manuals/tutorials/etc come in Finnish).

For my understanding japan has similar problems(declining population, need for better/more exports), and I would guess that in this modern day of age shutting out from the rest of the world does not show well in economy.

Not a quick change tough, it will take years as in tens of years at least.

Is it just me or maybe there are other problems with the Japanese education system than learning English? I think sometimes many countries put too much faith in banking on getting rich just by learning English...but you can see in many countries (ie, Romania, Indonesia, Philippines) knowing English does not guarentee one a good paying job, maybe you can work at a customer support for some tech company, but for the most part, it would be 100 times more useful for Japanese, and other students around the world to focus on math, science, and economics, which can get way farther in life than any language can.

And even if Japan did adopt the method like Finland, what does that say about Japanese culture? If they gave all classes in English, does that mean they just throw away Japanese language, one of the most beautiful languages aside, because the corporations say it is beneficial to learn English(what they really mean is, they want you to buy things in English so they don't have to bother translating their products)?

People should only learn a language if they want to learn it, there should be no forcing of language learning. I am sure there are plenty of students in Japan who could careless about English and would rather have the time they spent studying English, studying something else(like maths, economics,etc..maybe even Chinese who knows)

The fact is Japan is the 2nd(or 3rd?) worlds biggest economy, and much of has done by not knowing English.

The economic illiteracy(USA included) around the world is ridiculous, here in USA sometimes people will even ask "if everyone is so poor, why doesn't the govt just print money to give to everyone" I am sure that is the case for many other nations too, and look how good everyone's economy is doing right now(its doing piss poor)

I might end with a quote by some multi-lingual translator from Europe who was a promoter of Esperanto
"English language teaching is one of the greatest wastes of money" and then something else I cant remember it all

Downey Wrote:I was there. The event seems to have been set up by a lit agent who was looking to attract more of an audience for the main show, so she called in a favor to Heisig to give a talk beforehand. So his speech wasn't really focused, but this worked out better in the end. He basically talked about whatever he wanted for a half hour or so.

Here are a few things I thought were really interesting, both about his life and the things he's interested in.

- His personal philosophy is to "see things clearly," and this has led him to, among other things, write the kanji book and dedicate his life to learning about the cultural disconnect between the East and West and write books trying to show they're not so different after all.

- More of a paraphrase than a quote: "People that only know one language don't know what language is. When you learn a second one, you can find out what your native language can do, and what it can't. ... Likewise, people that only have one religion don't know what religion is, so I recommend taking up another one."

- He gets very confused if you ask him where he's from. He's lived in Japan for the last thirty-odd years, and it's the longest he's ever lived in one place. He's lived in America, England, Spain, Greece, Nicaragua, and probably a bunch of other places. He speaks a shit ton of languages, and he implied that he was doing the translations of his book himself, though he may just be editing copies sent to him.

- He wrote Remembering the Kanji on his third month in Japan, which was the month after he learned the kanji himself.

- The teachers at the Japanese school he was attending had never had a student learn more than 800 or so kanji. After seeing what Heisig could do, they deemed him as having a photographic memory and asked him not to speak to the other students about his abilities.

- Afterwards, he moved to Nagano Prefecture and lived/worked near/in a grammar school and "learned Japanese from the children."

- He once told a room full of 日本人 kanji teachers that they should "take up another profession" because the method they were using to teach kanji to foreigners was based off of the way Japanese students learn it and, thus, almost totally ineffective.

- Japan could within 15 years have a world-class foreign language education system if they based their method off of successful European models (like Finland's), but the Ministry of Education--according to Heisig, the most conservative ministry in the government--doesn't have enough faith in the Japanese people to enact such sweeping changes. Thus, the current system will probably stay in effect for years.

There were a bunch of anecdotes and stories thrown in amongst all this, and it was all very entertaining and enlightening. A incredibly smart guy, and very kind. If he does another speech sometime, I recommend checking it out.

LazyNomad Wrote:I am not Downey, but since I was there I`ll try to answer.
Heisig gave an example of Finland and Estonia as countries with the right approach to teaching English.
As far as I understand, basically they don`t have English classes, but they have classes in English. They explain lessons in English, but never test English or its different aspects.
In other words, it`s something like AEATT method and no exams.

That sounds a lot like 'The Linguist' Steve Kaufmann. I would love to see both of them having a discussion on language acquision.

Jarvik7 Wrote:There are many ways to improve the Japanese education system in regards to English without such a drastic step which doesn't work anyways (at least not by itself. I went to a school with a similar system for French and I forgot most of it).

The biggest problem is the entrance exam system. You will never learn a foreign language in a class where the only thing that matters is whether you pass an entrance exam at the end of 3 years (or then another one after another 3 years), unless you have some external motivation to study it for a purpose other than the exam.

I didn't care about learning French in middle school, but I still had more functional French at the end of my middle school classes than the students I saw in Japan, and I think one big reason for this is that I had to do French homework worksheets every day and take a bunch of quizzes, and I actually cared (at least somewhat) about my grades.

(I often wonder how it would work to do grammar cramming in elementary school, in the style of the old classical Western education system, and then once they get to middle school and have that grammatical basis you can work on functional usage.)

Aijin:

Quote:The two reasons for truly learning a language to a high proficiency are: necessity, and passion.

Definitely. If you look at some of the other Asian countries that have overall better English ability than Japan, one big reason is that there's an economic necessity (or at least advantage) to know English. In Japan there really isn't. Everyone seems to have this vague idea that they should know English and people will often tell you that it's necessary, but if you ask them for specifics on why it's necessary they can't really tell you -- because it's not.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Aijin:

Quote:The two reasons for truly learning a language to a high proficiency are: necessity, and passion.

Definitely. If you look at some of the other Asian countries that have overall better English ability than Japan, one big reason is that there's an economic necessity (or at least advantage) to know English. In Japan there really isn't. Everyone seems to have this vague idea that they should know English and people will often tell you that it's necessary, but if you ask them for specifics on why it's necessary they can't really tell you -- because it's not.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama urged Japanese youth to "study English, and see the world".
"Whether you like it or not, English is the universal language. Study English and go out. This is very important."