A Yen for Business: Language Learning for Specific Purposes - A Japanese Example

A Yen for Business: Language Learning for Specific Purposes - A Japanese Example

Theresa Austin University of Massachusetts, Amherst

with Chisako Nakayama, Akiko Oda, and Sadako Urabe New York University

and Yoshiko Ley Pace University

ABSTRACT The following paper chronicles the steps taken in developing a curricular project to design, implement, and evaluate a simulation business course for beginners learning Japan- ese at the university level. The steps in developing the program, from the selection of materials to the evaluation o f the entire project, are presented together with insights gained from the experience and suggestions for improvement. The paper concludes with issues that are still unresolved and new directions to explore.

Introduction It has become clear from national statistics that the steepest growth in foreign language study in the United States is now in Japanese. Con- comitant with this change is new interest in in- novative approaches to the teaching of Japan- ese. However, despite some struggling to implement more “communicative approaches” at the university level, the field is still dominated by audiolingual, reading-translation, and other literature-based methods. Examining the history of language teaching and learning, we see trends that have come and gone. “Signa- ture” methods have long divided the field into discrete camps as language instructors

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Theresa Ausrin (Ph.D., UCLA) is Director of Bilingual Education in the Department of Cultural Diversity and Curriculum Reform in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Chisako Nakayama is a doctoral student in Foreign Language Education at New York University. Akiko Oda received her M.A. in Foreign Language Education from New York University and is teaching Japanese to foreigners in Japan. Sadako Urabe is a doctoral student in Foreign Language Education at New York University, where she teaches. Yoshiko Ley (M.A.. New Y o r k University) teaches Japanese at Pace University in New York City.

searched for the one perfect method to teach languages to a variety of populations from children to adults.

Recently, instead of finding one method to cure all language learning problems, our field has turned to examining how humans learn languages-from their first language to their second and even on to subsequent ones. A large number of patterns in this development have been identified, and there is much theo- rization of the type of input and interaction that is needed to sustain such development.

Yet as more experience and research into language development issues emerge, we are still challenged by the constraints of the live classroom on what developments can actually take place. Freed (1991) identifies these constraints of the institutions of schooling and society that affect length of foreign language study in an average student’s education. It is commonplace to have a lack of vertical articulation in the content and methodology across curricula in institutions where foreign language instruction occurs (elementary, middle, high, and university or adult school), as well as within the individual levels of a program within the same institution. Within these constraints, it is difficult for o n e to imagine similar developmental characteristics of na-

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tive or second language experiences to emerge in the foreign language setting. But does this necessarily mean we must give up the notion of developmental language education for high school or college students who start their language learning at a “less-than- prime age” for foreign language acquisition? How should we capitalize on what adults do best: i.e., make use of their cognitive abilities to acquire discretely those elements of language that are learned more holistically and profoundly in developmental settings?

In order to answer these questions, those programs that are developmentally oriented, i.e., which make use of experiential learning, therefore warrant immediate evaluation. One type of such programs, immersion, has existed in private education from elementary through secondary levels. Since the late sixties these programs have become increasingly more common in public school education as well. Among these, high school and university immersion programs in particular await detailed evaluation. Since immersion programs require significant resources, both human and material, well-trained professionals, and an integra- tive curriculum design for implementation, they require strong financial commit- ment. Limited resources have led many universities to offer intensive immersions only during a weekend or summer session that may or may not lead up to a visit abroad. These short- term programs are also in need of evaluations of their effectiveness both during the course of study as well as over the long term.

Given the uncertainty of available resources, one manageable and feasible alternative is the simulation approach, which offers a n authentic experience combined with pedagogical segments that help students “make sense” of their experience. A simulation approach is one that makes use of repre- sentations of real-world events by having learners take on active roles of the people involved in these events. After trying to solve a specific problem, participants engage in a d e briefing session led by the instructor. This a p proach has been used in business settings and in the teaching of social sciences, as well as

language classrooms for segments or for whole courses (Crookall and Oxford 1990; Di Pietro 1987).

A simulation course provides students with an authentic experience in the target language and culture, but provides the support for analyzing the experience as well. Ideally, it would correspond to how experiential adult learning is characterized outside the classroom: self-directed, contextualized problem- solving, working in groups, and getting and sharing information. The pedagogical aspect helps learners recognize and question tacit as- sumptions, and progress beyond current un- derstandings.

Learning in this setting incorporates not only language use and study but also strate gies that transfer to learning language outside the classroom. To date, how adults adjust from class learning to real-life demands on their language abilities remains to be documented. For these reasons, the authors set out to design a simulation course for teaching Japanese at the university level. Our major goal was to facilitate a learning experience for students to develop their communicative abilities in Japanese notwithstanding their limited competence in the target language.

In the following sections, the authors provide an outline of their process of designing the curriculum and a report on the implementation process and its subsequent evaluation. The conclusion provides some of the implications of our preliminary findings and suggestions for further improvement.

Designing the Project

Philosophy on Teaching and Learning The framework for our curriculum has at its

heart the notion of allowing students authentic contact and relevant practice with the target language (NADSFL 1991). But how could this be accomplished outside of the sociocultural context of Japan? How could a foreign language learning situation approximate the richness of input and opportunities to engage with native speakers that would be afforded the learner if, indeed, instruction were carried

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out in Japan? The registers, the dialects, the nonverbal communication, the extralinguistic and paralinguistic communication, as well as the structures of language and discourse, were all important features that we defined as part of a ‘‘language’’ course. Indeed this was a formidable challenge. Planning began eight months prior to the course in order to articu- late a philosophy of teaching and learning, and to set realistic goals for our potential student clientele.

Many contextual factors, such as the type of students, the scheduling of classes, etc., influenced the decision to choose a simulation a p proach to teaching and learning. Potential students were expected to come from the un- dergraduates who were matriculated in business-related programs. This meant that primarily students from the School of Business or from the Nutrition, Food and Hotel Man- agement Departments in the School of Educa- tion, and the College of Arts and Sciences were eligible. Our classes were scheduled for 1-hour-and40 minute meetings twice a week for a total of 56 class hours (50 minutes = 1 hour).

Given this target student population and the amount of class time and scheduling, what principles of language learning could guide instruction? Brown (1987; 1993) identifies cognitive, affective, and linguistic principles that interact to varying degrees to affect the rate and level of language learning. Oxford (1990) and O’Malley and Chamot (1990) show the importance of developing strategies that would help develop successful language learning and communication. Concepts ex- tracted from these readings helped shape a compatible philosophy of teaching and learning for guided experiential learning. Explicitly, the proposed new curriculum would strive to:

create a supportive and cooperative environment where students would feel com- fortable playing with and exploring the language (affective); create a place where opportunities to practice dealing with authentic language were supported by explanations about the use of language (cognitive and linguistic);

provide opportunities to demonstrate how culture shapes communication, both verbal and nonverbal (linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic); encourage students to devise their own strategies that would help them learn to produce language and monitor their own progress (metacognitive); and make assessment of student progress through the curriculum (achievement-oriented). After formulating these concerns, research

was carried out into what other Japanese programs existed at universities across the United States (Jorden with Lambert 1991). Only a few had ventured into the teaching of language for specific purposes for intermediate-advanced learners. Not a single report was available to confirm the existence of content- based language instruction for beginning Japanese language learners (UberCrosse and Voght 1990). Few had tried to create an expe riential learning environment during the academic year.

What would happen if a new program were to break with tradition and introduce beginning students to a typical work day in the life of a company? By taking cues from various a p proaches that to some extent featured experiential learning for beginners, e.g., immersion programs, Krashen’s Natural Approach (1983), Curran’s Community Language Learn- ing Approach, and DiPietro’s Strategic Inter- action Approach (1987), among others, a synthesis of the characteristics was formulated to create a beginning language course that simulated an actual work setting.

