Page 60 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 3. The sociocultural context 47

Table 3.3 Types of activity in Japanese/Australian classrooms
(adapted from Kato 2001: 60)
Types of activity Japan Australia
Teacher gives lecture on specific topics 4.6 2.7
Teacher asks questions and students answer 2.9 3.8
Teacher asks students for their opinions 1.6 3.9
Students lead discussions for selected topics 1.1 2
Students participate in game-type activities 1.2 2.9
Students participate in debates 1 3.2
Students participate in role-plays 1.2 2.5
Students give presentations 1.3 3.4
Students ask teacher questions 1.7 4.4
Students interrupt teacher to ask questions 1.5 4.0
Students give personal opinions 1.1 3.8

3.2.2 Participant structures in Japanese classrooms

Various resources on comparative studies of education in Japan and in Australia
almost unanimously point out that there are differences in the way participant
structures are distributed. A Japanese student in Kato’s (2001) study commented
that in Australia, “teacher and students create the lesson together …. In Japan the
teacher just talks to the students” (p. 62). The questionnaire results in Kato’s study
support the student’s comment above. The results shown in Table 3.3 suggest that
in Japanese high schools the teacher-centred lecturing style is common, while
in Australia it is less frequently observed. Australian schools also appear to have
more variety in the types of participant structures used in the classroom; debates,
game-type activities and discussions, all of which require student-student interac-
tions more than teacher-centred lecturing, seem to be more common.
In the questionnaire, students rated the frequency of different types of activi-
ties using a five-point scale (never = 1; occasionally = 2; often = 3; quite often = 4;
in almost every lesson = 5).
Similar differences in perceptions of classroom interaction can been seen in
Matsuda (2000):

While the teacher communicates with students face-to-face as individuals, there
is dynamism in the classroom interaction involving ‘teacher, individual, students
as interactive group’ and not ‘teacher versus students as a mass’. (p. 74)
A similar observation can be found in a newspaper report on a visit to an Austra-
lian school by visiting teachers from Japan: