Theory of Terada English Teaching Method
(1) Mass Individual Teaching
An increase in international contacts give an idea that English will be of use only when it is able to be spoken by a person. And there has been an increase in the number of schools using a textbook of English conversation. Bookstores are selling a number of different books, which are said to have data for immediate use of English for talking and writing. But there seems to be a tendency for authors and teachers to make recommendation of only the memory of English in such books as the most important. Any books do not yet seem to come out to give practical information on how to get a trick of English talk.
Talking English is that we do it out of our intention. How much we may say English which we have had a memory of, it will never be talking English. For talking English we, first of all, need the other with who we may have an English talk. But at school a teacher never does English talk with each of all his learners for equal distribution of teaching because he has no time to do so. Even if we go to an English conversation school available for American native speakers, they do not give us individual talk without any unbalanced amount of teaching because they do not have a teaching system of that sort.
If a learner does conversation out of his memory of what are in a text book, he will never do any true conversation. How is it possible for him to do conversation with his teacher out of his intention ? Conversation is in the form of a question and an answer. If his teacher gives him a question, which is easy and of value for him to answer, he puts him in a condition to talk English because a desire to talk English comes to him. Without a desire he does not enjoy his conversation. He does not keep his learning with a loss of interest.
A learner is able to get used to English through his conversation with a teacher because words are given birth by conversation. We are unable to doubt existence because we have existence before we doubt existence. Because we have no doubt about existence we are dependent on existence. The time certainly comes to us when we have no more existence. We have a fear about this. Therefore before we have no existence we make our words about ourselves and transfer them to others who may have longer existence than we. Our conversation is rooted in our act of this transfer. The words transferred to others become those of the others. In this way words are given birth at the others. From a list of learners’ seat Nos. it is seen that a teacher will have to speak English as many times as [( No. of all the original statements in one teaching + No. of all the questions in one teaching ) x No. of all the learners in a class ]. All a learner has to do is only to make all the answers at one lesson time. Terada Method requires a teacher to make much more efforts than a learner. This is because Terada method is certain that there is a need for quite a great number of efforts in the learning of a foreign language. From the reverse angle this is viewed as mentioned next. With the learning of a language a learner still have to take much trouble even if we take a step for the least trouble for him. Therefore Terada method gets trouble to be shared more with a teacher than with a learner.
Though it is important for a teacher to have to make so many efforts, it is too heavy a commitment for a teacher to take. With PC the commitment is made less at a great rate and at the same time practice is possible for conversation in American native voice. Mass Individual English Teaching Method discovered it, which is detailed in the other paper as one of Terada Methods. Mass Individual English teaching has been said to be impossible. It is what learners have long time been hoping for.
In case where there are 5 learners, a teacher sometimes does verbal practice in Terada Method without use of PC. Then it will be of use to keep learners’ interest. But it is only when a teacher is able to do verbal questions with a look only at a list of learners’ seat Nos. It is because learners have a desire for such a teacher with a high respect.
But it is not true that the use of PC gives worse condition of education than such verbal teaching by a teacher. If so, such an idea is based on the judgment that a man has more a value than PC. It is because PC has no mind nor spirit but a man has them.
It is unable to be said that having spirit and mind is valued. Certainly mind and spirit are able to give men moral, cultural contribution, etc. But at the same time they may drive men into making war, threats, etc. Also nature and natural products are indispensable to cultural contribution. Whether a thing has a value or not is unable to be fixed by the difference between substance and man. Either substance or man will be able to have a value according to how much it is of use to a necessary purpose.
When a teacher is unable to make verbal questions with a look only at a list of Learners’ seat Nos. PC is a better teacher. But before he becomes a good questioner like PC he will have to do the practice again and again even until he gets tired of it. In order to give the teaching to a group of 5 learners he will have to talk, for example, 150 sentences, which are formed of statements and questions, at 5 times, namely 750 English sentences smoothly for two hours by looking only at the list. This is very hard verbal work to a teacher. But it is a problem, which he is able to get over, if he does the practice seriously. A teacher will see if he is able to do it when hoes it. He may get pleasure out of doing it with a pride of a professional teacher. An English teacher should go in this direction. The use of a list of Learners’ Seat Nos. is an attempt to make it clear what a good English teaching is justified by.
