Guide to set up a conducive (supportive) environment in Nichidai and how to maintain it

The Japanese live by the mindset of shoganai or accepting one's fate. Based on the the national philosophy: "if something is out of your control, it's better to quickly accept it and move on," So for example, if you got robbed? Shoganai is your answer, as it can't be helped. Most of the students I have encountered when meeting some challenges, instead of saying shoganai, they would say again: "わかんない、“ (wakannai or I don't know) and it is just simply infuriating as it is an undermining way to accept defeat. All again, link to the thinking of others before you mindset, and to not bother someone. because of this, we are to change that by:

1. Being supportive 

Student independently working on their ipads

Students sometimes require a little bit of push to get the job done; well, in Nichidai students' case, you have to shower them with praises. According to our mentors, the students don't normally receive praises from their parents and this is where teachers should taking their roles at. Being supportive not only requires us to praise them but to also assist them in their learning experience such as to tend to their learning needs. Mr. Long has claimed that creating content that reaches out to the students more such as including things and topics or examples that have relevance to them in their daily lives or at least things that they are interested in will optimize not only the learning experience but also the teaching experience too. Occasionally, slap in some popular Japanese singer groups like AKB48, Perfume & etc or celebrities always gets the job done.

The ever popular all girls band

Occasionally, Mr. Long would insert his Japanese alter ego- Takumi Suzuki in class as examples or scenarios and you could always encounter Takumi Suzuki in the majority of his homework examples. This elicits the students to pay attention, the usage of Takumi Suzuki has greatly impacted the students in class. How so? As soon as Mr. Long mentions his alter ego, the students would laugh or mutter: "again?" This is evident that the students actually pay attention as they further causes them to ponder about Mr. Long's fascination with Takumi Suzuki and why Takumi Suzuki. The main similarity between the school I had back in Osaka and Nichidai is that the teachers rarely apply the concept of PBL or problem- based learning. In a normal Japanese-conducted lesson, the teachers would immediately list out the facts and information to the students telling them what and how they should be doing. This is, in all honesty, a very boring approach, it is what the teachers in government schools in Malaysia would do- spoon feeding them the information rather than making sure that they understand, the Japanese teachers here believe their purpose is to relay information like the teachers in local government schools in Malaysia, the way of articulating the information does not guarantee the students to actually remember the knowledge with meaning to it as in the end, the students' purpose of studying is to pass entrance exams, and that is all.

The ever famous Takumi Suzuki being
used in various homework examples

The purpose of PBL is to make sure the students are able to make meaning of what they learn so that it will be ingrained into their minds over why they should be learning it. Linking real-life scenarios to subjects allow students to understand the importance of learning a particular concept. With the fact that Mr. Long uses a character with a Japanese name is meant to infuse familiarity. It is a form of supporting the students. In what ways? Well, this indirect way assisting students makes students to relate themselves into Takumi Suzuki's shoes or vice versa as it should be quite obvious that Japan is ethnocentric and xenophobic - the us vs them mentality, no way a foreigner would understand how they feel, thus Takumi Suzuki comes in!

Also, let's not forget about the praises, yes, it can be an overkill in many occasions but the students really need the cue for them to move forward and they seem to respond very well towards praises. Another way of supporting the students in class is to elicit their response. In most cases, when asking students to give you answers especially in Japan (or Nichidai for example) would not dare to try and answer as they fear of mistakes and failures, but in other words, I would consider that they are still in lemming-mode as no one has step forward to volunteer. From this, our mentors would probe them with hints or through a storytelling method (usually, this is Mr. Long's method of gaining student attention and to help them get an idea on what they are learning because they are engaged- he would either draw on his ipad or on the blackboard). This is most effective when our mentors are team-teaching, while the main teacher is teaching the partner teacher would give examples by becoming the volunteer first and sometimes "secretly" give students answers- if they are in a playful mood, they would purposely raise the students' hands to volunteer.


    2. Being interested

As I mentioned before, students have almost limited time spent with their family and their parents would even work overtime as well, thus their interactions with them are just fairly limited. We can support them by in a sense, showing interest in their lives or their progress. Just like the point above, include topics that they know or like, sometimes, I would give my SGL students some comedian references such as Matsumoto Hitoshi or Hamada Masatoshi, another thing that we can do is featuring the students in the scenarios or question papers. This also makes them interested in the topics or lessons we are carrying out, because they feel that they are a part of this learning process and they are forced to put themselves in the thinking scenarios.

Not only that, my mentors and I would occasionally engage in short conversations with the students regarding topics that they are interested in such as anime, songs, their favorite YouTube channels and etc. From this teachers and students will gain a common ground and we get to discover a different side of the students, maybe they are interested in something else entirely that could be really incredible. This also eliminates the distance between teachers and students, with students now has changed their impressions on their teachers seeing that they are also normal human beings.


    3. Be available 

Halloween event in English Lounge
Setting up for the movie: Corpse Bride

This concept is similar to being supportive, but being available when they are in need. Our mentors and even the school have set up an after school aid called English Lounge, where students get to seek homework assistance, preparation for tests or exams and even engage in conversations for them to improve their English in general. We are tasked to take care of the English Lounge for a certain amount of time everyday with our mentors occasionally dropping by to give us a hand. We would have regulars coming in for most of the time, some conversation. Not only that, we would also organize western festivals such as Halloween and Christmas. The events in all honesty, were quite enjoyable and we can see that the students were having fun themselves. Those who came are usually those who voluntarily set foot into the Lounge or of course, the regulars.

