南山の先生

学部別インデックス

外国語学部・英米学科

RYAN, Anthony

職名 教授
専攻分野 English Discourse Analysis & English Education
主要著書・論文 “Teaching a Pedagogically-useful Schema of a Default Conversation in the EFL Classroom”, 単著、2007年10月、JALT 2006 Conference Proceedings, 全国語学教育学会、pp. 591-605.
将来的研究分野 I’m interested in comparing the development and structures of the story genres that Japanese express within their casual conversations with those features of the story genres that speakers of other languages express. I’m also interested in comparing how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is taught in Japan and other countries, with how English is taught as a native language. I think there are lessons to be learned in comparing different country’s approaches to English education.
担当の授業科目 Academic English
Special Topics in English: Language
外国語教育の基礎
英語教育特殊研究B

English Conversation: Is it really so difficult?

It took some time to work up the courage to actually go into a restaurant by myself when I first arrived in Japan. I knew only two words of Japanese: "Arigato' and 'konnichwa,' and I was terrified that the wait staff would be asking me all sorts of questions that I had no idea how to answer. For the first month or so of my life in Japan, I existed on what I could get at the supermarket or point to in fast food restaurants; always paying in cash and without having to utter a single word in Japanese. However, as any single person living alone soon realizes, there is a finite amount of fast food and bad home-cooked meals that one can put up with before the stomach rebels and demands good food cooked by an actual chef.

My first adventure of 'going out to eat' was to a family restaurant - a steak house on the route home between the subway station and my apartment. For about a week, I stopped outside and watched through the window as the customers entered, ordered, ate, paid and left. I studied how the wait staff approached the customers when they entered; how the customers used fingers to indicate the number of diners; how they then followed the wait staff to the table; next as they pushed a button on the table and pointed at pictures in the menu, and then finally as they stopped at the cash register and paid in cash or with a credit card on the way out. My confidence grew - I could do that. I could be a customer in a Japanese restaurant. And so I worked up the courage and finally walked through the door. I had my first dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and from then on, I didn't look back. Thus, began my interest in studying the language of the 'genres' in Japanese society. "Genres," I hear you ask? What is a "genre?"

The society we live in, is full of interactional 'genres.' In short, these are the 'rituals' or 'standardized practices' of things we do that have a step-by-step procedure or process to follow. Take the restaurant for example. We have all been customers, so we all know what the wait staff says to a customer as he or she walks in; how the staff members asks about the number of diners, how the customer is then led to a table, given a menu and asked to call or push a button when ready to order - we all know the language that is used. And the best part is that once you learn the language of the process in one restaurant, you can visit pretty much any restaurant and expect to hear the same language from the wait staff: the same step by step events, the same polite language, the same structure of a visit to a restaurant. And this is very comforting for someone trying to understand the language as a non-native speaker. The good news is that 'genre' language is not just restricted to restaurants. Wherever we want to buy something, we can pretty much predict the language 'formulas' that we will hear, and we also know the language we are expected to use in reply. For instance, we know, before we go up to the counter, what the post office clerk or the bank teller clerk will say to us when we want to post a letter or withdraw cash. We know what the salesperson will say when we are trying on a new pair of shoes. These are predictable genres of language use for transaction purposes - that is, for getting things done.

However, many people believe that when we are having a casual conversation with our friends, there is no set structure to it. That is, there is nothing predictable about it. Well, what if I told you that there is, in fact, a predictable structure to the conversations we have with our friends. Would you believe me? Think about it. Do we not greet each other when we first meet? Do we not ask about their health or comment on their appearance or the weather or the latest homework assignment? Do we not then talk more deeply about other topics, exchanging viewpoints or opinions and even telling our friends about what we did last weekend or are going to do next weekend. After that, don't we let them know that we have to finish chatting with them because there is a train to catch, an appointment to make or a club practice to attend. Finally, don't we then promise to meet again and say goodbye? Yes, we do in fact do many of these predictable things indeed. But perhaps we haven't thought about it until now. Well, I believe strongly that anyone can learn to communicate in conversation with anyone else if we not only know a few pieces of language, but also if we can predict what they are going to say. That is, I think there is a predictable structure of the language of when we talk with our friends. So come along; join my classes and learn about the structure of casual conversation and the structures within conversation. But, be warned! What you will learn, not only applies to English conversations, but also to conversations in Japanese, French, Spanish - in all languages.

Finally, as a father of two children who have finished university and a third child that is now in 4th year, I'd like to offer some advice about the pressure you might feel to 'find your dream.' Don't be too upset if you are reading this, and you don't already have a 'dream job', a 'dream university' or a 'dream course' you want to study in mind. Many of your friends might already have dreams, but you do not. Well, my advice is not to worry. Sometimes you find your dream at 15, sometimes you find your dream at university, sometimes you find your dream at 30, at 40, at 50 years of age. Sometimes, your dream actually finds you, without you even looking for it. That is, your dream grows in you without you actually realizing it. This is what happened in my case, and I didn't realize until much later that my dream had found me when I came to Japan. Because ultimately, a dream is about finding out what makes you happy. Some people have found that already; but for others it takes a little longer. Ask your elders, "Did you find your dream or did your dream find you?" You might be surprised at the answer. You are young and have your whole futures ahead of you. If you haven't got a dream now, be patient and let your dream find you and grow into your dream. For now, be content with finding something to study that you are interested in. That's what I told my children. As of now, I have a travel agent, a computer programmer and a 'I-don't-know-yet' in my family. I wonder what my I-don't-know-yet' child will do? I wonder what they'll all do next? It is an exciting time.