Classes In Japan Research Articles

Research on Cooperative Learning in BSCS Science & Technology : The structure and practice of Cooperative Learning in lower secondary school science classes in Japan

Research on Cooperative Learning in BSCS Science & Technology : The structure and practice of Cooperative Learning in lower secondary school science classes in Japan

CIE が視察した体育の授業：1948 年松本千代栄氏の実践

After World War II had ended in defeat for Japan, teachers throughout the country had to demilitarize and democratize physical education classes. However, most studies have concluded that in the immediate post-war years, this was not possible. Kusabuka (1996) has reported that the CIE (Civil Information and Education Section) under the control of GHQ/SCAP (General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) put an affirmative evaluation on physical education classes in 1946. Miura (1991) states that the CIE inspected fifteen schools in 1948 and considered three of them to be affirmative. Thus it was shown clearly in these studies that some physical education classes were evaluated highly in the few years after World War II. The purpose of the present study was to clarify the extent to which the CIE inspected and affirmatively evaluated physical education classes in Japan by reference to historical materials, focusing especially on Nara Women's Higher Normal School Annexed Elementary School, which was inspected in 1948 by H. Manley, health education consultant for the CIE. Manley reported that the secondary school had an excellent games program, and also that 6th grade girls were taught an excellent rhythm program. Materials related to the history of the elementary school from 1945 to 1948 were then studied to specify the content of the physical education classes. This revealed that Chiyoe Matsumoto conducted an excellent rhythm program on July 3rd of that year, in which children had smiling faces, and a good sense of rhythm and power of expression. The main principles of this class were to develop and nurture a sense of individuality among the children. Manley was evidently impressed by Matsumoto’s approach. Therefore, it seems appropriate to note that during the two or three years immediately after World War II, all physical education classes in Japan were not necessarily in a state of disorder, and that some teachers were making efforts to improve their approach. In future studies I intend to explore the main factors that made it possible to improve physical education classes by inspecting the relationship between postwar and prewar activities in the same elementary school.

A case study examining backchannels in conversations between Japanese–British dyads

Listener responses (called backchannels) and their effect on intercultural communication were investigated in eight dyadic conversations in English between Japanese and British participants. The findings of this study revealed several differences in the way each culture used backchannels: the Japanese participants used slightly more backchannels per interlocutor word, the British participants displayed greater variability in the types of backchannels they used, and there were several differences in the lexical items making up these backchannels. Japanese participants sent noticeably more backchannels in three discourse contexts: at or directly after a pause, directly after a primary speaker’s nonverbal gesture, and directly after a tag question or an utterance ending with the lexical items ‘ya know’. This study found evidence supporting the hypothesis that backchannel conventions, which are not shared between cultures, contribute to negative perceptions and stereotyping. The findings of this study support the conclusion that backchannels warrant more attention in EFL classes in Japan.

Language, social structure, and culture: A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America

Patricia Mayes, Language, social structure, and culture: A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. xiv, 228. Hb. $102.00.In 1979, I attended a Sunday afternoon cooking class in Osaka with a small group of Japanese friends and coworkers. There were fewer than 10 people present in the kitchen showroom to learn how to make chanko nabe, a hearty one-pot stew. I do not remember the recipe, or much else about the occasion, except that we traded casual jokes and asides with the instructor, some of them playing off the fact that the dish is well known as standard fare used to bulk up sumo wrestlers. It is astonishing yet gratifying that scholarship on language and culture has advanced to the point that there is now a book entitled Language, social structure and culture: A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. The reader looking for insights into Japanese or American culture, social structure, or cooking classes as cultural events, may be frustrated or disappointed with this book, but for scholars interested in reading a forthright essay about genre theory, supported with transcripts and exhaustive counting of clause types, it will offer useful and stimulating reading.

Lifestyle guidance for patients with chronic liver diseases; information provision via educational classes on liver diseases

Patients with chronic liver disease need information on the disease to keep their good quality of life. Educational class on liver disease is one of solutions for that. We have started the class in 1992, and continued to run it once per month. Exchange of information among patients at group work is also helpful to relief their anxiety related to their disease. Many hospitals are now preparing to establish such classes in Japan. In this article, we present tips on providing information to patients with chronic liver diseases and advice on class management.

Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden

While museums across North America are replicating rock in their courtyards and miniature versions now decorate offices, these Zen gardens remain enigmatic, their philosophical and aesthetic significance obscured. French historian Francois Berthier traces the history of the karesansui garden in Reading Zen in the Rocks, here translated by Graham Parkes and beautifully illustrated with photographs of all the major gardens discussed. Berthier traces the roles of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in the evolution of the garden and also considers how manual laborers from the lowest classes in Japan had a hand in creating some of its highest examples. Parkes contributes an equally original and substantive essay, which delves into the philosophical importance of rocks and their language of stone, delineating the difference between Chinese and Japanese rock gardens and their relationship to Buddhism. Together, the two essays compose one of the most comprehensive and elegantly written studies of this haunting garden form. Reading Zen in the Rocks is a handsome addition to the library of anyone interested in gardening, Eastern philosophy, and the combination of the two that the karesansui so superbly represents.