The efforts were further enhanced by examples provided by several scholars. Oxford and Crookall’s (1990) examples support simulation as a manner Lo teach those aspects of negotiation and interpretation of meanings that are influenced by culture and society. Brammer and Sawyer-LauGanno (1990) discuss how technical and nontechnical language can be integrated to help promote communication in a variety of social situations. They suggest that roleplays, use of realia, and different games could be effectively inte-

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grated in the simulation for the teaching of language for business purposes. Taking these as models, the design of activities was initiated in which students would b e interacting with a variety of social roles to solve realistic problems. As for the role of the instructor, Di Pietro

(1987) supported the “teacher-as-a-facilitator” model. O’Neill (1993) identified the following 11 activities that the teacher carries out when taking on a role to facilitate the dramatic interaction:

establish the situation effectively and eco- nomically. create and maintain “authentic” language interactions. unite the whole group in the same endeavor. ask the kinds of questions that create the situation and pose the first problem for the students. narrate the circumstances in which the students find themselves. set up the web of relationships that defines the students’ roles and attitudes. initiate encounters that will clarify the students’ roles, their tasks, and the situation in which they find themselves. model the kind of language and behavior required in the interaction. support and extend the students’ communicative efforts from within the dramatic interaction. challenge the students’ language and think- ing and maintain the dramatic tension by presenting them with obstacles to over- come and experiences to interpret. diagnose student’s communicative competence. If the Japanese language teacher were to

carry out all of the above, she would need to model at least several levels of language use at all times. As social norms for using Japanese dictate that one use language appropriate to one’s relationship to others as a subordinate, equal, and superior in one setting, with this relationship being influenced by mitigating factors such as intimacy, gender, and medium of communication, natural language use would

require various models of these relationships. Therefore, it was decided that one instructor and an assistant would be necessary as the minimum number of models to provide for the learners.

The instructor would also have the respon- sibility to facilitate the learners’ interaction in the business setting. This entails providing the type of feedback and input that would help the learners express their own messages to complete their assigned tasks.

However, diverging a bit from Di Pietro’s Strategic lnteraction Approach (rehearsal, performance, and debriefing), the current curriculum replaced the rehearsal stage with a “briefing” during which the context would be explained in English. This was considered essential because learners were being prepared to enter into an unfamiliar sociocultural context in which certain routines prevailed. Also, since written materials were authentic Japanese documents, they were written with kanji (Chinese characters) and their kana (script and print syllabaries) complements and not as glossed texts. In this way, beginning students would not be able to decode or comprehend without oral input in Japanese and/or English. During this briefing, instructors would provide information that students would most likely need to resolve the task of the lesson. For these three reasons, a “set-up” time in English was required. Furthermore, rehearsal and performance in Japanese could then constitute the whole simulation activity. Since the authentic input in Japanese was gathered from native speakers’ discourse experiences, the authors felt that a briefing was necessary to clarify the purpose of the activity for the non-natives. In this way, our approach is similar to a modified version of Crookall and Oxford’s (1992) suggestions for conduct- ing simulations for teaching strategies:

1. Identify the basic conditions 2. Choose the strategies for training 3. Determine how to integrate strategy

training and the simulation 4. Consider motivational and attitudinal

issues 5. Prepare the simulation materials

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6. Run the simulation 7. Evaluate the outcomes 8. Revise the process (Modified from 1 16-1 17)

General Outline The general outline of this new course

evolved by turning the classroom learning experience into a learning experience in a Japan- ese company office where certain tasks, “problems,” needed to be accomplished using spoken and written Japanese language. Each member of the class would assume a position of either Department Manager much@, Section Chief (ka chG,) or staff member (hira sha in). This setting would allow the introduction of different Japanese speech styles reflecting relative social status be- tweedamong the speakers involved, e.g., section chief vs. company employee, employee vs. fellow employee, male speech vs. female speech, in-group member vs. out-group member, etc. The instructor would become buchG (Department Manager), and the second native-speaker would become an assistant, a hira sha in (support staff member). The presence of two native speaker models allows for the introduction of a naturalistic variation of speech appropriate to their relationship to each other.’ For this reason, a conscious attempt was made to avoid what is called “classroom Japanese” or “translated-from-English Japanese.” The for- mer is characterized by the use of discourse s e quences, activities, and vocabulaty that would clearly only be particular to a classroom interaction, e.g., providing feedback such as “good” after student utterances, granting turns to speak based on the signal of a raised hand, neutralizing all variation in linguistic register by exclusive use of “-maw” forms, reading aloud written dialogues as conversation practice, and using address forms like “sensei.” “Translated-from English” language is a char- acteristic of teacher talk that attempts to use Japanese for the student’s comprehension in “unnatural”’ ways, such as the overuse of the first and second person pronouns or overex- aggerated body gestures to facilitate students’ understanding.

In order to teach business communication in Japanese, scenarios were designed from various office activities that a new American employee might encounter in a typical Japan- ese business day. The emphasis would be on socializing them to their role to listen, ob- serve, and communicate in accordance with their relationship to different people. The learners would be taught to interact with their fellow workers depending on their seniority and position. For example, while the learners would learn to use more intimate language between peers: inviting a co-worker, they would also learn more formal language to use with their superiors: inviting a supervisor/boss. The episodes would be sequenced so that by the end of a semester the learner would be exposed to an entire day at a Japanese office.

Distribution of Time The class, 100 minutes long, would meet

twice a week for a total of 28 sessions in t h e s e mester. The class meeting was divided into three parts, 15, 70, and 15 minutes in length. Approximately the first 15 minutes would be used for administrative purposes: to take at- tendance, make announcements, review the previous class work, and brief the students for the upcoming task, making use of English when necessary. The middle part, the actual simulation, would be conducted primarily in Japanese. The last 15 minutes would be used for the supplementary explanation of the classroom activities and answering the students’ questions in both English and Japan- ese.

Content: Selection and Sequence of Events Several sources were used to devise a list of

possible events that would occur during a business day. (See Appendix B for a list of topics covered during the course.) Some of the decisions about which events to include were based o n reflections from first-hand experiences of our design team members who had worked previously in Japanese companies. Other episodes were gathered from interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances who have worked with various Japanese compa-

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nies. Still others were inspired by a number of curricular materials ranging from written texts to videos (Hijirida, et al., 1986, 1987). After compiling a list of the events, the events were categorized according to the likelihood that they would occur during the morning or after- noon and then sequenced in relation to each other. In building a chronological order into these events, authenticity and sociocultural information on sequence of events could be integrated. In real life settings, procedural information, “how to do x,” can be learned in the process of repeatedly carrying out a routine over time. The chronological order of this new curriculum helps the learner acquire this procedural information and develop culturally appropriate expectations of how activities relate to each other. In grammar-oriented classes, syntactic structures usually are emphasized without regard to how they function in accomplishing tasks in the real world. The sequence of grammar-oriented classes is most often based on the structure of the language and not on the communicative functions in a particular context. For this reason, the sequence of grammatical structures was a secondary consideration.

Next, types of activities were listed that would occur during these episodes. This helped to create a list of alternative activities for each event that would characterize any office setting. In this way, the framework could be adapted to any number of companies the students might devise. This would provide unity of events and tasks across companies and form cohesion between lessons in the curriculum.

Selection of Specific Activities and Roles Since the roles of teacher and student in a

traditional language classroom are aban- doned in favor of roles as staff of a Japanese company, decisions had to be made as to the type of activities in this setting that a company would expect a non-Japanese (a non-native) employee to do.

