Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

The film was about a woman who taught English at Long Beach High School. The school became decayed after integration program. Non-white students occupied the school and then good white students had gone. Most of the students had problems in their families.

A young teacher, Gruwell played by Hillary Swank taught her students how to live with confidence. It is based on a true story.

The main theme of the story is "Express yourself and learn how to live."

Learn how to live in the ghetto like Anne Frank did.

I know a woman who were a high school teacher. I think she was already retired. I remember she came over to help me with my life in US. She was so kind to me.

She said the message she gives her students was "There is no fair." The family she was born was very poor. She worked so hard to get a teacher's credential. Her father was half-Native American. She told me the stories of her father's experience.

I understand these words as I grow up. This is what a teenager should know before entering the grown-up society.

We want to complain but things don't change so easily just like the song "Waiting on the world to change."

But there should be a way out. The world is not perfect but can change better little by little. Don't do wrong things by your emotion.

Even after I left the U.S., we exchanged the emails each other from time to time.  

I was sometimes very rude to her because I had been so childish. I miss her so much. What is she doing now?

I hope I can see her again. Her name is Joyce Becker. She told me she was awarded a "Teacher of the Year" Award in California several years ago. She graduated from UC Berkeley. She was a teacher in San Diego.    

Mr. Ibaki, the Minister of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), has been creating a stir with his opposition to English education in elementary school.  I work as a translator, and naturally am proficient in English.  I started learning in the 4^th grade in elementary school, from a private tutor who was Japanese.  After that, I studied at English conversation schools with native speakers, and I learned not only the English necessary to pass tests in school but I also became conversationally fluent.  After I graduated from high school, I went to America to study at a university for five years, and thanks to my previous English education and current “real-life” English education, I earned my Bachelor’s degree.

 

 

Based on these experiences, I both agree and disagree with Minister Ibaki’s opinion.

 

 

First of all, with regard to why I agree with Minister Ibaki, it is because when we talk about language, language is not just about communicating information.  While we talk, we think about various things, and when we say that we are polishing up our speaking skills, we are also polishing up how we think.  The sentence construction of English and Japanese are very different.  In particular, when one becomes used to expressing the conclusion at the beginning, Japanese becomes a very difficult language in which to speak.  In addition to being able to find the right words, it is also important to have the ability to consider exactly what it is you want to say.

 

 

In translating work, this definitely becomes an obstacle.  Without completely considering the flow of the entire sentence, it is impossible to translate that sentence.  Being stuck between the two languages, left without the power to think, even understanding the main point that you want to communicate becomes difficult.  To take the example of this author, when I was in junior high school, in addition to excelling at English the other subject I excelled at was Japanese.  I believe that because I became very good at reading comprehension in Japanese, it helped my progress in learning English.

 

 

That is to say, rather than language being something that one learns, language is something that one becomes accustomed to.  From that point of view, the younger one is, the better one is able to adapt.  Setting aside the merits and demerits of English, English is becoming the common global language.  If one learns it well, it is clearly to that person’s advantage.  If one is raised in an environment in which one does not feel uncomfortable around English, then after that things will be much easier.

 

 

Particularly with pronunciation, it is much better for children to learn at an early age when they have no preconceptions.  Because the pronunciation of the Japanese language is one of the simplest in the world, it creates many difficulties.  For example, the differences between L and R, V and B, and Th and S do not exist in Japanese and are therefore hard to grasp, and by the time one is an adult the fixed habits interfere and it becomes difficult to hear the difference.

 

 

However, I do not believe that Japanese education and English education should progress simultaneously.  Before learning how to speak as if it were one’s mother tongue, one should learn the native language properly and build up reading comprehension and critical thinking.  Whether it is the native language or a foreign language, without the ability to comprehend, one can neither speak nor listen.

Written by Masagata. 

 Translated by a MIT graduate.

According to the Kyodo Press in Japan, English conversation teaching school in Kofu city of Yamanashi Prefecture posted the ad that recruits an English teacher on the bulletin board in public facility managed by Yamanashi International Association. The condition of the applicant was limited to blond hair with blue or green eyes. American Japanese person protested against the association. The facility apologized for this, saying they lacked the consideration.

 What do you think about that?  

 Well, for us typical foreigner is Blond and blue or green eyes, so that English schools like to hire people with such features. Yes, it is racist. But blond and blue eyes are what we are longing for.

I always wanted to be like Brad Pitt.

For native speaker of Japanese like me, L and R are hard to pronounce. Foreigners say Japanese use inbetween of L and R. Not only we have difficulty to pronounce, we can't hear them correctly. The following is the list of pairs of the words which we can't distinguish.

1. light, right
2. life, rife
3. lice, rice
4. lip, rip (See the movie "Lost in Translation." There was a funny incident related to these words.)

The most difficult thing of learning foreign language is to master the pronunciation. It is what only children are good at. If I had started to learn English, I would be able to hear the difference between L and R.

I can sometimes hear the difference only when somebody speaks slowly and clearly. To me, L is clearer than R. R is more romantic than L. But when someone speaks at normal speed or faster, I can never hear the difference.

Japanese is one of the easiest language in terms of pronunciation. We have only 5 vowel sounds compared with 12 vowels in English and 16 in French. As for consonants, we have k,s,t,n,h,m,y,(l/r),w,g,z,d,b, and n. Surprisingly, our neighbor Chinese has 21 consonants. Chinese can hear the difference between L and R. Koreans can, too.

We also have difficulty in distinguishing s and th, and v and b. Like "faith or face," and "vase or base." But they are easier than L and R. Th and V sounds don't exist in our language, so it is easy to notice. But as for L and R, we use mixed pronunciation.

We also have problems in some of vowel sounds like the difference between color and collar.

Chinese language which I started learn recently has much more complexed vowel sounds system. It is called 4 tones. 1st tone is like stretching high voice, 2nd tone is raising tone, 3rd tone is down and up, and 4th tone is downing tone. If you mistone, even if the pronunciation is correct, it is regarded different meaning.

For example, "ma" of 3rd tone means horse but "ma" of 4th tone means to insult. Even if a person speaks fast, Chinese can hear the tone of every character as you hear the difference between L and R.

I wish I could hear the difference between L and R and Chinese 4 tones of the vowels perfectly as those of native speakers do.