The concept of being available to students are also evident in the Japanese teachers, at both entrances of the staff room, there are two phones where the students can make announcements from outside of the office to call their teachers for homework assistance during pre and post examination periods. Almost everyday after school, I could see teachers assisting students outside of the staff room, mostly homework and some teachers would head for ECAs. This I think is a good concept of assisting students, perhaps the students are more comfortable asking their teachers questions that they felt embarrassed of asking during class. Never have I heard any shouting or scoldings from teachers unless they did something wrong; they are generally very patient with the students and would even go out their way in helping their students. I would occasionally have students come to me for help in Mandarin, even though I was in the English Lounge, but our mentors are fine with it so long as students come forth willingly for assistance as it shows that they want to learn and to improve themselves.



    4. Getting them out of their comfort zone

Scaffolding should always be used when works best when introducing students to new topics and this can be a challenge to them as again, they fear the unknown and mistakes. Our mentors would use students' prior knowledge to act as a scaffold for them to understand how their prior knowledge is related to the new topics they are learning. Mr. Thomas and Ms. Jaimee would use warm ups as their scaffolding method for not only to get them into English mode but also to get them thinking.

Mr. Thomas teaches an English class for the Toridashii students (from second year SGL class) these students are returnees from English-speaking countries and has near native English level, you can easily converse in English with them with minimal difficulty. The Toridashii students in general are open-minded as compared to other students in Nichidai. Because of this, Mr. Thomas would challenge them with controversial topics either in Japan or around the world. This is meant to widen their horizon and also, it is mostly problem- based learning. I had been in that class for a couple of times and I find this class more enjoyable as it is considered as laid back, they mostly spend their time researching or giving out their opinions thus, they are more confident in speaking and asking questions when in doubt. In a sense, it is also safe to assume that Social Reconstructionism is applied in Mr. Thomas' class as they are to think and question about the societal norms and social taboos in Japan.

Personal thoughts

It is a widely known fact that teachers are the only people or field of professionals that parents would completely entrust their children with un-monitored. Which this comes back to my point where students spend nearly everyday in school and with their teacher, let's not forget the fact that students not just in Nichidai, around the island have extra-curricular activities in the weekends too - unlike Malaysia- we have 5 days of school while Japanese students have 1 day more while as for Nichidai students, they may not have the luxury of having any day offs. 

The students in Nichidai, barely have any time for themselves or even with their families, so I personally believe that we as teachers should try and support them, however, we are not meant to replace our roles as their family members. 

I also feel that the usage of PBL is necessary for supporting student learning mainly during class, however at the same time, I also think that they should constantly apply the concept of creativity outside of class. This however, can only be realized when all subjects are incorporated with PBL. According to Duch, Groh and Allen (2001), any subject area can be adapted into PBL  with a little creativity. While core problems will vary among disciplines. 

How to maintain the environment

Based on the above, supporting the students with the help of scaffolding into PBL can promote the development of critical thinking skills , problem solving abilities, and communication skills. It can provide opportunities for working in groups, finding and evaluating research materials, and life-long learning (Duch et al, 2001)  in which the students in Nichidai lack. Based on the same source, we can maintain this type of support and aid to the students:

1. The problem must motivate students to seek out a deeper understanding of concepts
2. The problem should require students to make reasoned decisions and to defend them
3. The problem should incorporate the content objectives in such a way as to connect it to previous courses/ knowledge
4. If used for a group project, the problem needs a level of complexity to ensure that the students must work together to solve it.
5. If used for a multistage project, the initial steps of the problem should be open-ended and engaging to draw students into the problem. 

In Mr. Thomas' case, he acquired the topics or problems from sources such as online news and textbooks. When I was to conduct a class on the Toridashii students, I was tasked to look for controversial topics - suicide, which I started off by providing them suicide headlines from Malaysia and have them link and analyze the difference between the purpose of suicide in Malaysia and Japan and from there they had to find out the reasons why they choose suicide over other alternatives and ways to prevent this from happening; according to Mr. Thomas, this method allows them to put themselves into others' shoes so that they are able to understand and to empathize with their situation. 

The usage of PBL allows the students to have the lessons and topics to be learnt and absorbed in an orthodox way, as opposed to the traditional method of memorization, the students do not see the value to knowledge.

There are times that we need to maintain at least a basic level of student-teacher relationship - gaining their interest by including things they like in a sense is a way of supporting our students, it shows the students that we teachers care about them, or at least we are making an effort to get to know them. That way, they would gradually feel comfortable with the learning environment and from then on, due to us gaining their trust, we will be able to gradually get them comfortable with challenges- with the scaffolding method (alongside the students)we will be able to assist them to reach the zone of proximal development so that they should at least be able to find challenges fun. In Japan, I feel that using other "Westernized" Philosophy of Education do essentially work unless they have a been exposed to cultures besides Japan. Also, a higher command of English is a plus, that way the students are much more capable of expressing their thoughts.  

I also feel that parents in Nichidai do want the success of their children but somehow, they want nothing to do with the process of their learning or success - they only desire the outcome. I rarely ever heard any of the students such as some of the Toridashii students or regulars ever mention about their families, perhaps it was due to their cultural constrictions, but still no one or even between their friends would I ever heard of them have topics with anything to do with their families or parents. Because of this, I find it as the downside of living in a society where competition is always the main goal in life. 

Finally, I hope that from this experience I could find ways to assist and support students not only in learning, but in independence and success as well. Mr. Long would always tells us: "You may not remember the students, but the students will remember you, so make them remember you fondly,"