But in order to be realistic and be for the education of hearing native English sounds Terada English Teaching method discovered mass individual teaching with PC. Even when each teacher gets used to two hours’ verbal teaching of , for example, 750 sentences, a teaching with PC is needed as long as he does Mass Individual English Teaching. But it is important for a teacher to sometimes give his verbal teaching with a list of Learners’ Seat Nos. for keeping man-to-man contact with his learners. If this is not done, he may not get on well with his learners even by his use of PC for Mass Individual Teaching because learners are disappointed with their negative teacher.
In the teaching with a list of Learners’ seat Nos. or Mass Individual Teaching with PC all learners have to do is to answer the questions. Here we have to be careful not to be greedy to let learners do the practice of questions in addition to answers. Otherwise there will be a failure such as an outcome that there will be some learners who hardly keeps their learning. This is a fact based on experiences.
Talking English is doing it out of your intention. Talking English will never come true only as far as you may voice what you have had by heart. If we give attention to this fact, it is, first of all, necessary for us to have the other with who we may voice English.
Though it is said that talking English is doing it out of your intention, we are going to do the learning because we are unable to do it. Doing it from the first time is impossible. But it is never impossible. If you are going to have your teacher give you a question, which has an answer in it, you will have a desire to answer the question because you see in the question where the answer is.
This is that you talk English because you have a desire to do so. Namely you talk English out of your intention. How is it possible to make a question getting it clear at once where the answer is ? The way is that a word or a group of words in a given statement is questioned because the answer is then certainly in the statement and it is always clear where the answer is in the statement. In this case if the whole part of a statement is questioned the talk is ended with one question and one answer. An increase in the number of questions is in proportion to the number of practice. So a statement is divided into its parts as many as possible and each part is questioned.
If the division of a statement is made in such a way as a learner is able to see the structure of the statement, two birds are able to be killed with one stone. Each part, into which the statement is divided, has its own theme, about which a question is made. When the answer is in a statement, there is not any other form of question than a question using a question word, which points to a word or words in answer in a statement. However many learners there may be, each question made with a question word is put to each learner, and except at an initial stage each learner gives each verbal answer without looking at the answers in the paper. This is a system in Terada English teaching method.
English making as per Terada Method may be too simple. But there are some difficult things. If an original English is a question, a question of a question has to be made. If a statement is formed of front, middle, and back parts, each question is made respectively from the front part, the middle, and the back. Further the whole original statement is made into a question. These questions have to be made without causing any confusion to take place in forward and backward relation between the three parts. There are two cases. One of them is that the tense has to be made the same between an original statement and a question. Another is that the tense has to be made different between them. Study is made case by case to make right decision.
The word or phrase pointed out by a question word is naturally in an original statement, from which questions come. When a comparison is made between a question word and an original statement almost every one is able to give attention to which word, phrase, or clause the answer is. So it seems simple to give the answer but it is not as simple as it seems. We have to make practice again and again till we are able to say the answer smoothly. This is because a word, phrase, or clause directed by a question word is never independent by itself. It has to do with all the other words. So unless we go in mind over the relation of a questioned word or words with all the other words, the answer is not made clear.
The point that Terada conversation is different from any other conversation is that a learner answers a question, picturing what relation the answered word, phrase, or clause has with the other word, phrase, or clause. This difference has much to do with the effect of learning. Generally speaking, if, when you are going to give your thoughts to the things, you give your attention only to them by cutting them from the others, you will not see the others and will then come to a narrow conclusion. Your thoughts, which you expand to the others, will let you come to a wide conclusion, which is more of use. It is the same with a language. If you get knowledge of a word in relation with as many other words as possible your conversation and writing will become more usable. If a conversation with the use of question words is taken as simple, a relative idea of relation with the others is hardly understood. It is affected by the latest idea to take it as being rational to make separation of an object from all the others. So the situation seems to be rooted in something comparatively deep.
