Teaching Critical Discussion Skills in Japan through Current Events Issues

Teaching Critical Discussion Skills in Japan through Current Events Issues

A university seminar class conducted in Japanese was designed to teach students critical discussion through presentations about issues discussed in current newspapers. Two instructors, including one with a journalistic background, guided a group of students into techniques for analyzing and discussing issues in the news. After preliminary sessions training students in various basic skills of newspaper reading and critical thinking, each student had to present an opinion based on a particular issue, along with news articles about that issue, analyzing reasons and evidence both pro and con. The presenter and other class members responded to these with counter-arguments and additional relevant reasons or evidence on that issue. After initial weaknesses, dramatic progress appeared in their ability to present and analyze opinions, culminating in a final seventy-minute sustained discussion with little teacher interference about the issue of whether Japanese troops should be sent to Iraq. The class experience seems to demonstrate that with proper training and guidance Japanese students can competently conduct a critical class discussion in Japanese.