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Volume 6, Issue 1 [May, 2010]
An Interview with Misako: An Older Learner of English
Stephan Mackerras
Introduction
I run what I call a 'spontaneous eikaiwa' class; that is, people in my street approached me for English lessons and I agreed to teach them. Most of my students are children, but one, Misako Asano, is a sixty-year-old woman who possesses a keen spirit and an enthusiasm for learning. Always impressed with her mature view of the world, and generally disappointed with the lack of teaching materials aimed at Misako's age group, I have often talked to her about problems of motivation. This was the key topic of the following brief interview, which is aimed at understanding the experience of learning from the point of view of a life-long learner.
The Interview
Stephen: How long have you been learning English?
Misako: I studied English when I was a child like many Japanese people. I studied in junior high and high school, and when I was a university student. So I started when I was twelve years old.
Stephen: Since then, have you always studied English?
Misako: No, only when I was a student, but I started again about six years ago.
Stephen: How did you learn English when you started again after university?
Misako: I studied myself by reading a book or listening to an English tape, and now coming to your Eikaiwa.
Stephen: What motivates you and keeps you interested?
Misako: I have three children and two of them live abroad in Germany and The U.S. and I want to be able to speak to their host families and their friends, but also there is some pleasure from learning English because I can speak a little now and so I can communicate with many foreigners.
Stephen: Is it difficult to find a textbook or materials that are suitable for you?
Stephen: You are talking about informal and formal English?
Misako: Yes, young people like to be informal, but I've been brought up to be very polite because I'm an older woman in Japan. I still want to be polite in English. I don't want to sound like a young person.
Stephen: Yes, I can see that. Last week we had a lesson in which we used a textbook lesson on personalities and dating. You told me you didn't like it. Why is that?
Misako: I liked learning the words and ideas. People are interesting and I need to know how to talk about them, but I am already married and talking about a 'perfect date' was not interesting. Also, I don't go to see rock bands and I don't know about Jackie Chan or Mr. Beans (sic) and I don't play computer games or go to rock concerts, so I didn't learn helpful things in that lesson.
Stephen: What would you like to see in a textbook?
Misako: (Laughs) I don't know. English that is useful for everyone like going shopping, directions, meeting people for the first time.
Stephen: Yes, we need to talk about our own lives when we speak English.
Misako: Yes, and to be polite in an old fashioned way, to speak in a well-mannered way.
Stephen: Yes, I can see that is important but many people are not as concerned as you. Are there any others problems you have in learning English?
Misako: No, not really. I can learn English from you and Yoko (another student in the class). She knows a lot about New Zealand, so I can learn many things from both of you.
Stephen: So everyone's a teacher for you?
Misako: Yes that's right. I think the start to learning is curiosity. I have some knowledge, but my speed to learn is slow. So I have to learn things a lot of times. I guess that when children learn English they get a lot of things fast?
Stephen: No, not always.
Misako: Do you have any advice on what is the shortest way to learn English?
Stephen: There is no short way, only a long way, but it's an interesting way.
Misako: Yes, がんばります。
Misako continues to learn English with me. We have given up looking for a textbook and have decided to talk about her own life and family, and the many issues that revolve around the problems of poverty and neglect in her rural Japanese village. Although we both looked for a textbook that was suitable for a 'mature outlook', we found that none existed that suited us and so turned to 'the text book of life', to be sourced from everyday experience.