The curricular development team divided up the events, and each member worked on a series of lessons. During the remaining

months of planning, not only the substance of the tasks within these events was revised but also the articulation between the lessons and the out-of-class assignments and the following class activities. The distinction between skills, speaking versus listening and reading versus writing activities, was important in determin- ing the role of the non-native speaker in each activity. Each lesson designed by the members of the development team was then cri- tiqued in terms of authenticity, modality appropriateness, feasible duration, and length of lesson, and modified to fit in the range of native-speaker expectations for a non-Japan- ese-speaking employee. They consisted of group work activities designed to “resolve a problem.”

Finally, after reaching consensus on which activities would occur during the day, the duration and sequence of each lesson was determined. Through these discussions the number of days that each event would take up in our actual 15-week semester was set. Also a major concern was to insure a spiraling of the information and sequencing of recep tive skill development prior to any productive task. Once these were welldelineated, assessment measures were designed to test what was being taught in the lessons: vocabulary, language structures, and strategic communication skills.

After establishing this content, some of the tasks were performed by several of the authors (who had not designed the particular task) and a male native speaker who volunteered. In this way, the targeted phrases and their sequence in the tasks were tested for authenticity and appropriateness. Shorter utterances that were discovered through this process replaced the originally targeted phrases. Higher frequency vocabulary was also favored.

Sequence The topics were selected and ordered so as

to have realistic sequences of daily events. Also, activities were selected in which oral and written discourse could be learned from the beginning to the end, and in which leam-

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ers could become familiarized with the norms of behavior through actual practicesolving problems. This organization would help learners to "get the big picture:" experience a work- day with many episodes interacting with native and non-native Japanese speakers. The combination of smaller episodes linked together within a larger framework in this simulation helps learners develop native-like schema formed from interacting in a context full of cues for their physical and linguistic b e havior. Being engaged in this type of learning would help learners create memorable net- works of information. Because the lessons are linked conceptually, they also provide learners with opportunities for strategic communication skills that develop naturally from one lesson to another. Finally, this organization allowed for spiralling and review of previously learned material.

During lessons #1 to #3, the learners set up their company, e.g., decided the company name, the type of company, and the type of department. During these lessons, English was used to provide instructions, yet writing was done in Japanese kana and kanji. In this way, learners were exposed to the vocabulary for their company, section, and position, as well as their name and title.

From lessons #4 to #23, the tasks were part of a typical daily routine in a Japanese company. The learners would start with a morning meeting and end with going to a karaoke bar with a boss and coworkers. Examples of daily activities would be receiving/making a telephone call, sendingheceiving facsimiles, visiting other companies and receiving visitors/ paying visits, and so on. In addition to work- place activities, social activities were also included, such as coffee break, lunch time, exercise (tai sa), and going to a karaoke bar after work in order to complete the simulated work day. A few karaoke songs were also taught.

As final topics, a departure from the day's schedule was decided upon to familiarize learners with what a year's end would be like. It was felt that this would serve as an example of dealing with a realistic task in a formal so-

cial setting and would be appropriate to close the semester on an upbeat. Therefore, the s e mester's course concluded with an annual promotion and job transfer in lessons #24 and #25. In this way, each staff member could experience another typical Japanese business practice; that is, they submitted to the personnel department a self-assessment sheet and a request form for a new job. They were then transferred by decision of the personnel department. Some of the learners would be transferred at their request; some of them would not. Announcements of the transfers would occur at the farewell party of Ei Syis bu (Sales Division). This would take place at a real Japanese restaurant on the last day of the semester. The learners would need to order by themselves in Japanese and make a short, rehearsed farewell speech.

Over a period of several months, reading available texts and literature on Japanese teaching, discussing the implications, and negotiating the details with each member of our curricular project, we prepared a preliminary draft. In carrying out these activities, it became very clear that in the business context Japanese social conventions relegate the lower status person to a more silent po~i t ion.~ Hence, listening strategies were deemed to be very important not only to participate culturally, but also to learn how to handle authentic input for language learning. To the authors, listening skills, then, became culturally and psy- cholinguistically appropriate starting points for the initiation of a beginning Japanese learner. Since developmentally productive skills (speaking and writing) take longer to d e velop, considering these factors led us to first emphasize the learners' interpersonal and comprehension skills over speaking, writing, and grammar. Moreover, the decision was also influenced by the research on bilingual education, in which basic interpersonal skills are learned in L2 by learners before the more cognitive demanding aspects of academic skills (Cummins 1980, 1981). It was assumed that these basic interpersonal skills are typically not emphasized in foreign language classrooms, which has resulted in many stu-

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dents complaining that they do not learn what they feel is most important-how to socially interact with native speakers. By emphasizing these skills, learners would not only learn to “get along” but also enhance their opportunities to engage with native speakers in frequent and possibly extended discourse. This interaction would be a way to gain and practice comprehensible input to further their communicative abilities. Smith (1983, 79) implicitly refers to this point by claiming that Japanese children develop an ability to “sort out people in terms of status, sex, and age .... .”

Unlike dealings with children, however, the instructor would not silence or stifle any learner’s desire to express him or herself. The learners were expected to say what they wanted to say to accomplish their tasks. Conversations used in the class could be strictly spontaneous, resulting in a different classroom expe rience than, for example, memorizing a model dialogue and acting it out. Through the simulation, the learners’ capability of handling a limited amount of oral or written information in Japanese had opportunities to increase in quality and quantity. In this way, the simulation would aid the language learners’ tactical abilities by providing both an un- usual degree of contextual support and by stressing decoding techniques aimed at getting the information needed. The communication was meaningful and practical because it reflected the individual’s own agenda, i.e., a personal way of handling the communicative situation. As the learners progressed in the schedule

of a day at the office, important aspects of the Japanese business culture, such as nonverbal rules: business card exchange procedures, seating arrangements, participation in company outings, etc., would also be included. Learners would learn culturally appropriate nonverbal behavior as part of the learning in context.

In the conceptualized curriculum, over the course of a two-year period, students would have increasing demands to generate and interact with more complex discourse. Addi- tionally, more business concepts could be

introduced for the subsequent higher levels, years three and four of the curriculum project (Sudermann and Cisar 1992). Rather than establishing arbitrary expected levels of performance in each of the skills or rather than strictly adhering to ACTFL OPI guidelines, it is anticipated that increases in performance d e mands would develop after monitoring the student achievement data. These data would be collected to document accomplishments and shortcomings.

Nonetheless, as an initial approximation to determine the pace of instruction, several sources were used to set outcomes at each stage of learning. These included the ACTFL OPI guidelines, the Japan Foundation guide lines for their new Japanese proficiency test (prior to their implementation), and guidelines published in the Jorden and Lambert r e port (1991). The Japanese Speaking Test and the Preliminary Speaking Tests designed by the National Foreign Language Resource Cen- ter in 1992 were unavailable at the initiation of this curricular project: Hence they were not consulted. According to the Foreign Service Institute (Schultz 1986), it would take more than 1,320 hours of instruction in order for the average Japanese language learner to learn to read sufficient Kanji to be able to discuss and write about concepts introduced in authentic readings. Based on our experience in the university setting, we estimated that it would take at least two years to develop listening skills for the language and business. Since productive skills will take longer to cultivate (LiskinCas parro 1984), they were intentionally made a part of the incidental learning that was expected to take place.

The sequence of evaluation of learners’ progress would be measured formally and in- formally. Formally, students would complete tasks during the midterm and final. Through- out the semester the staff member (the aide to the instructor) took part in the class to ensure student competence and to note areas of difficulties that could be cleared up in the debriefing stage of the course. Two quizzes on the material covered would provide evidence of how the learners wrote hiragana and

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katakana under test contexts. Throughout all assessment, both ongoing and mid- and final semester exams would be based on the curriculum without adhering strictly to external guidelines.

