Gifted and Talented in
Japanese
How to sustain their motivation
Junko Bracefield
HOD Languages
St. Matthew’s Collegiate School

“Please Sensei, can I have
some more?”
Are we feeding them enough?

Questions
• Why G & T now?
• How do we identify G & T in
Japanese?
• What are their characteristics?
• What are their needs?
• What can teachers do?
• What do Japanese G & T students
say about their success?

Ministry of Education Beliefs
NAG(January 2005)
From Term 1, 2005 it will be mandatory for all
state and state-integrate schools to demonstrate
how they are meeting the needs of their gifted and
talented learners, as they are currently required
to do for students who are not achieving, who are at
risk of not achieving, and who have special needs.

Responsibility as a Teacher

More Important Reasons
for Japanese Education
• Better success rate in NCEA Exams
• Motivate students to continue into
senior level
• Positive influence on other students
• Become role models for other
potential Japanese G & T students

Defining Giftedness and
Talent
Gifted and talented students have;
- exceptional abilities,
- certain learning characteristics that give
them the potential to achieve
outstanding performance (MoE, 2002)

How do we identify G & T
students?
General characteristics of G & T
• Quick to master new concepts
• Applies concepts/skills to different contexts.
• Willing to take risks, guess & hypothesise
• Keen to direct & plan own learning
• Passionate interest
• High output when enthused
(From Meuli 2005)

8 Creative Behaviours in Language Skills
Adapted from Williams Model
Cognitive Skills Receptive Skills Productive Skills
- Follows a flow of - Comes up with lots of ideas
1. Fluency - Substitutes an English
thought
word/phrase or creates language
rather than stopping the flow of
communication
- Able to demonstrate good
accent and pronunciation
2. Flexibility - Approaches things in - Thinks of different ways
different way
- Creates the unusual
3. Originality - Produces new, unique or clever
ideas
-Adds interesting details
4. Elaboration - Stretches or expands on things
- Uses language and - Experiments with the language
5. Risk-Taking - Willing to take risks, guesses
context clues to make
intelligent guesses in hypothesises
- Willing to express ideas
understanding

8 Creative Behaviours in Language Skills
Adapted from Williams Model
Affective Skills
6. Curiosity - Shows initiative to explore language and culture
- Curious, keen to know more
7. Complexity - Feels challenged to do things in difficult or
intricate ways
- Appreciates details and looks for connections,
relationships, and patterns
8. Imagination - Builds mental pictures

What are their needs?
• Their ability to be understood,
accepted and valued.
• Their ability to be nurtured.
• To be challenged at their own level.
• To interact with other G & T students
(From Meuli 2004)

What can Japanese Teachers
do to cater for their needs?

Create a G & T friendly
classroom
• Positive teacher attitudes toward G & T
students.
• Explore ways to assign work.
• Offer material which extends, not merely
reinforces.
• Encourage risk taking
• De-emphasize grades and other extrinsic
rewards
(Kennedy, 2003)

Understanding why they study
Japanese
The Four Most Frequently Cited Reasons for
Studying Japanese at Y11
(McLauchlan, 2006)
4. L2 study is important (35.7%)
5. Interested in the country (19.1%)
6. For a job (17.7%)
7. For travel (11.2%)

Understanding their difficulties
Most Frequently Cited Difficulties in
Learning Japanese
(McLauchlan 2006)
4. Vocabulary (42.9%)
5. Grammar (38.1%)
6. Kanji (11.5%)

“Vocabulary Teaching and
Learning in Japanese.
How can we help?”
(Bracefield, 2004)
• Which words to choose
• How to present, practise and revise
• How memory works
• Avoid “Learning Burden” (Nation, 2004)

“Harnessing furigana to
improve Japanese learner’s
ability to read kanji”
“… Many more kanji need to be taught and that
Leigh Kirwan (2005)
furigana might be one strategy to overcome the problem.
It will lead to students’ gaining more exposure to kanji,
and thereby feeling more familiar with it.”

