Enjoy the process

I have two research things which currently occupy my mind. One is the paper I must submit next month but I have't even started writing. (I planned to start this Monday, but I haven't. I've revised the plan - starting tomorrow!)

The other is to prepare for a paper presentation next month, which I made a rough draft last weekend. This research is still in the process of data collection, so what we present this time is just a part of the whole picture.

This area - L2 motivation - is completely new to me, so I don't have 100% confident about my research design and the chosen way of research method. Yesterday I asked my senior colleague and was suggested that the statistical tool I have chosen may not be appropriate! So, I read the relevant statistics books searching for the right way from the morning and reanalysed the data.

I'm not a statistician, so this is very tough - trying to understand mathematical equations. I feel like beating my dull cow with a stick.

But I also think this attempt definitely opens up my capacity. As my brain gets tired, I can feel new neural networks have been created. This is a great moment.

I haven't found the right solution, so I still have some worries about the research. But certainly I'm enjoying the process of the research. I believe happiness lies in a moment of enjoyment, not the successful past or achievement. If I can keep enjoying, I'll get a satisfying outcome, it is not always successful though.

Unfading Sun

I watched a movie called "Shizumanu-Taiyo" (Unfading Sun) written by Yamazaki Toyoko.

I've heard the title and its author before, but I didn't have any idea of what this is about.

The film starts by a very shocking scene of the 1985 air crash in Osutakayama, killing more than 500 people.

(When this accident happened, I went swimming at a primary school. When I came home, I saw the news on TV. Although I didn't really understand the whole tragedy, I remember it was a very hot summer day.)

I guess, for many people, being killed by air crash is, beyond our imagination, the most frightening moment. I think, this is partly because flying a heavy metal object is beyond our everyday feeling. We trust technology in our head, but we can't believe in this from the bottom of our heart.

To ease our fear, it is often said that the percentage of air crash is lower than that of car crash. So, we try to believe the myth that aircraft is a safe vehicle. However, when this sort of air crash happens, our fear about airplane comes to life. (I think why the terrorism on September 11th was so shocking was partly for the same reason). On the plane, literary, there is no way to escape. You just have to wait for the time of death.

The film is not simply about the accident. Behind the accident, there are a lot of reasons, such as a conflict between employers and employees, cutting the expense on safety etc. Many of them are indirectly but surely connected to the accident.

The obvious message behind the story is to criticise JAL's policy emphasising the profits at the expense of safety and employees, but, from a more global point of view, it seems to me that JAL is just described as a symbolic company representing post-war Japan. It may be possible to understand the accident as a preview of bursting of the bubble economy a few years later.

A lot of political fights and competitions in the company are described, but all of these battles are so trivial, in front of the death on the airplane crash. In this sense, it is very interesting to see that the protagonist, Onchi, returned to Africa in the last scene. This scene reminds me of "Deep River" written by Endo Shusaka, in which people, after a lot of tragedies, are attracted to go to River Ganges.

Of course, this is just one possible interpretation. As many other great novels do, this gives a lot of other messages and connotations. After watching, I can't stop thinking about the ideas the film provides.

Preparing for a conference paper

The day for my conference presentation about L2 motivation is approaching.

Despite this, I had been occupied by the other research on explicit and implicit learning. As this is currently the most primary topic, it is very difficult for me not to think about this, and once started thinking, I never stop this train of thought!

But when I checked with my diary and counted how many days until the conference, I finally realised that I MUST start preparing for this. If the same topic or even a part of this was presented before, I shouldn't have worried about, but this is the VERY first time to present in public.

I had a big worry before I started, but as soon as I actually started, my worries had gone.

I had thought about this motivation research a lot and made a detail proposal in spring. I forgot most of it, but soon after I started reading the proposal, my memory came back quickly.

This morning, I went to Starbucks and made the ppt slides. I was confident to make it during the morning. When I have such confidence, without exception the work goes smoothly. After about two and half hours, I could finish producing the draft slides.

This is the very first draft, so I need to revise it a lot until the day of the conference. But looking at the shape of the presentation, even though this is incomplete and very rough, makes me feel relieved. I believe this relaxed, unpressured tate of mind is also very important for doing good research.

Visitors from Canada

We have a lot of visitors from our partner schools recently. A couple of weeks ago, one came from US, and today we had one from Canada (We will have another visitor from the other Canadian university next week). As I am a member of the International Office committee, I am always asked to come to our welcome lunch and/or dinner. I've already got something to do in the evening, so I only went to a lunch party today.

Usually, this kind of party is very casual and relaxed, but this time the president of the partner school as well as the director of the English programme came, so our president and chancellor also came to the lunch unusually.

I haven't been to Canada and have seen only a few Canadians in my life, so I really didn't know what Canadian English is like.

English of the course director was very listener-friendly probably because she is used to speaking to non-native English speakers. However, President's English was so difficult to understand. It is true, the speed of his speech was fast, but speaking fast doesn't simply lead to difficulty. I think one of the big reasons lies in different intonation patterns.

Even though they are speaking the same language, their accents and rhythms are very different between countries and regions. I'm used to British English, but for many Japanese, British English is not easy to understand, simply because they haven't had much chance to listen to it. Likewise, for me, Canadian English is very new, so I haven't acquired sufficient exemplars of this particular language.