The homework policy would emphasize reading and writing tasks and on occasion listening and speaking tasks. These would be similar to those learned in class and serve as additional practice. A variety of assignments were given to practice or provide further information on the activities learned during the class. The reading assignments included rele van t cu I t u ral information in Japanese Busi- ness Etiquette, a text in English. Listening assignments included listening to taped Japanese conversations and responding to written questions about the content. In order to familiarize the learners with the kana sys tem (hiragana, katakana) and kanji (Chinese characters), writing practice was assigned for homework.

Textbooks and Materials Rather than being used as the basis for the

course, textbooks were sought that could be used as resources by the learners. The original selection criteria were the following:

topics found in the text had to be related to those in our designed syllabus, though not necessarily presented in the same sequence; illustrations needed to be visually appealing and to show socially accurate portrayals of business life; explanations of the linguistic structures and functions in the text had to be accurate and concise; a glossary/index of terms should be provided; the examples of written documents within the text needed to include kanji (Chinese characters), hiragana (cursive syllabary), katakana (angular syllabary), and romaji (Roman alphabet).

Because a survey of available texts did not produce one that met all the needs of the course, three different texts were chosen. The main reference text was Nissan’s Business

Japanese. The two supplementary texts were Kana can be Easy, and Japanese Business Eti- quette. Other short, authentic materials, e.g., announcements, instruction sheets, forms, etc., were obtained and used as is. These un- glossed materials were included to develop reading skills during the class activity. From the very beginning of the course, company names, superior’s names and titles, names of rooms (kai gi shitsu-meeting room, sho kuds-cafeteria, o te arai-rest room, etc.), reception desk (uke tsuke), etc., were all introduced in kanji through the use of business cards, floor plans, and other authentic materials. Writing skills were also developed in a most natural and authentic way for the setting, such as writing their name, filling out forms, writing memos for faxes, etc.

When the content-based curriculum met the criteria of being:

a) as authentic culturally and linguisti- cally as could be, and

b) as pedagogically appropriate for our target student population,

the next phase was to test it out.

Implementation

Orientation On the first day of class, after learners were

provided with an introduction to the goals of the course and to our expectations, they were asked for their opinions and cooperation. The learners were enthusiastic about the idea and set about handling the first task: to determine their company, department, and position within the department. The “Sales Depart- ment” in Nakayama, Inc. was born. The learners progressed smoothly through the task, learning the hierarchy and details of the company through an organizational chart with all the job titles. The learners then set up their floor plan. The instructors helped the learners by providing the Japanese vocabulary and structures for introductions and indicating location.

The instructor assumed the role of General Manager. Since we had a small class of five students, the only male student volunteered to

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become the Manager. The remaining students and teaching assistant became staff members.

At the start of the course, the General Man- ager explained in English to the workers that a certain series of events was going to happen. Instructions were given in English to the learners to ensure that the purpose of the interaction was clear and to help them focus on their role in the interaction. Depending o n the focus of the task, the office workers could be instructed to listen or read authentic discourse in Japanese. At times this involved noninteractive listening in Japanese (announcements, taped messages) and at others interactive listening (dialogues with native speakers who presented a problem). The workers were allowed to listen repeatedly to the taped messages in Japanese to make con- jectures about the gist of the conversation and were encouraged to help each other in this process of “guessing,” by making use of both verbal and nonverbal cues. Also, they were to encouraged to “test” their understanding when they spoke Japanese, asking for clarification, negotiating meaning, etc. As learners were allowed to take notes in any fashion and in any language to remember items significant in the setting, one student distinguished herself for being especially keen on writing down and analyzing what she heard. Looking for patterns, she shared her discoveries and questions with the class, contributing to many fruitful discussions in English during the de- briefings. As noninteractive listening requires learners to write for themselves rather than for others, this type of writing was considered a p propriate and helpful to practice strategic note-taking: writing the words and expressions that are of particular interest to each individual.

Formative Evaluation of the Project: Changes while Implementing the Cuwiculum

As we better understood the needs of our learners through the process of implementing the curriculum and through the feedback from the learners, changes to the content b e came necessary.

Content. The curricular evaluation of this

project was conducted throughout the semester by examining student performance data and responding to student comments. The changes to the syllabus affected the implementation of the lessons in terms of the content and pace.

From the very first day of class, the lesson plans began to be modified according to the learners’ interests. This was accomplished by finding out more about the learners enrolled in the course: their general preferred language learning strategies and background information o n their past language learning experiences. Later in the semester, the learners reported on the listening strategies that they were using. Finally, at the end of the class, the learners reported in their own words how they learned best. In all, the learners had com- pleted the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, Version 5.1 by Oxford (1988), a listening skills inventory, a background sheet in which the learners narrated how they learned both in the classroom and at home (an open- ended self-report), and the Hemispheric Mode Indicator by Excel, Inc. In addition, the second native speaker who acted as an aide in the class took on the role of participant ob- server to gather data on how the learners were performing on a daily basis to adjust instruction level and pace. These data were used to help the instructors make adjustments in the instruction for individual learners and also to check to see which types of strategies could be used during a language learning situation such as simulation as the term progressed.

After collecting each data set during the se mester, a global evaluation of the information was done to make decisions about finetuning the task structure at hand for the learners. In the end, the combined results of all measures indicated to us one basic underlying pattern, that our learners were quite analytically inclined and preferred more direct explanation of the grammar. Though initially only brief grammatical explanations were provided, additional grammatical aids had to be added as supplemental material during the debriefing phase.

The instrument, the Hemispheric Mode In-

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dicator, categorized four learners clearly as left- brain dominant, leaving one student in a cate goty of having no preferred mode of operating. This underscored the highly cognitive orientation that the learners had. The other instruments also provided information that helped us recognize individual differences between our learners. The listening strategies inventoly helped us identify which of our learners had difficulty dealing with aural material.

Another change that was addressed was in the length of several lessons. Some of the lessons actually took less time to accomplish than others and needed to be supplemented with the lesson that followed.

Additionally, after analyzing the data collected on students’ strategies for learning language, discrepancies appeared between what the students reported about their use of strate gies and what w e observed them doing in class. The preliminary analysis of the classroom data and the self-reported data indicated that learners underreported certain behaviors that they were observed repeatedly using in their classroom experience. At the present time it is not clear whether or not learners valued these strategies, neglected to report them, or failed to recognize them as (effective) strategies. Another plausible explanation is that there was a “learning effect.” Although learners may have been unfamiliar with behaviors that they rated themselves on in the SILL instrument, they may have become more sensitive to using the behaviors because of the nature of the activities they engaged in throughout the course. In order to reliably use the self-rating data from the SILL, administer- ing it a second time might reveal this hypoth- esized effect.

Nonetheless, though they were successful in carrying out their tasks, the fact that the learners desired more direct grammatical explanation than they received, and the fact that they were not accurately reporting their strategies for language learning, indicate that orientation to the importance of strategies is needed in order for learners to appreciate the benefits of their strategies and to make use of these tools when appropriate.

Also, labels for these strategies must be given. Even in classroom instruction not using simulations, many adults prefer direct explanation of grammatical structures. However it is questionable whether direct grammatical explanation has any direct or lasting influence on the beginning learner’s use of the language (Hammond 1988). Since it may not necessarily help a beginning learners’ comprehension or production of the foreign language o n a long-term basis, understanding a grammatical explanation may prove to reduce the anxiety of not understanding the language; hence, it may be a compensation that the adult learner finds satisfying. Helping learners become aware of the fact that they are using strategies and how these strategies are helping/hinder- ing their accomplishment of the specified task was not carried out in our orientation or debriefing. Yet it is this metacognition, awareness of strategy use, that might prove to be the more fruitful area for adults to best make use of their cognitive abilities. This means that strategy identification, deployment, and monitoring must b e made more salient to adult learners. The review of the data is still in process, and our conclusions will be reported in a subsequent publication.

