First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Term of Graduation

Fall 1995

Date of Publication

11-30-1995

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Department

Applied Linguistics

Language

English

Subjects

Students -- Pacific Northwest -- Attitudes, Teachers -- Pacific Northwest -- Attitudes, Japanese language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Pacific Northwest -- English speakers, Language and culture -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Pacific Northwest

DOI

10.15760/etd.7134

Physical Description

1 online resource (2, ii, 106 pages)

Abstract

The Japanese as a foreign language classroom in the United States is full of information about the target culture and cross-cultural interaction between American students and Japanese instructors. This cross-cultural interaction promotes culture learning but sometimes produces potential conflicts due to American students and Japanese instructors having different expectations of each other.

The purpose of this study was to investigate student expectations of their Japanese teachers and to explore similarities and differences among Japanese and American expectations. The research questions addressed were 1) What do American students expect of their Japanese teachers in the Japanese language classroom? Do their expectations have any distinctive features?, and 2) What do Japanese teachers expect of themselves in the Japanese language classroom? Do their expectations have any distinctive features?

The data was gathered in the two Japanese programs at universities in the Northwest. This exploratory study used both the quantitative and descriptive research methods. There were three primary data analysis procedures: multidimensional scaling analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and rank-order analysis. These multidimensional and hierarchical clustering analyses explored the underlying structure of the concept of what makes a good Japanese language teacher. The rank-order analysis revealed which beliefs were most important for different groups' judgments of who is a good teacher. In addition, the results of these analyses were discussed with the subjects through interviews.

The results suggested a major similarity and also some culture differences. Both Americans and Japanese seemed to share a very basic framework about what makes a good teacher, which contained three domains: Classroom management, Interaction and Personality. However, some of the results seemed to reflect a difference between the role-specific aspects of Japanese society and the individualistic elements of American society. In addition, the rank-order analysis seemed to reveal a difference between the two schools.

Rights

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Comments

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30684

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