Literacy and Language in East Asia
Literacy and Language in East Asia

Author: Marilyn Kell

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-08-13

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 9814451304

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This book critically explores why some Asian nations are on top of the world in students’ achievement tests in reading and literacy, yet governments and industry in these nations are anxious about a crisis in education. Why are governments anxious about the capabilities and skills of school and university graduates in a global economy when there is a Asian economic boom? The authors explore questions about how the Asian countries value test-based examination curriculum and its influence on the practices of teaching learning and the lives of young people in Asia. The authors describe the challenge of change for East Asian nations to develop more relevant approaches to literacy and language and more inclusive societies focussed on the needs of young people and not exam results.

East Asian Perspectives on Silence in English Language Education
East Asian Perspectives on Silence in English Language Education

Author: Jim King

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2020-06-22

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1788926781

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Silence is a key pedagogical issue in language education. Seen by some as a space for thinking and reflection during the learning process, for others silence represents a threat, inhibiting target language interaction which is so vital during second language acquisition. This book eschews stereotypes and generalisations about why so many learners from East Asia seem either reluctant or unable to speak in English by providing a state-of-the art account of current research into the complex and ambiguous issue of silence in language education. The innovative research included in this volume focuses on silence both as a barrier to successful learning and as a resource that may in some cases facilitate language acquisition. The book offers a fresh perspective on ways to facilitate classroom interaction while also embracing silence and it touches on key pedagogical concepts such as teacher cognition, the role of task features, classroom interactional approaches, pedagogical intervention and socialisation, willingness to communicate, as well as psychological and sociocultural factors. Each of the book’s chapters include self-reflection and discussion tasks, as well as annotated bibliographies for further reading.

Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese
Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese

Author: Insup Taylor

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9027217947

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Chinese, Japanese, South (and North) Koreans in East Asia have a long, intertwined and distinguished cultural history and have achieved, or are in the process of achieving, spectacular economic success. Together, these three peoples make up one quarter of the world population.They use a variety of unique and fascinating writing systems: logographic Chinese characters of ancient origin, as well as phonetic systems of syllabaries and alphabets. The book describes, often in comparison with English, how the Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems originated and developed; how each relates to its spoken language; how it is learned or taught; how it can be computerized; and how it relates to the past and present literacy, education, and culture of its users.Intimately familiar with the three East Asian cultures, Insup Taylor with the assistance of Martin Taylor, has written an accessible and highly readable book. Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese is intended for academic readers (students in East Asian Studies, linguistics, education, psychology) as well as for the general public (parents, business, government). Readers of the book will learn about the interrelated cultural histories of China, Korea and Japan, but mainly about the various writing systems, some exotic, some familar, some simple, some complex, but all fascinating.

Literary Sinitic and East Asia
Literary Sinitic and East Asia

Author: Bunkyo Kin

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9004437304

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In Literary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading, Professor Kin Bunkyō surveys the ‘vernacular reading’ technologies used to read Literary Sinitic through a wide variety of vernacular languages across diverse premodern literary cultures in East Asia.

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia
Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Author: Peter Francis Kornicki

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0198797826

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Chinese Writing and the Rise of the Vernacular in East Asia is a wide-ranging study of vernacularization in East Asia--not only China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, but also societies that no longer exist, such as the Tangut and Khitan empires. Peter Kornicki takes the reader from the early centuries of the common era, when the Chinese script was the only form of writing and Chinese Buddhist, Confucian, and medical texts spread throughout East Asia, through the centuries when vernacular scripts evolved, right up to the end of the nineteenth century when nationalism created new roles for vernacular languages and vernacular scripts. Through an examination of oral approaches to Chinese texts, it shows how highly-valued Chinese texts came to be read through the prism of the vernaculars and ultimately to be translated. This long process has some parallels with vernacularization in Europe, but a crucial difference is that literary Chinese was, unlike Latin, not a spoken language. As a consequence, people who spoke different East Asian vernaculars had no means of communicating in speech, but they could communicate silently by means of written conversation in literary Chinese; a further consequence is that within each society Chinese texts assumed vernacular garb: in classes and lectures, Chinese texts were read and declaimed in the vernaculars. What happened in the nineteenth century and why are there still so many different scripts in East Asia? How and why were Chinese texts dethroned, and what replaced them? These are some of the questions addressed in Chinese Writing and the Rise of the Vernacular in East Asia.

