I had published a small article about essay guidance in a small research journal, so I converted it into a conversational style and wrote it. I would like to post this in about 5 parts. There’s nothing particularly new about it, but I think if you read this you’ll understand the gist of my thinking.

It used to be more difficult

25 years ago, when I first became a teacher, there were many things I didn’t understand.
In the first place, I had never aimed to become a school teacher, so I had never seriously thought about the job.
That’s why I thought that being a school teacher was all about teaching classes, being a homeroom teacher, guiding club activities, and occasionally scolding students.
So, I was surprised when I actually started working as a teacher.

There are always unexpected jobs.
That’s what surprised me the most.
Public relations relations.
I was really surprised to see them going around to elementary schools, junior high schools, and cram schools in the neighborhood, bowing their heads and saying thank you. Teachers do things like this. I decided to become a teacher because I didn’t want to do something like a normal office worker. This is no different from business. Well, if it was a public school, this might not happen so often.
Of course, there are many other jobs, including homeroom management, subject guidance, dealing with parents, and various other tasks related to division of labor. Anyway, it was always my first time doing something, so I was always busy with something.However, I think I managed to overcome each challenge by receiving advice and advice from my fellow teachers and teachers from other schools.
　Although just barely.

However, there are some things that no matter who you ask, you still don’t understand.
I would appreciate the advice and guidance from my seniors, but I just can’t get it right. In fact, I don’t get it at all. There is no one who can give me specific advice that can improve the situation where I am not doing well. Instruction manuals and reference books are also not very helpful.
Is there such a thing?

For me, that was essay guidance.
That’s why I was always in trouble.

How should I teach essay writing?

Around summer vacation, third-year students who are about to take their entrance exams come to us to ask us to correct their essays. I try to keep up with them, but for some reason I can’t guide them properly.
I can see what needs to be corrected, and I tell the students about it, and they say they understand and rewrite it, but it doesn’t get any better.
The intent of this advice is not fully understood. Sometimes it seems like the more I fix it, the weirder it gets.
It’s not just one or two students, but quite a number of students.
That continues year after year.
　

Well, I often pass the exam without any problem, so the vague feeling I have is reset each time, so the topic of how I should teach often disappears. Even so, when I fail a recommendation entrance exam for a prestigious university, I have to reconsider how to teach essays.
Because of this, I have been thinking a lot about the difficulties of teaching essays.

Why can’t I teach this well?

I think one reason is the students’ poor writing skills.
In fact, many students write sentences that they don’t know where to start. He writes some surprisingly strange things, and some sentences that are surprisingly childish. I can’t properly fix what I’ve been trying to fix. No matter how much I teach them, they keep making the same mistakes. In the first place, I can’t read the assignment text properly.
If this continues, it is no wonder that you start to think that this is a problem that goes beyond the teaching, and that the student’s inability to write is their own problem. In fact, such complaints can often be heard in the staff room.
What are you teaching in the Japanese language? The teacher yells.
Even Japanese teachers, what did they learn in elementary and junior high school? , I lament.

I completely understand how teachers feel.

However, I think it is a bit questionable to blame students' poor writing skills as the reason for their inability to write essays. There are various reasons why I came to think this way, and I would like to talk about them from now on.

Let me state this in advance: Don't blame your own lack of leadership on the students' abilities! I don't mean to say that. Students' writing skills will improve if they practice writing skills! That's not what I want to say. What I want to say is that it is completely normal for students to have low writing skills; there are very few students who have high writing skills in the first place. And the subject called “Essay”? It is in itself extremely special and extremely difficult to understand.