Class Organization: me number of companies and setting. The original plan called for setting up two or three companies in the class so that the learners would be able to experience both intra- and intercompany activities. However, the enrollment figures were small enough in this experimental course that we decided to make only one company. We man- aged to handle various situations by assigning learners different roles depending o n the activities.

Another change in plans occurred because originally the office was supposed to b e located in Japan. Later, w e found authentic Japanese materials available in New York, which would be usable if we considered New York as a branch office. With this change we were able to make use of such things as maps to Japanese restaurants or advertisements from travel agencies, all of which contained vocabulaty and place names which, though

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written in Japanese, were familiar to the learners. While it was recognized that the daily routine in a North American office would not be the same as the routine in Japan, this was a necessary compromise in creating a Japanese language environment here in the United States.

Evaluation of Students Although recently the Japan Foundation,

Educational Testing Service, and the Center for Applied Linguistics have joined the ranks of testing Japanese proficiency, there still is no single valid test currently available that can measure what students have been able to learn in simulation settings. Recognizing that proficiency tests may not be sensitive to measure the strategic nor cultural competence that students may have developed, Spada (1985) concludes that “tests which can measure a broader range of learner’s communicative abilities are needed.” Moreover, only recently have the other two testing agencies (the Japan Foundation and CAL) administered their instruments on populations in the United States. Hence, to date there is no widely recognized standardized measure of Japanese language proficiency for general purposes, let alone Japanese for business purposes.

Undoubtedly, the efforts to establish an experiential program must include measures of what students can and cannot do. However, these measures can only become objective after considerable monitoring of student achievement is carried out within a well- formed curriculum. This monitoring is a necessary prerequisite for making modifications to the curriculum. To the knowledge of the authors of this paper, the practice of monitoring students’ progress through a curriculum to make curricular decisions is not widely practiced. In fact, many language programs de- pend on a text to set the curriculum goals (Dubin and Olshtain 1986, 33) and vary tremendously in selecting content to teach. Furthermore, while the achievement levels of majors in basic language courses have been estimated at Foreign Service Interagency rat-

ing of 2/2+ for commonly taught languages (Higgs and Clifford 1982, 75), these have not been widely published or standardized for majors in Japanese.

Since findings reported here are from a curriculum design project in its infancy, the evaluation of effectiveness must be taken in the context of the goals that were stated in the curriculum. Success or failure can be solely d e termined by the students’ achievement of these goals. It is assumed that effectiveness in teaching Japanese language for specific purposes cannot be narrowly defined by grammatical features. If more information on the type of instruction, type of learners, and their achievement in language programs is accurately and consistently documented, it is con- ceivable that empirical evidence for proficiency guidelines could be firmly established. As it stands, no one is quite sure how long it takes to move from one proficiency level to another in terms of Japanese for specific purposes. We hope to contribute in this area by presenting in the following paragraphs the learners’ performance during a sample class and on the exams.

The strengths and weaknesses of each learner’s ability in both the receptive and productive skills were assessed through daily observation and formal testing. There were no a priori expectations for the learners regarding their ultimate level of oral proficiency. Since this experiment began with raw beginners, students were not expected to meet ACTFL guidelines for proficiency. Despite the fact that other programs may rely upon these external measures, our goal was to document to the extent possible each student’s progress. However, since in the curriculum receptive skills (listening, reading) were emphasized over productive skills (speaking and writing), as well as socialization into the company and strategic communication skills, we anticipated greater development in these areas. Given that all the assessment was cumculum- based, comparing results with those obtained by other courses of the same duration and content area would be necessary to establish validity. At the moment, there are none with

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this type of focus. For this reason in the following paragraphs, we present the first evidence of learners’ progress in acquiring the skills emphasized in this curriculum.

In-Class

Receptive Skills: Listening As mentioned earlier, each lesson focusing

on productive skill was preceded by a lesson focusing on the corresponding receptive skill. For example, in the simulation section of Les- son 5, Receiving a Phone Call, learners listened to an audiotape in which three of eight different prerecorded telephone conversations in Japanese were played. The learners had to identify each conversation and put them into three categories: 1) a wrong number, 2) reaching the right person, and 3) leaving a brief message. The learners had to figure out the contents of the tape by capturing key words and sentence patterns that were repeated often. Students were asked to pay attention to intonation cues to ascertain the type of cak5 This kind of listening builds up noninteractive listening skills and problem- solving skills. In spite of the learners’ limited vocabulary, after listening to the tapes repeatedly in approximately 30 minutes, learners could correctly identify all and gave appropriate reasons for their decisions. For homework, learners listened to the remaining conversations, which were more complex messages with additional unfamiliar vocabulary and longer sentences. After listening to these, learners were assigned questions to answer about the content of the conversations. In the subsequent class, learners were asked to c a t e gorize the calls and provide simple details about the contents of each call. As a conclusion to the activity in the following class, learners were given Japanese structures and vocabulary that would be helpful for making their own calls. The next lesson then involved making calls in Japanese.

Receptive Skills: Reading A sample lesson, Lesson 18: Receiving

Faxes, presents the learners with the chal-

lenge of deciphering a Fax. Reading here is not defined by what typically happens in a foreign language classroom in which reading is viewed as the student’s demonstration of oral mastery in decoding the written symbols, i.e., furigana or transcription practice. Nor was reading defined as a decoding task to measure how well learners produce the text orally. Rather, reading was defined as the ability to understand written texts in terms of locating specific information that characterize the text and to resolve problems that would require use of information that the text contained. This type of reading was geared to scanning and skimming for information for this particular level. Each lesson that dealt with reading focused on helping learners make sense of written language. Since this “meaning-making” process normally took place in English, it proved to be an interesting dilemma in the simulation which normally took place through interaction in Japanese. We decided that it was necessary to allow for English here because the learners were focusing on meaning making.

By focusing on the meaning of the written document rather than the pronunciation of the words, learners were more attentive to d e tails that conveyed information. For example, in the advertisement that constituted the fax, the character dai (large) referred to adults, and the character sha (small) referred to children. Only in similar written contexts do these characters have these particular meanings. These are authentic features of the written conventions of advertising in Japanese. Learners were able to understand this based on their understanding of their own experiences with transportation costing.

Formal Testing On both the midterm and final exams, stu-

dents performed extraordinarily well on the listening task? In the midterm exam, the learners listened to one formal telephone conversation and one informal lunchtime conversation, both in Japanese. The learners then answered questions in English regarding the content of each.7 All students were able to

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correctly select the answers of a multiple- choice task for the three questions involving listening comprehension.

In the final, two students answered 100 percent of the listening comprehension questions correctly and two students answered 83 percent correctly. The one student who answered with 33 percent accuracy was a student who had missed a series of classes due to personal difficulties. The student’s actual comprehension level as revealed through semester-long classroom observations was clearly not measured by the final examination. The oral tasks included calling to invite a colleague and a supervisor out to eat, negotiating the details of date, food, meeting location, and time. A fax reading task also included an oral question-and-answer section in Japanese to explain the contents of the fax. For the writing task, the learners had to de- scribe their office in terms of the people and objects located there. (Included in Appendix D is a list of the tasks in which learners were able to demonstrate appropriate Japanese language use.)

Evaluation

Student Evaluations of the Course In the learners’ final written evaluation of

the class, they agreed unanimously that the learning experience was enjoyable and re- warding. All were in agreement that the instructors created a learner-friendly environment and that team work was beneficial to them.

