Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Preface
S~hnffestscch @: Ersays it; Homr of John DeFruncis
THE CULTURE COMPONENT OF LANGUAGE TEACHING
Kyoko Hijirida University of Hawaii
Things Japanese in Hawaii was published in 1973 by the University Press of Hawaii. By
writing the book, Dr. DeFrancis has con tibuted enormously to the resource materials that Japanese
language teachers use in their language classrooms. One of the most frequently used materials is
the article on "Girls' Day and Boys' Day" (DeFrancis, 1973:27-30). It explains everything you
may want to know about the occasions such as explanations of the mochi shapes and their colors-
hishi-mochi and kashiwa-mochi. I haveread it every year around the time of the annual events,
renewing the information for my students in the class. I have cherished Things of Japanese in
Havaii not only for its usefulness but also for its reminder of my professional development and
the encouragement provided by Professor DeFrancis.
It was the summer of 1969 when I came to the Department of East Asian Languages at the
University of Hawaii as an EPDA Education Professions Development Act) fellow. Dr.
DeFrancis, as a director of the program, guided the graduate student fellows who majored in
Teaching Chinese and Japanese in their academic life at the campus. Besides learning language
teaching skills, the fellows acquired the skill for surveying and reporting culture-related activities in
the community through participation. We realized that languages and cultures are always preserved
together among the various ethnic groups in Hawaii and they provide an added attraction for the
community. Language teaching with culture, one of my continuing themes, has thus stemmed
from the happy graduate student days spent with kind-hearted professors like Dr. DeFrancis. All
the highly motivated fellows went to the language teaching field in various locations after receiving
the graduate training diploma. I was one of the fellows who remained at the department to begin
language teaching. The 1969 University of Hawaii EPDA program was the beginning of a longterm
association with Dr. DeFrancis, and the starting point of my professional development with a
deep awareness of the importance of incoroporating culture in the language class. Twenty years
after the EPDA training, I am cu~~ently involved in the foreign language teacher education program
at the College of Education at the university along with my regular language teaching. I have still
pursued the theme of cultures as one of components of the effective language cllniculum
With all those years of teaching behind me, I would like to present some of my own thoughts
from the teacher's perspective about the cultural component of language teaching.
Curriculum Designs
Thinking of 'why to teach' (goals and objectives), 'what to teach'
(teaching materials and content), 'how to teach' (teaching methods), and means of evaluation are
important components of curricula. The teacher's plans, always with objectives to fuKill student
needs including the why, the what, and the how and evaluation are essential to effective teaching.
In planning the teacher must also consider the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains for
students to develop, and how to effectively cover all the three areas in teaching-learning processes
in the lesson. In foreign language study, culture complements all the three domains. Issues on
teaching culture in foreign language classes in the area of instructional objectives, content, how to
teach and evaluate should be discussed by penetrating the threedomain-perspective in education.