2009 Volume 141 Pages 25-35
This study reconstructs Japanese language classroom activities taught by a Japanese soldier in northern occupied China during the Sino-Japanese War. The characteristics of these classroom activities were examined based on official documents and war memoirs using a microstoria (microhistory) methodology. The main characteristic which the author reconstructs from fourteen historical documents is the accumulation of formal/mechanical procedures lacking in theoretical background, professional techniques, and systematized structure. It was also found that the soldier forced learners to do rote memorization, mimicry and mechanical exercises, relying on Chinese translation.
This type of Japanese language teaching by a soldier shares a common characteristic with contemporary Japanese language teaching by volunteer staff in the respect that the volunteer staff confront learners with an authoritarian structure by differentiation and self-categorization as Japanese, that is, as speakers of perfect Japanese language. Finally, this study points out that these documents and memoirs should be read not as history, but as a chance for re-examination of contemporary Japanese teaching.