Their comments on the use of the business text book indicated that they perceived it to be too difficult even as a resource. Partially this was the case because students were not directed to sections that were considered more important than others. This led to their having false expectations that certain vocabulary and structures were going to be presented in the class when, in fact, they were not. By re- fining the instructions on the use of the text, students should be able to be more successful in using it as a resource. This information would include our indicating which sections

within the readings would be essential or not.

Our Reflections After Implementation In hindsight, there are a number of changes

that we would recommend based on our experience with this approach. The recommen- dations broadly fit into two categories: adjustments in consideration of the learners and adjustments to the content, procedures, and focus.

Since in every group there are those that are quicker learners and those that are not, a variety of exercises for those who are not challenged enough or need more support is necessary. Other events that could have been included would have allowed for learners to d e termine what kinds of events would occur during the day, to generate projects on their own interests in business, and to present these projects during class. These activities could include judging an advertisement campaign as effective or not. The next step would be to c r e ate an advertisement campaign to promote similar products. This would be a way of in- troducing the rich variety of counters, adjec- tives, and syntax that are common to the language of advertisement in Japan. Further- more, learners were not asked to do many self-monitoring exercises to improve their accuracy in expression or their conscious use of particular strategies. Extracredit assignments and more frequent exams could have been given to allow students to work on areas they feel they did not understand well or wanted to study further. By having learners recognize their own strategy use during certain classes perhaps some of their misconceptions could be rectified about their own reported strategy use.

In terms of the language content, while p r o viding functional and culturally appropriate language use, there was an oversight in not discriminating clearly between the generaliz- ability of certain expressions and events to other social situations and the expressions that were unique to business situations. A suc- cinct explanation of this information during the debriefing segment would have helped students learn the parameters of social usage

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of the linguistic structures that were taught, in addition to the interchangeable “chunks” of the expression. By pointing out certain forms or functions that are exclusively utilized in one setting and not in another, learners pick up the potential transfer or generalizable patterns of language. The language of business then becomes a vehicle for learning language in general and not just an accumulation of specific phrases and vocabulaty.

Another element that could be given more emphasis in the debriefing stage is the attention to increasing student’s awareness of the significance of sociolinguistic, extralinguistic, and paralinguistic input. This would include teaching students how to recognize female/ male language and how to recognize emotion from verbal and nonverbal cues, e.g., friendli- ness, insulting behavior, or to recognize levels of politeness. Some example of these follow:

Ara - surprise; Eto ne, Sa, - pause filler; Nan dakke - said when something is forgot-

ten; Ma (with a sideways head motion) - pre-

cedes a contradiction. An issue that was problematic was the con-

sistency between the type of practice expected during class and the practice provided for in the homework. Though listening activities occupied the majority of the class time, the focus of homework consisted of writing to reinforce the listening matter. There was no expansion of the listening practice or a wider variety of writing tasks. Because it seemed un- likely that beginning-level non-native speakers would be asked to generate much writing in a business setting, finding ways to develop this skill remains a challenge.

Issues Remaining While the classroom observation data

pointed to highly positive outcomes in the learners’ strategic development, such as risk- taking, self-confidence, cooperative learning, and problem solving, there are questions and issues that remain to be answered. In particular, the issues of authenticity, evaluation, continuity, and feasibility are salient.

Authenticity of Content Though we had experiences with the busi-

ness world to draw upon, as well as published materials, ensuring authenticity remains a major issue. Given that the business world is still maledominated, any deviation in a classroom from that actuality would make the class experiences less than authentic. However, as one of the high-ranking officials of a Japanese company remarked, “Perhaps this type of language would be used if the bosses were women.” In light of the fact that the language teaching profession in general, and Japanese language teaching in particular, is dominated in numbers (if not in influence) by women, it is essential to remain sensitive to the difference in use of registers between genders. At the same time, we can be a bit comforted by the fact that we do present what women in leadership positions in the work force might say and do. While we can envision that changes in women’s roles will nudge themselves into the business world through time, the current business environment norms are dominated by male speech and these must be taught by female instructors who might other- wise not use such patterns in their own speech. Recognizing the need to provide a sufficient input of male speech patterns, we endeavor to enable students to learn not only Japanese but also how to learn languages, and how to be sensitive to cultural norms in using the language. These are the generalizations that will help them adapt to any reality in the Japanese business world. Other ways of providing sufficient input of male speech r e main as a challenge for us. Perhaps reading dialogues and having to identify the speakers’ sex by the forms used might provide the practice needed to recognize the forms and the contexts in which they are used.

Another effort at building in more authenticity is programming for subsequent levels of language study. We feel it is valuable to in- volve learners in the decision-making processes concerning the selection of activities that would occur during the business day. Hence they would review some of the first level’s tasks and create new tasks with the help of

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the instructors. In each succeeding level, we expect to increase the student’s participation in decision-making to include empirically based decisions and eventually to establish a company. This would require that learners conduct research to figure out which business they could start given the strength of their fellow classmates’ business skills. At this advanced level, business content would occupy more of the curriculum and language study would be reduced. This means that exposure to, and use of, authentic sources of information in the target language would introduce Japanese business and economic concepts. By the end of the four-year curriculum, students will have had experiences in working in a company, doing research to set up a company, setting up a company, and, hopefully, in actually running a company.

Evaluation: Student Class Performance

Our learners met every class objective as evidenced by observations during the simulation, as well as by their own comments during the debriefing segments. We recognize that this type of approach may not be effective for everyone. The characteristics of our learners that perhaps helped them succeed may shed some light o n who might be at risk in this type of setting. Since our students all came from a particular field, there was no heterogeneity in the group’s professional goals for using Japan- ese. All students reported feeling at ease with this “experiential” learning environment that required discovery learning. Because there was not as much emphasis o n grammatical accuracy, but rather on sociolinguistic appropriateness, criteria such as intelligibility, a p propriate turn-taking, questioning, and clarification were used to measure student performance. Students indicated that they felt almost n o anxiety. They practiced the language without fear of making mistakes. Along the same lines, the instructors emphasized getting learners to negotiate meaning rather than what grammatical, pronunciation, or comprehension errors students made. This type of positive feedback and tolerance for their er-

rors encouraged students to take a very active role in their learning of Japanese and helped them to gain confidence in expressing themselves. However, students who might prefer higher frequency of grammatical explanations and overt correction of errors might feel that this class does not meet their needs.

In the cooperative learning activities, we had no problems with students getting along with each other. This might not occur in classes with students having highly divergent personalities and learning preferences. Our students were at similar educational levels- four seniors and o n e first-year graduate student. All of our students were Korean or KoreanKhinese-American with limited or no fluency in their parents’ language. Although there could possibly be a difference in results if all learners were North American English speakers, or native speakers of other languages, we are inclined to believe that similar successes are achievable regardless of linguistic background so long as the students find this approach supportive of their learning styles. Yet this is an empirical question that remains to be answered. With such a small number of students, it is difficult to draw any generalizations at this time. No doubt other populations must b e included, and larger numbers of students must be monitored to determine whether success is still possible. Since students’ homework and tests were used to r e veal what students had learned over the semester, it is not clear yet to what extent this learning experience impacted their long term skill-gaining abilities or their long term skill- using abilities. By their successfully completing the tasks and the tests, it was assumed that students mastered the task and that the skill- enabling strategies worked. Perhaps one activity that could have helped answer this issue would have been to have students keep a running list. Students would need to indicate what they felt they could and could not do and how they planned to learn those things that remained to be learned. Then the instructors could frequently assess the plans that the learners carried out to learn these items.