When verbal practice is being done in Terada Method, another learner sometimes whispers an answer to a learner, who is being questioned but not ready for a quick answer. But when the same question comes to the learner, who whispered the answer, he is unable to give the answer easily. This tells us that the things around us are not cut off from us and are connected to us in one body and they are changing all the time. Therefore according to how they are at that time after having been changing, they give us the power to do things or not to do them.
As environment changes with time we are unable to answer unless we are in the environment allowing us to make a right answer. Terada Method looks on environment as important. That is why a question is given to a learner while the learner is among the other learners. Questions are given to each of the learners man to man. A learner has to answer a question while he is given a look from all the other learners. He gets pleasure out of having the others give him a high opinion of him for his smooth, right answer.
Terada Method puts much time on having each learner answer each question without looking at any paper. When a learner gives an answer, he has to use words, which are different in form and letter for the number, person, tense, mood, etc. So he will be able to get used to the change in word form and letter. A learner is interested in this, too.
When answering a question with a question word in it, the words to answer are now supposed to be, for example, A. The answer is dependent on what relation the word has with the other words in the original statement. So to answer a question with the answer in an original statement is not so simple like answering A as A. But even when answering simply by taking A as A, A has come to be A with non-A behind A. Therefore it is already not as simple as it seems that we take A as A for an answer.
To answer A by taking A as A is to do it on basis of having been conscious of the fact that A has non-A behind it, A has some relation with its other words, and the change in environment, a part of which is the answerer, is involved. It is a logical thought to take A simply as A. If there is such a logical thought only, the outcome is simple but gets far from being realistic. If there is a realistic thought, the outcome gets near being realistic This is pointing to the fact of if, when we are going to answer, we have environment to allow us to make a right answer without any delay.
(2) Natural Repeat Teaching
The way of doing English talk practice must be getting as much near as possible to the natural way of getting used to English talk.
If a learner only says again almost the same things a teacher says, where is any value of doing Terada Method ? There may be such a doubt. But it is a natural way of learning a language for a learner to repeat mostly what a teacher says. This is made clear if we give our attention to the fact that when we were babies we did the learning of our language by saying over again the words that our parents and persons around us had said. We repeat most of the words given by our teacher but, at the same time, change the sound of the words, the position of them, the person of them, the tens of them, and so on because we take part in the conversation after we have got our self-consciousness developed. This is difference from what we did when we were babies.
Saying again in Terada method what is said by a teacher is different from saying without our intention like reading a book by following a teacher. There is our intention. When a child is copying what an adult is saying, he always does it out of his intention. Then why is it possible to say that he has his intention at that time ? First his impulse to copy is working. The impulse is natural. Why is it natural ?
When we talk something we are giving our opinion about it. This is because we are making judgment of it. We are interested even in any other’s judgment itself. Judgment is made to get a sense fixed and we are an animal going after sense and so we take interest in what sense any other’s judgment is searching. By copying what any other says, we are attempting to give our thought to what sense any other desires. This act of copying what any other says is not always so. It is like attempting to go in mind over any other’s thoughts by seeing statements made by any other. Instead of seeing them we copy what any other says. Thus this sort of interest gets us moved in having an impulse to copy out of our own intention.
But it is a historical fact that talk came before letters had been made at the start. So it seemed earlier that we attempted to give the other’s idea our thoughts by copying what the other said. If we let this go more into detail, we will see what process made us get an experience of how to talk.
A baby or a child who is at a stage where the self has not been fully developed is not conscious of the difference between the self and the others. So it is probable that he was copying the words as they were when they came to his ears from his parents, persons around him, etc. It seemed that at this stage he was receiving the following three different senses by his copy of voice. The first is the sense of a word formed as a name of phenomenon common to phenomenal objects. The second is a sense, which a group of words has. The third is an overall sense of what these two different sorts of words are saying.
