Global Issues in Language Education: Issue 25. Dec. 1996. (p. 16 - 17)
As a long-time resident of Japan and lecturer of German at several
universities in the Tokyo area, I can't help feeling that more teaching on
global environmental issues (and local Japanese issues) has to be done in
this country and can well be done via language education. This task is not
easy in German language classes (unless you include some Japanese!) because
many of the students are beginners in German, but it is possible in various
ways. Students of German are learning a second foreign language (after
English) and so may be more receptive to different ways of thinking and
expression, and to a different cultural background and way of living. For
several reasons, I feel that it is very important that foreign language
education (of any language!) and environmental issues should be more
combined.
For the ordinary student in Japan, "gaikoku" (foreign country)
means America and "gaikokugo" (foreign language) means English. The rest of
"their" world is blurred behind a grey veil we teachers can hardly lift. Of
course, Japanese television, pachinko, etc. dominate their lives. Most
youngsters are not even aware of the messy, littered and polluted
environment they live in because it is part of their daily life and their
parents were the same...why should they care? But at the university level,
students have the potential to realize the mess in which they grow up. And
they will do something, both now and in future, if "Umwelterziehung"
(environmental education) becomes part of their student life in any form. I
am afraid too little is being done at present in Japan in this field. We
are all confronted with these problems, now and in future, and the progress
and efforts we make are much too slow compared to the speed at which human
beings are destroying their immediate surroundings on a global scale.
Nobody is exempt.
What differs most in this country compared to Europe is the
relative lack of "Umweltbewusstein" (environmental awareness) of the
average citizen, and of economic and political leaders. In Germany, for
example, individuals, all kinds of political parties and entrepreneurs take
a keen interest in pollution control and prevention, in clean energy and
technology, in proper and safe waste disposal. At the root of all this is
environmental education from age zero on. The individual and the state
actively prevent further environmental deterioration by education, by laws
and by abiding/adhering to them. Thus, Germany has become a clean and
modern country despite all its many reunification problems. I do not see
much in Japan in this respect.
As a long-time sympathizer with the environmental organization
Greenpeace, I recently went and joined "Greenpeace Japan", only to become
their 3,962nd member. Greenpeace Germany has over 800,000 members! But in
Tokyo, the only office of Greenpeace Japan so far, a few idealists are
doing their best with little money but clear visions which most Japanese
youngsters certainly do not have. We ourselves have to understand, accept
and convey to our students that our lifestyles, ways of thinking and acting
have to change.
In my view, this can and must become an important area language
teachers of any nationality should increasingly engage in. We have a
responsibility towards our students not only as "pure" language
instructors. We should also be educators of the younger generation and
provide knowledge about how to act now and in future to stop the deadly
pattern of environmental exploitation and destruction in our world. This
all starts in one's home country. My intermediate German reader on these
problems, "Denk an die Umwelt" ("Think about the Environment", Ikubundo
Publishing Company, Tokyo) is part of my own contribution to promote a
change and provide a better future, especially for our students.
Newsletter #25
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