In addition to teaching usage and forms of

21 1


the language in context, we were also teaching students strategies for foreign language learning. We note that most university programs do not emphasize these aspects of language learning, but rather treat them as peripheral if they are treated at all. This ability to become communicative within a one-semester course (despite a limited amount of language proficiency) is not included as an objective in any foreign language course that we know of. In a sense, the outcomes of each particular university course need to be specified to determine whether or not oral aural skills or reading/writing skills in Japanese are developed by the average university student. In contrast to our program, the written modality is more cultivated than the oral/aural modality in most university Japanese programs. Reformulating the typical university curriculum would be necessary before proficiency guidelines could even be used to find out the extent to which students can communicate at each level of instruction. In the s u b sequent months of implementation, closer evaluations are projected for not only the language structures, but also the socialcultural knowledge and the students’ strategic competence. This project will then be able to offer suggestions on how best to tap these key features of communicative competence for language programs.

Until then, the results that are obtained in this current curricular project may well be the only evidence currently available from an experiential language learning setting.

Student Test Performance Whenever students d o very well on an

exam, one needs to question which variables account for the results: actual learning, the type of test items, the students’ inherent abilities, or even a combination of these. Analyz- ing the test items more closely after the course, it was confirmed that they had high face validity; that is, they measured performance similar to that which had been practiced in the classroom. However, it is recognized that by increasing the number of test items and frequency of testing, test reliability

could have been ascertained. As this was not done, it is impossible to determine whether or not performance levels were higher than or equal to what would be predicted by chance. For the future, longer and more frequent testing would allow us to better identify the difficulty level of the items for individuals and across groups of learners.

When looking at the test results, we ac- knowledge that students could have been further challenged to see to what extent they could handle a novel situation. In this way, it could be determined whether enabling strate gies or compensation strategies were learned and to what extent they helped the learners communicate their messages. Since such measures were not included, only self-report measures on self-confidence and reduced anxiety are available. In subsequent tests, items will be incorporated on the variety of strategies that were taught and an increased number of test items will be included to establish the extent of students’ proficiency.

Areas that were not explicitly tested also included student knowledge about strategic communication and registers. Students could have been asked to identify these strategies or give an example of one that they use. In production terms, this would include demonstrating the ability to get someone to speak more slowly, provide explanations as well as demonstrating the ability to circumlocute and to paraphrase. In terms of testing sociolinguistic registers, the student’s ability to detect registers male/female or intimacy and solidarity could be included. Another area not dealt with, but that should be included in future exams, is the student’s ability to judge which responses are appropriate for a given situation. As work continues in this area, a means for assessing how empathy with the Japanese culture develops through the course will be important as well. In addition to identifying these areas, a format that is also conducive to obtaining this type of information from our students will be necessary. These are a few of the issues that require further attention.

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Continuity Since the project was initiated with begin-

ners who were seniors in their final year of study, it was impossible to follow u p their progress. No claim for long-term success can be made without following up on our brave language learners. Had they continued, it would have been a challenge to see if their learning enabled them to continue either in the nonbusiness Japanese classes offered by another department or in the subsequent levels of this new curriculum.

Feasibility Though the use of two instructors may be a

logistic and budgetary problem for many who might want to attempt this type of course, there are some solutions:

combining two classes to permit two teachers to work together; getting volunteers from the local community (either the spouses or children of business people, university exchange students, etc.); and

3. having advanced students each semester be promoted through the hierarchy of managers or leaders.

Other issues that might prove to b e difficult are those of having adequate space to conduct this type of class, having sufficient materials: tape recorders and video players for each company; and scheduling of classes if fewer than 100 minutes are available. Space may be an issue if the numbers enrolled in a given class are too great to allow for our method of setting up departments of companies in separate areas. The noise factor may force the company activities to be of a quieter nature if other classes are affected by the prox- imity of this language class.

Since tape recorders are to be used by each company in some of our activities, having sufficient quantities for each department or company may place a drain o n the budget, let alone pose a problem in the logistics of use. Finally, the amount of time allocated to each segment of our lesson would need to be modified accordingly to accommodate shorter p e riods or l e s s h o r e frequent class meetings.

1.

2.

Conclusion Since Japanese is regarded as a “truly for-

eign language” in America, both teachers and learners believe that Japanese must be introduced in a simplified and manageable way. While we may agree with this, it should be pointed out that the manner in which simpli- fication is carried out and the means to make the task of learning Japanese “manageable” are decisions warranting close examination. We propose that complexity of an input-rich environment will, in fact, help learners because of the many different types of cues and redundancy that such an environment provides. Though immersion programs are not feasible for every site, simulations are more manageable. In addition, because we ac- knowledge that “communication is a complex, dynamic, and qualitative process involving the creation, interpretation, negotiation, and exchange of meanings by individuals a n d social groups”’, using a simulation approach makes use of the historicity of the class learning situation in a very real way that maintains the complexity. The schedule, events, people, and activities build up a context that is very powerful for sustaining language development. We believe this way to be superior to the way traditional classes have focused on varying topics without a coherent sequence or topics in textbooks about imagi- nary people. The reality that develops from engaging in authentic tasks creates a real purpose and context for communication. As Crookall and Oxford state: “Simulation is ‘brought to life’ by participants. In being acti- vated, however, it gains autonomy and takes on a reality of its own, thereby leaving the do- main of pure representativity” (1990, 15).

The variety of registers for indicating social status or relationship are constantly accessi- ble in a simulation, while in traditional classrooms these are present only in written texts or videos. The concreteness of the experience will afford learners sufficient time to develop ease of language use (fluency) and accuracy in a particular setting, as well as communicative strategies for spontaneous interaction with native speakers. In other words, this ap-

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proach helps students gain valuable lessons on how to learn language in natural settings; how to understand, use, and appreciate cultural convention, and how to develop confidence in their ability to achieve independ- ence as learners. “Manageability” in our sense means helping students become autonomous learners who can deal successfully with ambi- guity and lack of comprehension by using a number of strategies to learn and comprehend. These enabling skills are necessary for students to cultivate if they continue learning on their own either inside or outside of class. Most importantly, these are lessons that beginning language learners can successfully handle when dealing with content-related language lessons.

The curricular decisions regarding the teaching of writing and reading encompass more than decisions of number and sequence of kanji, hiragana, and katakana. In the language for specific purposes context, all three scripts were combined because it was felt that the d e cision should be a function of context and the learner’s purpose within that context, rather than just a decision to teach the Joy0 kanji, the commonly used kanji, or even the Toyo kanji, the kanji selected for the basic education level. Research will be needed here to determine not only which kanji are frequently encountered but which are difficult to understand or write in this simulation approach, as well as how best to leam the kanji so identified.

Despite conceding that our process of d e veloping this curriculum was far from flawless, we are nonetheless encouraged by the results the students achieved. It is our hope that by sharing our decision-making processes, we will encourage more teachers to explore new options for Japanese language curriculum design, implementation, and evaluation. By engaging in this process, we came to better understand what types of language learning are indeed possible given the constraints of university courses for novice learners of Japan- ese outside Japan. Though the students in our simulation context were very successful, it is evident that n o one approach to teaching a language will work in all situations for all

teachers or students. Observation of class interactions and tailoring the instruction to the students’ pace of learning and way of learning, as well as carrying out changes in the activities, will further the learners’ achievements in the course of the simulation.

Finally, we recognize the need to be ever- vigilant in improving the curriculum’s authenticity and in documenting student progress in order to make sound curricular decisions. This means that further research outside is also needed to find out how language is used in Japanese companies between natives and fledgling Japanese speaking non-natives, as well as between natives and natives. Above all, in this small study it is demonstrated that even beginners, not just advanced learners, can benefit from content-related language instruction and authentic language input. What has been feared as “impossible” or “too com- plicated” for beginners is actually something that they can successfully manage. We look forward to continuing the tailoring of the course to our students and to observing how they interact with the tasks that we design. Through these efforts, we hope to join others in identifying supportive settings and activities for learning Japanese as a foreign language.