The self is formed by the other selves as it has been mentioned in the above. When the self comes to a stage of its being somewhat independent, in reply to a question from the other it responses as far as it copies the other’s words over again by using even the words taken as words of the other’s self to be looked at from the angle of the self. Through a process of this sort the self gets experiences of using words. In the process actions and conditions change by time and, therefore, are able to be questioned with use of the question words such as who, where, when, what, how, etc. This natural process has had question words pointing to stems of talk. So Terada method analyzes a statement into stems and makes a question with a question word every stem. Then it takes up conversations based on such questions as a step for the learning of English.
Why is a statement analyzed into questions with question words ? It is quite a historical question. It is said that men came into existence for the first time when they were able to voice vowel with the vocal cards which has come to be at a necessary distance from their mouths in their throats. Music, songs, and words express our minds and feelings. The generation of men is that of living things, which are able to express minds and feelings. Music, songs, and words are impossible without vowel voice. So it is said that the vowel voice made it possible to make men come into existence. By the way our minds and feelings are after all our words. Minds and feelings came into existence for transfer of themselves. Words were given birth for the same purpose. It is said that minds and feelings are transferred by words. But minds, feelings, and words are the same phenomena to which we gave so different names and they are all in existence for the purpose of transfer of themselves. They make transfer in the form of words. By the way words are judgment. Judgment is sense. The transfer of minds, feelings, and words is that of sense after all. Why do we transfer sense ? Because we have a desire to get response from the other whom the sense was transferred to. The response is the sense of the sense, which we transferred. In other words we are living for the purpose of questioning sense of sense all the time.
By the way, when sense of sense is questioned, there is no other way than the use of question words. A question other than a question of sense of sense should not be a question but confirmation. In case of confirmation all we do is to ask the other if he is able to accept a state or an event or not. Any other questioned phenomenon than confirmation is limited to the case where a question word is used. Confirmation does not give birth of any new words. In the historical process of questioning with question words, words have been developed till they are made into a group of words, namely a statement. If having been questioning with question words has developed a statement, a statement is able to be put back into questions with question words. This is the reason why a statement is analyzed into parts with question words.
In the conventional method they study English grammar as a basic knowledge and then they learn English translation and making. Then they do verbal practice of conversation. In the past English education was made to let the learning go in the order from the easy to the difficult. But the tendency of today seems to let the learning jump at the start into the latest conversation, which is being used at the front. The problem with it is that the teaching materials are taken as more important than the way of teaching such materials. This is because since post War there have been prevailing principles of pragmatism or an idea of looking on results as more important than the process. The desire for making their country better as quickly as possible after the War has been letting Japanese have excessive realism without giving any careful attention to what it is. It may have been too difficult for them to get away from having excessive realism. But going too quickly is against being natural and it is telling us that we are often on the side of getting away from something we have to face.
As above mentioned, Terada Method takes the natural process of getting experiences of a language as the method of learning English and keeps an eye open on the fact that our interest comes out of that natural way in which we are living for seeking after sense of sense.
(3) Analytical Conversation Teaching
Japanese uses so many particles for connection among words in a statement that it may make comparably clear for us to see how words are connected with each other. Therefore it is not much a problem to give attention to the order in which words are in a statement. For example, simply putting “ka” at the end of a statement makes a question.
English has prepositions like Japanese particles but prepositions are not as often used as particles and so it is not easy to see the connection of one word to another in a statement. Therefore the word order is important in English. For example, to make a question an exchange is made in position between subject and verb or auxiliary, or auxiliary is added to a statement. Also words are changed in form to make up for few uses of prepositions.
In English prepositions, and verbs such as get, be, have, come, go, put, take, etc. have very many senses. They do so important work in a statement that they have a wide variety of senses. Japanese often gives different word forms, Chinese characters, for different sense. But English does not make remarkable change in word form for different sense. Also there are many cases where the word order is opposite between English and Japanese. So the confusion that Japanese may have in learning English is that they tend to be at a loss to see the connection among words.
