Difference of perception of “asking a question” between Japan and other countries
I have felt different a different atmosphere in a classroom since I came to Vancouver in February. The frequency that I hear questions, which are posed by students clearly increased. Then I noticed almost every student except for Japanese asks his or her questions when meeting something that he or she does not know. When I went to an ESL school, I experienced an event that symbolizes the characteristic of Japanese peoples’ perceptions toward asking questions. One day, in class, our teacher divided students into some groups and distributed different articles about a political movement, an economy, international issues and so on. Then he instructed us to …show more content…
It also makes us hesitate to ask questions. For instance, when Japanese students have something that they want to ask a teacher in English, many steps come up before they actually ask. They search about their questions on the internet or textbooks at first, and on the next step, they think how they can tell about their question correctly in English, they might even look it up using a dictionary. After these steps, finally they can walk up to the teacher and ask about it. This is the way that I have practiced so far. In this way, both the cultural way of thinking and the national characteristics have the effect of troubling ourselves to inquire …show more content…
Also these of other cultures could be figured out. I enjoyed conducting a survey and analyzing its results, since there were full of meetings to new ideas and values. I think recklessly asking our own questions one after another is not good because it could interrupt a teacher’s talking and disturb the progress of a class, but not asking anything is worse as we cannot absorb information and knowledge if we take a passive attitude toward learning something. What I want to emphasize here is that there is not “correct answers” among cultures. Each one has both good points and bad points. When I mention about the theme of this essay, I would like to keep “independence” and “an attitude that not regretting efforts”, which are the graces of Japanese culture in mind from now on and try to introduce “the courage not to be afraid of mistakes” and “the positiveness”, which are virtues of other cultures. (Figure
I have felt different a different atmosphere in a classroom since I came to Vancouver in February. The frequency that I hear questions, which are posed by students clearly increased. Then I noticed almost every student except for Japanese asks his or her questions when meeting something that he or she does not know. When I went to an ESL school, I experienced an event that symbolizes the characteristic of Japanese peoples’ perceptions toward asking questions. One day, in class, our teacher divided students into some groups and distributed different articles about a political movement, an economy, international issues and so on. Then he instructed us to …show more content…
It also makes us hesitate to ask questions. For instance, when Japanese students have something that they want to ask a teacher in English, many steps come up before they actually ask. They search about their questions on the internet or textbooks at first, and on the next step, they think how they can tell about their question correctly in English, they might even look it up using a dictionary. After these steps, finally they can walk up to the teacher and ask about it. This is the way that I have practiced so far. In this way, both the cultural way of thinking and the national characteristics have the effect of troubling ourselves to inquire …show more content…
Also these of other cultures could be figured out. I enjoyed conducting a survey and analyzing its results, since there were full of meetings to new ideas and values. I think recklessly asking our own questions one after another is not good because it could interrupt a teacher’s talking and disturb the progress of a class, but not asking anything is worse as we cannot absorb information and knowledge if we take a passive attitude toward learning something. What I want to emphasize here is that there is not “correct answers” among cultures. Each one has both good points and bad points. When I mention about the theme of this essay, I would like to keep “independence” and “an attitude that not regretting efforts”, which are the graces of Japanese culture in mind from now on and try to introduce “the courage not to be afraid of mistakes” and “the positiveness”, which are virtues of other cultures. (Figure