So, it is very important to understand, when you say 'I'm learning English', which 'English' you mean. Even if you master American English, for example, you cannot speak other Englishes. Paradoxically, as English is becoming an international language, more varieties have emerged. (Of course, Japanese English is one of the varieties.)

Resume blogging!

I have been always thinking that I have to resume the blog. I actually tried to write many times, but everytime I tried, I gave up writing up in the middle. I never finished even one entry.

I don't know why, but I could keep blogging when I was writing my PhD thesis in the UK (though I wrote it in Japanese). One possible reason is that I felt uneasy about my future - can I find a job after writing up the thesis? - and this uneasiness probably pushed (or forced) me into writing something to the (unknown) public.

Fortunately, I obtained a job at a university (even before I completed the PhD). I wasn't satisfied with that working condition, but soon I could move to the present university. I'm so enjoying the present job - truly I have nothing to complain. Probably, this sense of fulfillment made me away from blogging.

On the other hand, the present environment provides only a little opportunity for English writing. I never had this feeling in the UK, because writing (and reading) are a primary (and probably the only) job for most PhD students.

So, I had more necessity for improving my speaking skill in the UK. Speaking ability deteriorates very quickly. Not speaking even just for a couple of days makes me difficult to speak. At present, I have a couple of classes which I teach through English, so I try to maintain my speaking by, for example, talking to English speaking colleagues and self-study textbooks. These are something I continued to do for many years, so this is already a part of my everyday routine.

However, I haven't had such a system for writing!

During the semester, I cannot make a lot of time for researching, so the summer vacation is a very very important season to move my research forward. This summer I had a plan to write several papers, but as soon as I started the first line, I noticed the gap between what I imagined and what I could do at the time (so needless to say about the outcome this summer!).

I had a very clear idea of what I want to write, but the process of formulation was very slow and often clogged in the middle like an old drainpipe. Of course, the produced English was far from satisfying.

An obvious solution is to write every day! But how? Writing a paper every day is not realistic. Keep regular writing is something I should do, but what?

From my experience and my understanding of my area of study - task-based language teaching - I believe one of the key principles is to make the task (of writing in this case) have some sort of relationship with the real world. To meet this principle, blog is probably - as far as I know - the best tool. To be good at something, practice - repeating some kind of training - is indispensable, but simple repetition deprives of positive practice effects, and most importantly, I cannot continue it! To have relationship with the real world or giving authenticity to the practice may solve this problem.

Hope this attempt will work. Recent research on second language motivation tells that having a clear image of ideal future self is one of the key factors for maintaining motivation. If it is true, I think I can (I have a clear image of my future self!). So, I use myself as a subject participating the cutting-edge motivation research!

学会要旨

今月末に迫った国際学会発表提出用の研究要旨を書いている。審査に通過しても発表は一年後のことなので、まだ実は具体的な内容は本人でもわからないところだが、なんとか書き上げて午前中に友人のVT先生にメールで送った。

VT先生はシンガポール出身だが、高校、大学、大学院とイギリスで過ごし、英文ライティングを見る目は確かなので、最近はいつもお願いしている。前の大学の同僚で、同じ時期に同じ県内の別の大学へ移ったので、今でもよく会って食事を一緒にする。今日はV先生行きつけの大学近くの中国料理店浜木綿で遅いランチを食べながら、その時にチェックしてもらったライティングを返してもらった。

特に文法的な間違いはなかったが、見るといつものように真っ赤に直してあった。英語の論文を書くときは、単語や文法に間違いがないのはもちろんだが、いかに自然な表現が使えているかは非常に重要だ。それがまたノンネイティブには非常に難しい。

イギリスでPhD論文まで書いてまだ完全な英語が書けないのは恥ずかしい限りだけど、ネイティブが自然に何１０年もかけて身につけてきた何万という表現に追いつくことは並大抵ではない。「学校文法を使って英語を書く」というのは、いわば簡略版を使っているようなものであって、用は足すけれども完全なものではない。

もちろん最近の"World Englishes"の考えを持ち出すまでもなく、ネイティブの英語をただ追いかけるのが必ずしも正しいわけでもない。ただ、「ライティング」というのは「スピーキング」に比べると、非常にコンベンショナルでコンサバティブなものなのだ。

ゼミ結果発表

先週いっぱいと今週の初めにかけて行ったゼミ面接の内容を考慮し考えたゼミの審査結果を今日発表した（色々考えた結果、最終的に１２名を受け入れることにした）。と言っても、コンピューターで入力するだけで、あとは自動的に学生に連絡がいくようになっている。

「内定」「不合格」を一人一人クリックしていると、内定結果を受け取って喜んでいる顔、不合格でがっかりしている顔が浮かんで複雑な気持ちになった。

うまくいかなかった人は、たった一つの授業に過ぎないと考えて、他のゼミで頑張って欲しいと思う。このゼミが「おもしろそう」と思ったのは、あくまで自分のこれまでの限られた経験からそう思っただけであって、自分がまだ知らないことでおもしろいことが、行った先のゼミで見つかるかもしれない。うまくいった人は、今の「勉強したい」という気持ちを忘れないで思い切り勉強して欲しいと思う。