Eli Walgrave was born in the US, but has been living in Japan for 7 years. He is an assistant professor at Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University and an adjunct instructor at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University and Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai, Japan. He is interested in Relational Learning and Social Construction, and uses his English language classes to help students develop reflexivity, expression, and creativity. Email: elwalgrave@gmail.com

 

On my own background

Having lived in Japan for seven years at this point, when people ask me what my most meaningful experience learning a language was they generally expect something related to learning Japanese. However, the truth is far different. Back when I was in high school, my school required two years of another language. Being in rural Minnesota, varied language teachers were rather hard to come by. My school had only a Spanish teacher, so the language requirement would more realistically be described as a Spanish requirement. This was no problem for me, personally, as I enjoyed the process of learning a new language. I was not the only person in the school, though. Many of my classmates felt that having to take Spanish was pain and did whatever they could to avoid putting forth effort as much as possible. The biggest example of this was in our extended reading assignment. We had to read a short, leveled novel called Pobre Anna. As a commonly assigned book in Spanish classes around the country, summaries, translations, and answers to reading questions were easily available online. Many of my classmates chose to simply use those rather than figuring out the answers themselves. My teacher grew more and more upset. Finally, after finishing the first book, he told us that we would have a new reading after winter vacation. We came back from vacation to find that he had written a novella. Using references to our class and our absurd interest in El Chupacabra to create a story that felt truly unique and tailored to our class. The creative effort that he put into it had a lasting effect on me to the point where I consider that my most influential language learning experience.

Fast forward 5 years, and I had moved to Japan to work as an English language teacher. I worked as an assistant teacher in a junior high school for about 5 years, helping the Japanese main teacher with class instruction. During that time, I often had trouble creating reading materials for the students. Aligning my writing to their level was particularly difficult. Everything always turned out too easy or too hard. After a while, I gave up on writing my own readings, choosing instead to focus on making review worksheets. While my teaching skills were growing, my ability to develop materials stayed pretty much the same. During that time, I came across a short novel published by NHK, Japan's public broadcasting network. It was described as 中学校英語で読めるライトノベル (A Light Novel You Can Read With Junior High School English), and, true enough, could be easily read with only the grammar out of the Ministry of Education-approved junior high school textbooks. However, I noticed something that I just couldn't get past. The language level was ideal for Japanese junior high school, high school, and university students. However, the content level felt closer to something I read when I was a child. It didn't quite sit right with me. I made a decision. If the things on the market now weren't up to my expectations, fine. I'll do it myself.

 

The writing process and what I learned

I worked on my novel for about four or five months total. I decided to approach it how I would approach any other mass market writing. After figuring out what kind of media Japanese students generally consume, I ended up settling on a supernatural/urban fantasy story. I limited myself to only using grammar out of the textbooks. While vocabulary was a bit more flexible, I tried to limit the complexity of the text, as well. This even influenced my choice in tense. From my experience in the junior high school, I knew that students have trouble with past tense, and irregular past tense words could totally stump them. So I chose to write exclusively in simple present. This ended up creating a very active style that felt like the writing itself was always on the move. Perfect for keeping beginning readers interested and pushing forward.

At first, the writing process was slow. It took time to figure out how to rephrase and simplify more complex descriptions, especially when it came to action. Eventually, though, I started to get the hang of it. My own writing became faster and faster. Each chapter I finished was sent out to some former students who had volunteered as test readers. They all had nothing but positive things to say about their reading experience. One of the greatest compliments I have ever received came from a student who told me that, “I felt like I was able to read a novel the same way I read one in Japanese.” I knew then that I had gotten the style just right. My own targeted writing skills were increasing. Very quickly, I was able to write a chapter in about half the time and with much greater ease than when I had started. Eventually, I managed to finish the manuscript.

 

Applying my writing experience to my teaching

Even though I had finished writing, I found myself growing busier and busier. I started working part-time at several universities, and preparing for my classes was taking up a considerable amount of time. While I had a wide variety of classes, I was assigned to teach two sections of English Literacy, a required general education class, and had to help students start reading in English. There was a problem, though. Many of the reading available online for English learners were generalized for use in multiple contexts. The grammatical forms and linguistic patterns were very far removed from what I knew the students had learned in their classes up until now. With enough effort, the students could complete the readings and assignments. The downside, though, was that the difficulty and constant feeling of not being good enough crushed their motivation. I decided that something had to change. If the reading materials available weren't up to my expectations, fine. I'll do it myself.

I utilized two main strategies. First, I would read about a variety of social topics, human interest stories, research, and all manner of texts to find something that I felt would be interesting and useful for the students. Then I got to writing. Using the experience I gained writing my novel, I was more than able to quickly crank out five to six hundred word readings that the students were more easily able to read and use. This gave them confidence in reading informational passages and let me control the progression of their reading personally. It was simple to modify things to fit them.

The second strategy I implemented was Creative Reading. Creative writing is an area that Japanese schools come up woefully short in. Written output primarily takes the form of essay writing. There are some one-off poetry activities, but any other creativity-oriented writing activities end up as the responsibility of the teacher to design and implement. Without that experience, I knew I would have to scaffold a way for them to be able to express themselves. In that way, Creative Reading became my tool to help the students express their imaginations as well as create a partnership between myself as the teacher and them. To use Creative Reading, I first write a page of fiction. The exact genre is decided by the students using surveys and activities at the beginning of the school year to determine their preferences. During class, they read the first page of the story in groups out loud. Then, they have to answer several individual questions tying their experiences and opinions to the content of the story. In addition, they have one major question that they must answer as a group; What do you think will happen next? Each group produces three ideas during class. I then proceed to use those ideas to write the next portion of the story and present the continuation in the next class. The pattern repeats until the students inevitably, yet independently, decide that the story has reached its conclusion.  Students can engage creatively and personally with the story both on an individual level and as a collective. As I am the one doing the writing, they do not feel pressured to produce huge volumes of writing and can focus on enjoying the unfolding story. The process also creates a strong sense of community in the classroom. I rely on the students to complete the activities and give me the ideas, and they rely on me to write the next part every week. Without one, the other falls. This puts the teacher and students on an even playing field, which ends up extending into other activities and aspects of the class. This influence creates an inviting and collaborative environment for the students. In the end of semester feedback, students noted that the most exciting part of class was seeing their ideas unfold into a real, tangible story. Being able to give that experience to students whose English language level usually prevents them from being able to accomplish something like is a truly moving moment as a teacher.

 

Final thoughts

My own experience writing self-publishing my story gave me many insights that made both of those activities extremely successful. Having already developed and refined the style, I can very quickly do the actual writing. Likewise, my own creative production gives me an edge in weaving and combining my students' ideas into a coherent and appealing narrative. The lessons I learned by simply deciding to do it myself have supported my own growth as a teacher and language educator. I feel more confident in my ability to make meaningful materials and lessons for my students that engage them both academically and creatively. If I hadn't put in the time and effort to write and finish my own story, I feel I wouldn't be where I am now. Applying my creativity as a writer let me really apply my creativity as a teacher. The impact that my Spanish teacher had on me cannot be understated. When I finally self-published my book and held a test print in my hands and reflected on that memory, I knew that I my perspective on teaching literacy and reading skills to English learners had totally changed. I want my students to be able to have that same experience. If I had to sum up everything I learned throughout the entire undertaking, it would simply be this: Don't be afraid to say “Fine. I'll do it myself.”

 

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