The Russian's Response

The Russian wrote me back. His reply is very long but as I posted my letter to him in its entirety, it is only fair that I post his response in its entirety as well.

In summary, he breaks down the learning styles of foreign students in Japan into 3 categories and goes into detail about their different motivations for learning. He addresses a few of the things that I mention in my letter to him toward the end of the reply but there are several places in the letter that I get lost in translation so I'm sure you will too. Keep in mind, English is not his native language.

Overall what this response shows me (as many of you have said would probably be the case) is that he missed my point. My intention was not to silence him but to challenge him to allow others to have their voices as well. I have to work with him in a group this week so I will only pursue this discussion one step further and hopefully be able to continue to express my opinions to him with professionalism and emotional detachment. I understand that I will inevitably interact with difficult personalities in the future, but I do hope to end all interaction with this particular person when this course concludes.

I will share my comments with him (in reference to the highlighted portion below), I welcome you to share your thoughts with me.

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Dear Ebony,
[Misspelling a person's name when responding to them expresses extreme carelessness]

Thank you for your letter!
I highly appreciate your effort to share with me your experience here!

Please do not think that I just deny all arguments presented by you, but please also understand that unfortunately not all in our world is so univalent. And please have a look at the following considerations. I arranged them in a way to adhere to a framework of our class. And of course if you have time and interest, it would be my pleasure to discuss it with you personally:

It is not a secret that foreign students in Japan usually pursue one of the following purposes (of course there could be a combination of them, but still one can be defined as the key driving factor):

Group 1: Obtain relevant knowledge/new skills/useful profession in some subject field where Japan is strong and return to their home country to implement it for mutual benefit. Such students come from different countries from all over the world. Mostly it depends on a person's motivation rather than on the country of origin;

Group 2: Get a degree certificate (diploma) in Japan and afterwards readmit it in their home country as by some reasons it is cheaper or simpler to do it in Japan. Such students are usually coming from Europe or North America. These days it is also relevant for young Chinese students from relatively rich families.

Group 3: Stay in Japan as longer as possible by all means and find any way how not to return to their home country. Such students are usually coming form countries with very tough economic conditions or countries with political disputes like war.

As you may understand each purpose will result in the different learning strategy:

Group 1: These students will try to learn as much as possible. They will attend many courses, trainings etc. Depending on their internal properties (culture, character, etc.) this student will actively try to do their best to learn as much as possible. They could also try making as many contacts as possible for future joint research collaboration or business. And as you may understand, there are many topics which can not be deeply learned without iterative discussion. The most important goals for such students are: in exact sciences like chemistry, physics, maths  - to be able to apply knowledge into practice, and in social sciences like politics, economics etc - to find all true properties of some concepts, ideas etc (as an instructor is also a common person he could have his own preference about some concepts, so sometimes he will not present possible disadvantages without additional inquiries).

Group 2: These students do not really care about how much they will actually learn. They are mostly interested in obtaining of a degree (as having any additional degree for them means belonging to a social class with higher income). So most likely they will attend only core courses and do the minimal possible efforts required to get a degree. Having a lot of leisure time they will devote it to traveling and sightseeing (if they have sufficient budget).

Group 3: As these students are interested in staying here, it is not that much important for them by which means to do it. Possible solutions are: marriage, finding some job like "constant arubaito" - any job which will make a work permit or (which is of course more difficult) trying to get a job in a prestigious Japanese company. Thus for these students the most important thing is to study how to reflect a most average position in this society to most of key questions. In psychology it is called as a conformist (opportunist, temporizer) behavior, so such a person feigns, simulates something which could be even antagonistic to his true beliefs and typical behavior. Such people are trying to copy mores and folkways used in this society etc. But it does not mean that they will keep on doing it forever if they are allowed to stay. It could be just for a short time period of initial adaptation. As there could be different reasons which force people to do so, we are not telling if it is good or not good.

To sum up, if students from Group 2 or Group 3 come to class, all what they are interested about it to:
1. Cover all compulsory requirements;
2. Leave home as soon as possible;

As one of the consequences they are not interested that much in any discussions about the topic.
By the way, students who are displeased with other student's questions or discussion are usually form rich part of China or South Korea, so they are not Japanese. If you have a chance to attend classes with MANY Japanese students (not like 10% at this class) you will notice that they ask a lot of questions and if not, they are required to ask questions. By the way, I also asked several students from Vietnam and rural China about their opinion and they answered me that they also want to ask many questions but they are either shy or are afraid of being condemned by others! So not all is so easy.

Could not we call this social phenomena as "hidden competition" when some people who try prevent others from learning by unallowing asking questions, masquerading this activity by mendacious concerns about "time of other students". Could not it be that in reality they are more concerned about suppression of potentially stronger competitors?

Of course I understand that teaching styles in many countries are different (and it would be very interesting for me to know more about your country). But I suppose that if a teacher gives reading materials which cover every word of his lection and asks to read them before the class, he expects us to talk and to discuss the contents but not just to be quite and listen. And I guess we should discuss it not with each other but with him. Either by a queue or in some other way.

>We take breaks every 90 minutes or so and do you ever take notice to what happens during those breaks? >What happens is the people around you, your fellow classmates, who have  questions (personal questions) >go directly to the teachers and ask them.

Of course it is possible to do it in a such manner, but do not you think that if such back room (lobby) discussions are related to the subject of the class, they infringe the rights of other students to get this knowledge?

Of course examples form my home country are subjective, they again are related to intercultural differences, but at least in our country such behavior could be considered to be very unfair to benefit of others. Moreover in case of such "during a break discussions" after the continuation of the call teachers usually will tell something like: "during a break some of students asked me ..... and they got answer ...... Please also point your attention!".

I understand that all of us, people from a lot of countries,  got used to some native teaching style, but I hope that this cultural diversity will help us to improve the teaching style to the most optimal.

If you have something to add, please feel free to do it!

Kind regards,

The Russian