Communities of Resistance: A Case Study of Two Feminist English Classes in Japan

■ I first came into contact with other women who were combining their study of an L2 with their interest in feminism in Tokyo in 1982–1985. As a young White American woman active in a group of Japanese and foreign feminists in Tokyo, I was asked to teach English classes for participants in two different Japanese feminist groups. I also started my own Japanese women’s literature study group with other foreign women. I have lived again in Japan since 1992 and have heard about or been involved with over a dozen different such study groups or classes over the years, including those in regions outside Tokyo. Although such classes seem to spring up spontaneously and independently of each other, gradually I have come to see the efforts of the women involved in these classes as forming a pattern or approach to language learning that is distinct in certain respects from other models, something that could contribute to the ongoing evolution of a feminist second language pedagogy (Fujimura-Fanselow 1991, 1996; Schenke, 1996; Vandrick, 1994, 1995). I became interested in examining in what ways this approach is distinct and what its appeal is to the women instructors and learners involved so that I and others can learn from and apply it more widely.

The impact of military procurements on the old middle classes in Japan, 1931–1941

(1992). The impact of military procurements on the old middle classes in Japan, 1931–1941. Japan Forum: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 247-265.

Research Into Practice: Dialogue and Conceptual Splatter in Mathematics Classes

We have studied first- and second- grade mathematics classes in Japan and the United States in which story problems and problems about mathematical concepts were used to promote higher-level thinking. Our re earch leads us to question the common a umption that teachers should aim each le son at a particular conceptual goal for all pupils and expect nearly all of them to succeed and to understand the same concept. Instead, a teacher's aim should be as close as possible to accepting conceptual diversity or “splatter” among pupils. We believe that steady work on such an aim through problem solving and dialogue will lead to outstanding conceptual power in pupils. In this article, we present three examples from lessons that reflect this aim, as well as suggestions that we have drawn from these and other lessons.

日本社会における上層階級の死亡状況の変遷 新聞死亡記事掲載者について

Trends in the death rates of the upper classes in Japan were revealed by the investigation of obituary notice columns in a major national newspaper. The authors analyzed differences among occupations (professers, executive bureaucrats and executive businessmen) and contrasted the upper classes for the general population. Results were as follows : 1) Obituary notices from 1935, 1955 and 1975 indicated a trend of an increasing in the mean age at death. No difference was found among the occupations and from the general public. 2) In 1935, causes of death for upper classes were not significantly different from general population rates. In 1955 and 1975, the upper classes, especially executive businessemen showed a significantly higher death rate from heart diseases, and in 1975, a significantly lower death rate from cerebral stroke, as compared to the general population. 3) Within the upper classes, the ratio of rates of death in hospitals vs. rates of death in private homes showed a change over time. In 1935 and 1955 only 3 out of 10 deaths occured in hospitals whereas in 1975 the ratio was 7 : 3. Compared with the general public, the upper classes showed significantly higher proportion of deaths in hospitals, both in 1955 and 1975. With regard to selected causes of death in hospitals (cancer, heart diseases and cerebral stroke), the leading cause of death in both 1955 and 1975 was cancer. In 1955 the rate of deaths due to heart diseases was higher than that due to cerebral stroke, but this was reversed in 1975. In these rates there were no significant differences between the upper classes and the general public.

Studies on Teaching and Learning Behavior on the Academic Learning Time (ALT-PE) in Physical Education Classes in Japan

