著者

Kazuko Nishida

出版者

The Society of English Studies

雑誌

現代英米文化 (ISSN:24330728)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.145-163, 1988-03-12 (Released:2017-09-07)

---

In many ways, mutual understanding across cultures is not easier than generally imagined, rather, it is more difficult in the present world since people are compelled, more or less, to have contact with many complicated events happening even in foreign countries. The author hopes that this paper could give an opportunity to people to think about the more concrete meaning of this important issue. For this purpose, the issue should be studied through the obsrvation of the reality of each different cultural situation, not through general theories in books or in mass media. human beings themselves are not simple entities. Therefore, the study of cultural issues needs much knowledge from various fields such as anthropology, psychology, linguistics, etc. As a matter of fact, this paper is written including the author's own past and present experiences both as a TESL student in the united States and as a TESL teacher in the two countries : the United States and Japan. The focus of the paper is on the Japanese children on the primary level living with their family in the United State, whose education is given both in the American school Monday through Friday and in the Japanese school on Saturday. In reality, the author, as a Japanese teacher, taught these children in a Japanese school in New York in 1969. Furthermore, recently, the author could attend a seminar sponsored by the society for the study of home-coming students in the private schools in Hyogo Prefecture on September 26, 1987. Indeed, it was interesting to hear many frank opinions from some students who attended the seminar.