NOTES I Knowing these register differences is particu-

larly important when one learns Japanese for business purposes even at the elementaly level. Though addressing a higher status person often requires more polite register, there are times when this is dispensed with. Learning the subtleties of when to d o so is an important part of learning to interact in context. In the other extreme, individuals who continually use formal registers with people from a similar rank create a cold or snobbish im- pression that is disastrous for building solidarity. In Japanese, male and female language also differs markedly. If a non-native male would make the mistake of using the Japanese female language variety, it could prove quite humorous. Unfortunately, if non-native females adopted Japanese male language, the female might be perceived as rude and aggressive. Therefore, it is very important to know with whom and when to use which registers.

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“Unnatural” here means divergent from care- giver talk or nativehon-native discourse outside of classroom settings. It results in oversimplification or attempting to make use of English pragmatics through literal translation in Japanese.

’Though there are non-natives who are in positions of authority, it was highly improbable that our students would be in such positions. Naturally, the input from the “boss” can be learned through listening to how bosses speak. It would be interesting to see if students could later discern aspects of the “boss” language from the language of colleagues or subordinates.

‘While a n anonymous reviewer of this article suggested that a n “objective” measure of the students’ proficiency be included here, at the time of this experimental project no such instrument existed (Summer 1992).To our knowledge now, none has been developed for classes teaching languages for specific purposes. Most universities to date still administer home-made exams that often are not even normed on the populations that a re being tested. Neither is information published on technical information such as item analysis, or results of validity or reliability tests of university language exams. I t is questionable to what extent many of the university Japanese tests even have face validity in terms of placement or achievement for their own programs, let alone concurrent validity with standardized tests. We recognize the importance of reliabilty and validity in the construction of any test. At this point in the development of the curriculum, only face validity is claimed.

‘One improvement that could be made here is to use only messages that have been left on an answering machine for noninteractive listening practice.

Split-half reliabilty coefficents could not be obtained due to the limited number of items on the tests and the limited number of students taking these tests. Repeated-measures reliability could not be carried out because n o alternative tests were created or administered. Reliability cannot be a d e quately addressed using statistical measures at this time.

‘This could also be improved by having students identify the aspects that make this a formal and informal context.

‘Crookall, D., and Rebecca Oxford. 1990. “Link- ing Language learning and SimulationKaming.” In

Crookall & Oxford, Simulation, Gaming, and Lan- guage Learning. New York: Newbury House (Harper & Row), 10.

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Appendix A Partial List of Resources Consulted

Books Japanese for Business: University of Hawaii Business Japanese: ALC Press Nihongo Business Kaiwa-Elementary. Bonjinsha: Tokyo, Japan Japanese for Busy People. 1984 Association for Japanese Language Teaching, Kodansha:

Tokyo, Japan

Videos and Audio Tapes

Hal10 Reh-esh! (sic) Japan Recreation Association NHK Radio Tai so Nippon-The Land and its People. 1989-1991. Nippon Steel Human Resources Development

Corp. Limited.

Appendix B Sequence of Lessons

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

General Introduction Setting up a Company and Introductions Getting Familiar with the Office Morning Meeting Receiving a Phone Call Making a Phone Call Coffee Break Receiving Visitors Visiting Other Companies Lunch Time Document Circulation (Hanko System) Completing Trip Forms Borrowing and Lending Office Supplies Reading Letters and Review Midterm Exam Making a Quick Personal Call Changing an Appointment (informal) Receiving and Sending Faxes Making an Appointment on the Phone Planning a Company Picnic Inviting Coworkers A Boss Invites Employees to Go Out after 5 pm. At a Karaoke Bar Self-Assessment and Applying for a Promotion Decisions on Promotions Review and Preparation for Speech Final Exam Farewell Party

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Appendix C Sample Lesson Plan

#20: Planning a Company Picnic {Hanami Tour)

OBJECTIVES

Students will b e able to:

read authentic travel agency advertisement that contains many unfamiliar words. Students will use their knowledge of a similar advertisement and draw upon their knowledge of hiragana, katakana, and kanji to guess at the meaning. express their opinions about the tours: yasui to omou/omoimasu (I think it is cheap), takasugiru to omou/omoimasu (I think it is too expensive), etc., using appropriate registers . to arrange a schedule with colleagues. 15 nichi wa do? (How about the 15?) 15 nichi wa chotto ... (the 15th? well ...) understand Japanese business culture-company picnic and gatherings such as hanami (flower viewing) undBkai (sports meet).

MATERIALS

I. Fax cover sheet 2. 3.

Two kinds of advertisement from a travel agency One’s own schedule for three weeks

PROCEDURES

15 min.-Briefing period

Give students cultural information about typical company outing, such as hanami, undBkai, etc., showing pictures. (in English)

70 min.- *BuchB asks a student (an employee) to read a Fax covering sheet, which has been put on a table at a corner of the classroom.

*Oda-san and BuchB take a look at the Fax and talk about it. Students listen and try to figure out what they are talking about.

Oda: BuchB, Puraza sDbisu kara fakkusu ga kimashita. Ni-mai desu.

BuchB: Ara, ohanami? I wa ne. Oda : I desu ne. Minna d e ikitai desu ne. BuchB : % ne. A ni-mai aru no ne. Docchi ga i kashira? JB, minna ni ki te mimashi3 ka.

*Divide Ss into two groups, and each group examines one ad provided. With help of BuchB and Odasan, Ss discuss the content of the tour and express their opinions about it.

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*After about 20 minutes’ discussion, everybody gets together and compares the two tours.

*After deciding which tour they would like to take, arrange everybody’s schedule, referring to the schedule provided.

Simulation period includes time for (tais), physical exercise, for a midbreak.

15 min.-debriefing period

Eliciting and providing clarification on the cultural points, vocabulary, interactional phrases, grammar. Taking student questions, comments/feelings, etc.

Homework:

Material - A flyer from a travel agency, which describes about 20 kinds of tours. Ss are required to choose two tours they want to take and to prepare to explain the content of the tours (where, when, how much, how long, etc.) and the reason why they want to go.

Next class begins with BuchG’s questions to employees, such as: Ohanami wa doko e ikun deshitakke? ltsu deshitakke?

In order to confirm that Ss are able to reply using the appropriate register, such as

Nyu jaji desu. Yasui kara desu.

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Appendix D List of Functions Students Mastered

Listening/ Speaking

Greetings to entedleave a room Self-Introductions to “in” and “out” group members Introductions of others (“in-group”) to clients Asking location of informal/formal Borrowing supplies informal/formal Making/Answering phone calls Offering food/drinks-informal/formal Refusing/accepting food/drinks/ invitations-informaVforma1 Answering simple questions in a job interview Making a small speech Inviting coworker to dinner (in-person, by telephone) Stating opinions to negotiate Making reservations at a restaurant

Reading Own name and names of coworkers (in katakana) Identifying supplies from office supply lists (hiragana and katakana)

Business cards-title and positions (in kanji) Fax cover sheets (hiragana, katagana, kanji)-identifying sendedrecipient, message

Fax advertisements from travel agency (hiragana, katagana, kanji) Job performance evaluation form (hiragana, katagana, kanji)

Floor plans-locations (kanji)

topic

Writing

Business cards (hiragana, katagana, kanji) Identification: Kanji for company name, supervisor’s name, staff names Completing business forms, e.g., Fax cover sheet, late/absence from work forms, request for permission to travel (hiragana, katagana)

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A Yen for Business: Language Learning for Specific Purposes - A Japanese Example

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