Yoshikazu Kawaguchi's Presentation on Japanese Pedagogy Generated Discussion on Effective Language Teaching Methods
On September 19, 2014, Yoshikazu Kawaguchi, Professor Emeritus of Japanese at Waseda University in Tokyo, spoke to an audience of about two dozen that included members of the Boulder community, as well as faculty and students from CU and other Colorado institutions. Professor Kawaguchi is widely published and acclaimed for his research on aspects of politeness in Japanese, as well as for his contributions to communicative language pedagogy and for the techniques he has developed for creating autonomous language learners and for his work on incorporating dramatic activities into language education. In "Basics of Effective Japanese Pedagogy," Professor Kawaguchi introduced the "Silent Way" as a model for the teaching and learning of Japanese phonetics and syllabaries. Â鶹ÒùÔº of Japanese pedagogy, teachers of Japanese and other languages, and others then discussed ways that this approach to teaching is effective in shifting the focus of language learning from the teacher to the learner.