Second Language Pragmatics and English Language Education in East Asia
Second Language Pragmatics and English Language Education in East Asia

Author: Cynthia Lee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-28

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1000225321

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This edited collection addresses the link between second language pragmatics (including interlanguage and intercultural) research and English language education. The chapters use different contemporary research methods and theoretical frameworks such as conversation analysis, language-learners-as-ethnographers, discourse and interactional approaches and data in contexts (either in the region or overseas). The content explores and discusses the significance of learning and teaching of second language (L2) pragmatics in language education for learners who use English as a lingua franca for academic and intercultural communication purposes with native and non-native speakers of English, focusing on pragmatic actions, social behaviours, perceptions and awareness levels in three regions in East Asia – China, Japan and South Korea. It is an important contribution to the area of second language pragmatics in language education for East Asian learners. It recommends research-informed pedagogies for the learning and teaching of interlanguage or intercultural pragmatics in regions and places where similar cultural beliefs or practices are found. This is an essential read for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers, readers who are interested in second language pragmatics research and those interested in second language acquisition and English language education in the East Asian context.

Teaching English in East Asia
Teaching English in East Asia

Author: Clay H. Williams

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9811038074

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This book investigates the current EFL market in East Asia, focusing on K-12, university, and cram school English education in Japan, China, and Korea. It explores prevailing educational practices by both Asian learners and teachers of English, contrasting them with Western practices, and illuminating why Western pedagogical methods have often encountered tremendous resistance from teachers, administrators, parents, and students in the East Asian classroom context. After establishing this cultural contrast of pedagogical norms, the book presents a series of practical means for adapting Western teaching practices and philosophies to better suit the learning styles of East Asian students and the cultural context and practical realities of the East Asian classroom, offering both Western teachers working in East Asia and native East Asian teachers realistic plans for turning theory into successful practice. These plans are divided by subsections, focusing on the linguistic subskills being taught: listening/speaking, reading, and writing. Each section includes two contrasting lesson plans to demonstrate how the educational theories and practices promoted by the author can often be implemented by making relatively simple changes to existing practices that incorporate a fuller understanding of how to actively assist students in developing new learning styles and behaviors.

Charting an Asian Trajectory for Literacy Education
Charting an Asian Trajectory for Literacy Education

Author: Su Li Chong

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-14

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1000370100

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Weaving outwards from a centripetal force of biographical stances, this book presents the collective perspectives of literacy researchers from Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Taiwan. It represents the first all-Asian initiative to showcase the region’s post-colonial, multilingual and multicultural narratives of literacy education. This book provides a much-needed platform that initiates important conversations about literacy as a sociocultural practice in a region that is both challenged and shaped by sociocultural influence unique to Asia’s historical and geopolitical trajectory. Driven by the authors’ lived experiences of becoming literate as well as their empirical research work in later years, each chapter brings decades of biographical narratives and collective empirical research findings to bear. Within the book are negotiations about literacy across and within home and school contexts; transactions of literature, text and reader; and considerations of the literacy policy-practice nexus. These trajectories, while divergent in their issues, come together as shared lived experience located in local contexts considered through global perspectives. As Asia looks set to become the 21st century’s new economic and labour force, the need to understand the sociocultural milieu of this region cannot be understated. This book on literacy education in Asia contributes to the larger narrative.

Reading East Asian Writing
Reading East Asian Writing

Author: Michel Hockx

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-05

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1136134026

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This book presents contributions by thirteen scholars of Chinese and Japanese literature whose work is characterised by a strong interest in literary theory. They focus in particular on the various new theories that have emerged during the past two decades, uprooting traditional forms of understanding literary texts, their function, their readership and their interpretation. Often confined to discussion of a specific country or area, these theories have been criticised for their Western bias. This collection breaks through these barriers, providing an opportunity for scholars of two closely related yet often independently studied cultures to present and compare their views on specific theories of literature, to discuss the advantages and shortcomings of those theories, and to consider specific difficulties related to the East-West dimension.