| September 2009 President's Message |
| Written by David McMurray | |
| Monday, 21 September 2009 | |
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Welcome back from your vacation in Canada. Up to 80 percent of our ACTJ members return to Canada at least once a year. Perhaps you took some of your students on a canoe trip. Surely you visited mom and dad. In a Japanese pop song by Momoe Yamaguchi, a mother beseeches her betrothed daughter to sit with her awhile longer with her in the warm autumn sun. Pink cosmos stay as my son postlude winds I took my students to Ontario this summer. “Thousand Island, please,” responded Shizuka Obaru to a question about which salad dressing she would like to try. During her summer of 2009 vacation away from university in Kagoshima, Shizuka studied ESL for two weeks at a language school in Toronto and enjoyed another week at a cottage in Ontario. It was Shizuka’s first meaningful international experience. I enjoyed traveling with her and other seminar students this summer. We participated in the ACTJ and Canada Project Conference earlier in May and quite enjoyed the presentations on diversity. Now it was our turn to experience diversity by studying abroad in Canada. Shizuka and two of her friends returned to Japan, but six of my students chose to stay in Canada for up to one year as exchange students. Should university study abroad programs we offer in Japan be focused on language learning, cultural understanding, making the world a better place, career-relevant skills or country specific knowledge? Let's grapple with these questions at our autumn ACTJ mini conference at the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo. Japanese students who study abroad in Toronto often enter a language study center. Known as island programs the Japanese students usually sit in class alongside other Japanese students and take English courses at a basic level especially designed for Asian students. The centers register students aged 16 and older and assess their levels of speaking with an interview test and writing with a paper test. Shizuka entered a basic class with other Japanese students. Almost everything Shizuka encountered in Canada was new and presented a challenging opportunity for them to learn. She navigated new customs and table manners, ordered breakfasts and dinners, paid for goods and services, and maintained a budget. Communicating and trying to understand the many people they met while studying abroad were stimuli requiring fresh adaptation. Interacting with a new environment and changing the way they thought about learning helped the students to better interpret what they observed. Shizuka relied on what she new about people based on her experiences in Japan in a pluralistic manner. She hopes to return to Canada for a full-year, perhaps on the Working Holiday Program offered by the governments of Canada and Japan. Up to 10,000 young people take part in this program that allows them to work temporarily for a year. 2010 will be especially popular because of the demand for unskilled foreign workers at the Olympic Games. Many hope that mastering English will change their lifestyle and make it easier to find a job back in Japan. Even the most basic job can offer a career-related skills when it is challenged in a foreign language and requires a change in cultural behavior. Shizuka was ready to make two presentations on salads. Her first would be a comparison of foods, explaining the key ingredients in the pink colored Thousand Island salad dressing are mayonnaise and chili sauce, which is made of peppers and tomatoes. In summer the 1,000 islands are popular spots for fishermen, tourists and increasing numbers of ESL students from Japan. Thousand Island dressing is named for the Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Lake Ontario located between the USA and Canada. Her second presentation would explain a salad as a metaphor for the results of the immigration model she observed in Toronto where more than 50 percent of residents are visible minorities. How about your presentations to ACTJ this autumn? What topics and which metaphors will you use to engage in a vibrant debate with your peers? Please let our vice president Rob McLaughlin know by email and send a copy of your paper to the editor of our Canadian Content journal Andrew Reimann. David McMurray ACTJ President |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 27 September 2009 ) |
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