The ALT-PE, developed as a means of analyzing the instruction of physical education by Siedentop et al., has been defined as being the percentage of class time during which students are effectively and successfully engaged into physical education content activities.The present study was designed (a) to compare the case of Japanese students with the case of American and Canadian students reported from the preceding investigations (Metzler, Godbout et al.), evaluated by the ALT-PE, and (b) to investigate relationships between three major ALT variables and setting of classes. Subjects were 20 secondary school physical education teachers, and their regular classes were observed according to the ALT-PE observational procedure. In addition, all teachers were requested to draw up the teaching sheets on above lessons. Students were asked to present a composition on their impression of the class activities.The ALT-PE of Japanese students ranged from 27.7% to 87.2%, with a mean value of 62.4%. These value was significantly higher than those of American and Canadian students.When the results obtained through the ALT-PE observational procedure were discussed in relation to the analysis of the teaching sheets and the composition of students, most of the high and low ranking classes on the ALT-PE (the high-ranking classes: 82.6-87.2%, the lowranking classes: 27.7-53.6%) taught under a systematic sequence in whole-class learning. However, the activities of instruction in the high-ranking classes were characterized by that teachers persuaded efficiently their students into learning toward their aims. In the lowranking classes, teacher's directions on movement patterns were emphasized, or teacher's behavior became a noninterference. On the other hand, most of the medium-ranking classes (the ALT-PE of 58.6-79.8%) were instructed under a problem-solving method in subgroups. If some categories about “students management” and “talking with fellow students” were set appropriately in the observational recording system, the averages of ALT-PE in the medium-ranking classes would increase.From these results were concluded that the relationships between the ALT-PE and setting of classes in physical education are more closed, and that the increase in ALT-PE from baseline of 60% might show that students are effectively and successfully engaged into physical education content activities.

Is Life-Style Research Limited in its Usefulness to Japanese Advertisers?

Abstract Life-style research is well accepted in the United States as a useful component of the advertising research inventory. Japanese advertising researchers have come to an opposite conclusion; that is, that life-style research is inherently less useful in Japan than in the United States because of the homogeneous population of Japan and the explanatory power of age and sex demographic variables. This article explores the Japanese conclusion. Two life-style studies, one conducted in Japan and one conducted in the U. S., are compared. The comparison reveals that age is related to a traditional orientation among Japanese women, that there are greater life-style differences across age classes in Japan than in the U. S., and that there are interesting differences between the two cultures. These findings are consistent with the argument that demographic variables such as age are effective at explaining life-style differences in Japan. However, it is noted that the explanatory power of the age variable will probably decline over time and perhaps as a result life-style research will become more useful than it now appears to be in Japan.

Field Theory and Conjugal Violence in Japan

An attempt was made to analyze conjugal violence in the Japanese family through the field theory perspective which claims that different analytic foci are the prime contributors towards understanding human behavior. Information concerning family structures derived from reports by 635 Japanese high school seniors to the family conflict resolution study questionnaires forms the basis of this study. The results of path analysis revealed that the husband’s interaction resources, rather than independent resources such as extrinsic or intrinsic resources, were the prime determinants of the level of the husband’s as well as of the wife’s violence. The wife’s interaction resources, however, did not show any significant impact on the level of conjugal violence of either spouse. This study itself, therefore, did not lend support to the field theory to account for conjugal violence in Japan. The low level of conjugal violence of both spouses across different social classes in Japan might be explained in terms of the unique nature of the social and cultural context of Japan that is, the hierarchical-vertical social structure, the normative structure of male supremacy, the traditional nature of sex role identification, the quiet and non-expressive cultural orientation, ethnic and racial homogeneity, dependency and group orientation of the Japanese, the low degree of somatosensory deprivation among Japanese infants, and the harmonious, traditional-modern blend in Japanese culture itself. Thus, the low level of conjugal violence in Japan may best be explained through the contextual analysis of personality and social structure of Japan which still is a branch of the field theory perspective.

Hankai. A Translation from Harusame Monogatari

Ur n EDA Akinaril was born in I734, precisely in the middle of the Tokugawa period. The period began with the unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu (I542i6i6), who established the pattern of strong, centralized rule that was to give Japan more than two hundred years of peace and stability. It was a period of isolation as well; Ieyasu's successors banned all foreign contacts, with the exception of closely regulated trade with the Dutch and with China. The contact with China was of great importance. The Tokugawa period saw a flourishing of Chinese, particularly Confucian, scholarship: Confucianism was the official doctrine of the government, and 'the ethics of the Chinese sages, systematized and modified by the Japanese to suit their own peculiar society, had by the opening of the eighteenth century begun to permeate all classes in Japan.'2 A reaction to this emphatic acceptance of Confucianism began in the middle of the eighteenth century with, among others, the great scholar Kamo no Mabuchi (I697-I769), and was carried on by a group known as the 'National Scholars' who emphasized the philological study of earlyJapanese classics in an attempt to discover the pure Japanese spirit as it existed before falling under Buddhist and Confucian influence. The circumstances of Akinari's birth are unknown. His mother seems to have been an Osaka prostitute, and Akinari himself did not know the identity of his father. Fortunately, he was adopted at three by a wealthy dealer in oil and paper named Ueda, and was given the name Ueda Senjiro.3 (It was many years later that he adopted the name Akinari.) The following year he had a severe case of smallpox, which weakened him

The Middle Classes in Japan

The Middle Classes in Japan

Measurements of Standards of Living of the Working Classes in Japan

Measurements of Standards of Living of the Working Classes in Japan