The “Third Term” and Narration in the Classroom: Beyond the Democratic Teaching Method

Abstract

The aim of this article is to consider how to put the theory of the “third term” into practice in the classroom. The way of teaching method based on Minoru Tanaka’s theory of the third term is quite different from the democratic way of teaching which is conducted on the assumption that each student has already established his or her own style of reading as a reader-subject. On the contrary, it aims to make students aware of something extra-linguistic that radically challenges and deconstructs their identity. After such a moment of identity crisis, students are expected to reconstruct a new “ethical” self who can take responsibility for the act of “reading” the world, always conscious of the presence of the Other in the self.