Special educators have developed a number of techniques that can apply to all students. “Teach the End First” is one that develops a teaching lesson well in a child’s mind. In working with students of limited abil­ity, teaching the end step first, then the next to the end, and so forth, seems to work well. An example of this is teaching these students how to change a tire. The child is taught how to put the wheel cover on first and the lug nuts next. Then her or she is taught how to settle the good tire on the rim and work it on, etc. An expert patiently teaches each step in reverse order. Eventually, the child learns the whole procedure and can do the whole process from beginning to end in the right order.

This plan works successfully for regular students, too. An ex­ample is the use of the “Teach the End First” technique in a regular classroom for a research assignment. The teacher would announce the research project, discuss what its objective is, and why the class members are being assigned this project. Then, the teacher would explain how the project is to be evaluated and graded. This would be a time to show fine examples of previously completed projects, perhaps passing them around for children to see. Observ­ing excellent completed work stimulates students to be creative, because seeing an actual project helps them to gain insights on how to do their own tasks. Looking at high quality projects inspires students to do as well or better on their own assignments, too.

The next step would be to clearly explain when the research projects are due and how to turn them in. Make sure each child writes the due date in his or her assignment book or notebook. Then state the rules for choosing subjects, format, length, etc. You would discuss where to find resources and find out what availability students have to the media center or a library or computer ency­clopedia or the Internet. You would want to explain how to verify resource information. Many teachers would provide this informa­tion in a fact handout sheet. The due date can be repeated on this paper, too.

Then a topic or topics for the project would be discussed more fully. Students could brainstorm ideas to help formulate the topic. They should find it easier to choose topics by having so much information already. It is comfortable for a child to focus on an idea for a project once it is more real in his or her mind. The student will undoubtedly be thinking about his or her commitment throughout the teacher’s presentation.

Students may be ready with more meaningful questions after, being led step by step through the assignment by teaching the end first. High quality projects should be the result.

Teaching the end first also relates to using rubrics. Some teach­ers use rubrics to detail requirements for an essay. Others consider a rubric as a set of rules for an assignment. As one wrote, “It can cover every aspect of an assignment, from the length of paragraphs to the placement of topic sentences to the numbers of supporting points.”4 In some cases a rubric is a grading guide, telling students they will get an A or a 4 for certain criteria and lower grades for fewer points of content.

Some school systems and teachers believe the rubrics provide very precise standards which will clearly help students do excellent work. However, other educators think the rubrics reduce creativ­ity. Teachers may also find the rubrics tie them to scorekeeping and limit their freedom to correct as they wish. Rubrics can also make student work slower to correct for a teacher)

Example of a Scoring Rubric

Scoring Rubric

4 = Task response is clearly developed, complete, accurate, with complete sentences for warm-up

3 = Task response is clear, fairly complete and accurate, with complete sentences for warm-up

2 = Task response is partially developed, but explanation may be muddled

1 = Task response is attempted, but may be incomplete

0 = Non-scorable response (NSR)

Japanese is a great language to learn, but it can be difficult, especially for native English speakers. That being said, you can make the learning process much easier by understanding three important differences between English and Japanese. This article will discuss those differences.

Formality

In English, it’s perfectly acceptable to speak the same way to everyone, within reason. For example, you would say the phrase “Good morning,” to your spouse, your boss, your pals, and to a complete stranger. Things are quite different in Japan. There, you must speak differently to different people, based on their age and their relationship to you.

To illustrate, I’ll discuss the following Japanese morning greeting:

“ohayo” (informal) or,

“ohayo gozaimasu” (formal)

When you get up and see your kids and your spouse, you would say, “Ohayo.” When you arrived at your office and saw your boss, on the other hand, saying that could get you fired! To your boss, you must use the more formal, “Ohayo gozaimasu.”

What about your colleagues? To most of them, you would speak formally, saying, “Ohayo gozaimasu.” To the ones you have developed close relationships with, though, you could drop the formality and say, “Ohayo.” When speaking to strangers, always use the more formal version.

How important is this? Very! Speaking informally to strangers, superiors, or those older than you is quite rude. To get a better understanding, imagine that you have a teenage daughter.

Now imagine that she brings a teenage boy home for dinner. This boy comes into your home, approaches your elderly father, and says, “Hey gramps, what’s up.” What would you think about his manners? I suspect that while you may not throw him out right then and there, you probably wouldn’t have him back either. Learning how to speak Japanese with proper formality will ensure that you do get invited back!

Word Order

In English, we order our sentences in the following way:

Subject + Verb + Object.

As an example, let’s look at the simple sentence, “I love you.” In this sentence, the verb is “love.” The subject is “I,” and the object is “you.”

Therefore, we write the sentence. I (subject) love (verb) you (object). Japanese sentence structure is a bit different. In Japanese sentences, word order is as follows:

Subject + Object + Verb

Our sample sentence would look like this (Romanized).

Watashi wa (Subject [I]) anatao (object [you]) aishiteru (Verb [love]).

Understanding this one fundamental difference between English and Japanese will greatly increase the speed at which you learn Japanese grammar–remember it.

Subject and Object Markers

This is fairly straightforward. The Japanese language has subject and object markers, and the English language does not. Using these markers correctly can be quite challenging. Here, though, I will just give you the basics.

Let’s look at the sample sentence, “I ate Japanese food.” The markers we will use, in Romanized form, are “Wa” and “Wo.”

English word order: I ate Japanese food.

Japanese word order: I Japanese food ate.

Japanese word order with markers: I wa Japanese food wo ate.

“Wa” marks the subject “I,” and “wo” marks the object “Japanese food.” As you get deeper into the Japanese language, you’ll learn more about how these markers can be used to make subtle changes to sentence meanings. For now, though, just be aware that they are there, and try to use them properly when speaking.

Summary

Mastering the Japanese language can be challenging. We can make it far less difficult, however, by comparing it directly to the English language. Remember the difference in word order, the use of subject and object markers in Japanese, and the various formality differences between the two languages and you will have great success learning the Japanese language.