English sometimes has a statement between the front and back of a main statement for giving an account of a preceding word in the front. The statement in the middle is for the preceding word but has nothing to do with the back. This English structure makes it further hard for Japanese to see the connection of English words.
In Terada Method each part of a statement is changed with a question word into each conversation formed of a question and an answer and a learner is required to do the conversation with a teacher. A teacher puts questions and the verbal practice of conversations goes till a learner is able to answer a question or questions without looking at an answer or answers. After the original statement is analyzed into each part, each part is further analyzed for changing into each conversation with a question and an answer. It is easy to see which word each question word is pointing to. This is, at the same time, telling how the words are connected with each other in the original statement. So the verbal practice is the way of getting knowledge of the connection in sense between words in the original statement.
(4) International Language “Basic English”
It is natural for any one to have an interest in the learning of English, which will make it possible to make many English expressions with the least number of words. Philosopher C.K Ogden in England discovered English of this sort in the year of 1900 and it is named Basic English. The Basic Teacher by L.W. Lockhart is a Basic English textbook. The text statements in this book are made in Terada method into conversations formed of questions and answers. 25,000 English words is said to be covered with 850 Basic English words. Being able to make many expressions with the least words is based on our root desire and hope for universality.
Words express objects. If we learn words which are able to express as many as different objects, our learning will be accordingly more effective. This is to learn words which are great in common quality. In fact if words are not common in the conversation to talk between a teacher and a learner, a learner has to take more time for having a memory of such uncommon words and this is often a cause of decrease in his learning desire. But is there any English formed of such common words ? If there is, what English is it ?
The words in the conversation made in Terada method are almost common between a teacher and a learner. Each answer is in each statement, which a teacher talks every question before he puts it. Only repeating almost what a learner is hearing him say becomes each answer for a learner to give.
(5) Theme of being Common and Basic English
I have an idea that Basic English may have been given birth by the process in which we have been seeking after words common to use. Words common to use seems to be as mentioned below.
The words must be common between us and the others to transfer our words to them. .An object, which we transfer, is not any substance which is substantial forever. Therefore the way we are conscious of an object has been expressed in words and we take these words as objects. In order for us to make objects common to the others, we have been giving names to common phenomena of objects and these names are words. We give some examples of this fact in the following way.
If only we say that it is white we are unable to get it fixed which color is white because there are a number of the degrees of white and we are unable to say clearly which degree of color is white among so many degrees of white. We give the name “white” to smoothing which is common to a number of actual white colors. So something, which we name white, is not any specific quality. Even if we say that it is a dog, we give the name “a dog” to something which is common to various dogs and we do not have any specific object. So when we transfer sense to the other with use of the words “white dog”, we make transfer of the sense of a white dog within a relative range, but doing that makes completion of our purpose of making full transfer of the sense.
My friend Mr. Tanaka is a man who came from my native country and knows me very well. By now he is a man of society and when I have seen him after long years I find him to be a man with a bit of white hair on his head. Mr. Tanaka who was an infant child is physically and mentally different from Mr. Tanaka who is now a man of society. Mr.Tanaka is identified as the same person as when he was a infant child and he is now an adult. Mr.Tanaka identified is some existence common to infant Tanaka and present Mr. Tanaka but is unable to be fixed to be some specific existence.
“An old pond. A frog has had a jump into the water. The sound of water is coming.” This is a famous HAIKU made by Basho Matuo. We feel something deep when we hear this HAIKU. But we are unable to have a deep feeling about “An old pond.” and “ A frog has had a jump into the water.” and “The sound of water”. Only when the three groups of words are put together into HAIKU, we have a deep feeling like quiet elegance or simplicity. We are unable to say anything other than that there is something intuitional and common to the three groups of words. Theory is logic common to various phenomena under some conditions. The reality is that the conditions are not always able to be put together. Therefore when theory is actually used, coefficient based on experiences is estimated for correction.
Saburo Terada
Saitama Prefecture
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
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