Is furigana the answer?
• Kanji is subliminally processed to some
extent
• Students gaining more exposure to kanji,
feeling more familiar with it
• Learners develop familiality with certain kanji
combinations to attain automaticity
• Creating a positive feeling about kanji
• Encourages students and teachers to go
beyond prescribed kanji
(Kirwan 2006)

Present more Kanji in Y11
• All Level 1 kanji
• All Level 2 and 3 kanji with furigana
Eg: えき
駅からまっすぐ行って、二つ目のかどを右
こう
にまがります。つぎの交さてんを 左にまがって
こうえん しょ
下さい。公園は、と書かんの前にあります。

Help to increase intrinsic
motivation
Classroom activities should;
• Be life relevant
• Be teenager friendly
• Have a variety to suit learning styles
• Enable students to make a connection
between the curriculum and their
interests and life experiences

Giving Effective Feedback
• Prompt feedback
• Positive feedback
• Requests for clarification (Ellis)
• Indirect feedback (From Bitchener, 2006)
eg: coding, underlining, ? , commenting
S - Spelling
WW - Wrong Word
T - Tense
WO - Word Order
! - Need for conferencing

“Boosting achievement with
messages that motivate”
(Dweck 2008)
The most motivated and resilient
students are not the ones who think
they have a lot of fixed or innate
intelligence. Instead, the most
motivated and resilient are the ones
who believe that abilities can be
developed through their effort and
learning.

THE FIXED MINDSET MESSAGES
Praising the student’s ability and intelligence
will not help G & T students because;
• many talented students lack confidence in
themselves.
• many gifted students simply stop working
when school becomes more difficult.
• setbacks indicate a lack of ability …and that
lack of ability is permanent.

THE GROWTH MINDSET MESSAGES
Praise the students for their;
• Effort
• Strategies
• Focus
• Persistence in the face of difficulty
• Willingness to take on challenges

Teachers as Role Models
• The teacher as learner - “Teachers who
think they have nothing to learn will
convey this attitude to their students”
• Share language learning experiences with
your students
• Be a reflective teacher
• Be conscious of your own language ability
• Nuro-scientific approach
• Research-based approach

What are G & T students
saying about their success?
Questions asked
• Why are you studying Japanese?
• What helped you to succeed in NCEA
Level1/2?
• What is the most difficult thing about
studying Japanese?
• How do you manage this difficulty?
• Do you think rewards from the teacher or
parents help you to achieve highly?

Students interviewed
• 4 Excellences or more in NCEA Level 1
• 3 Excellences or more in NCEA Level 2
(NZALT Certificate of Excellence)
4 students Onslow College
4 students Queen Margaret College
3 students St. Matthew’s Collegiate
School
2 students Wairarapa College
Total 13 students

Why are you studying
Japanese?
• Interested in the culture, language, people
• Learning languages is important
• Different from any other languages
• The Japanese class is fun
• Easier than French
• Have special connections

What helped you to achieve
highly in NCEA Level 1/2?
• Self motivation
• Interesting and fun lessons
• Good teacher and good programme
• Hard work and keeping at it
• Learned and revised vocabulary and
kanji hard

What is the most difficult thing
about studying Japanese?
• Kanji
• The different forms of language use (eg;
plain/masu/te form, polite/casual form,
men’s/women’s way of speaking)
• Learning vocabulary
• Word order
• Different forms of writing (hiragana,
katakana, kanji)
• Pronunciation

How do you manage this
difficulty?
• Practise vocabulary and kanji
• Revise in class and by myself
• Just keep at it
• Create my own strategies to learn kanji/
vocabulary, eg; songs, pictures,rhymes
• Asks for help from the teacher/others

Do rewards help you to
achieve highly?
• No. Mostly self motivated
• Yes, to some extent
• Complements and encouragement
rather than material rewards
• No. I want to please my parents and the
teacher because they help me a lot
• I don’t get any rewards.

Acknowledgement
Special thanks to Hidemi Fuke (Queen Margaret College),
Harumi Hasegawa(Onslow College) and their students for
their help in surveying the students and valuable feedback.

References
Bicherer, J. (2006) Improving accuracies in L2 writing.
New Zealand Language Teacher, Vol 32
Dweck, C. S. (2008) The secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific American Mind,
Kennedy, D. M. (2003) Plain talk about creating a gifted-friendly classroom
Kirwan, L. (2006) Harnessing furigana to improve Japanese
Learners’ ability to read kanji. Babel, Vol 40
McLauchlan, A. (2006) Second language (L2) learning in New Zealand
Schools: A preliminary report into the reasons for studying and for discontinuing
New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, Vol 12
Meuli, A. (2004) Victoria University College of Education