Why is "Why?" So Hard for East Asian EFL Students?

Having taught in China, South Korea, and now Japan, one question that is sure to create a snag in the mental processes of many of my students is a simple but effective one: "why?".

It doesn't matter if it's asking for an opinion or asking to explain some other phenomena, the students that I've had while teaching in East Asia have had a very difficult time answering the question which serves as the basis of critical thinking.

The other day, my advanced writing class was having a fun, end-of-the-year lesson that allowed students to use pre-drawn manga panels to create their own stories via blank conversation bubbles (we had studied narratives earlier in the semester). As a warm-up, I asked students to think about their favorite manga and their favorite manga genres and WHY they like those specific manga and manga genres. All of the students were able to tell me the different manga and manga genres they like very easily, but many of their reasons were often flimsy or non-existent. In fact, one student said, "I don't know why I like it." I said, "Sure, you do! Just think about it for a moment." She thought for a minute longer and just shrugged, "I don't know."

At this point, rather than get angry, I reiterated a point I have made over and over again in classes this semester: "'Why' is the most important question in the English language! You always need to ask 'why'!"

However, it CAN be maddening when you have given students time to prepare an answer and they don't even bother thinking about it or discussing it as you have asked them to. This may be the case in some instances when I have asked students to answer "why", but more often than not, I just don't think they have been given the intellectual tools in order to answer the question.

Generally speaking, it seems like the focus of education in East Asia is on input through rote memorization without any output through critical thinking. Even at the university level, students at the university where I currently teach are just passive learners as the professors lecture. From what I've witnessed and been told, students at Japanese students aren't required or given the opportunity to actively engage in classes. Rather, they just listen to lectures and take notes. Furthermore, according to my students, they only have summative assessments in the form of tests that account for their entire course grade.

At the university I teach at in Japan, I've spotted several students sleeping or just seemingly playing on their phones in their other classes. The other day, one of my students told me my class was "really difficult", and I responded by joking "Good!". I don't think my class is really very hard, or else I wouldn't have responded the way I did. Additionally, the student in question has better than average English skills, so the content of the class shouldn't be difficult for him. After thinking about this exchange, I think he thinks it's "difficult" because he actually has to be an active learner in class rather than just a passive one. On the surface, my class is probably the easiest class the students have in terms of content. However, they have to DO a lot in my class in terms of actively engaging.

The American education system has a long history of critical thinking going back before the founding of my country to the teachings of Socrates. The idea of critical thinking was that it was imperative to have informed, educated citizens because those in power lacked the intellectual prowess to make informed decisions (some may say that this is still a problem today...). However, the educational systems of East Asia don't share this history with us. A popular saying in Japan is "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down", which shows just how important conformity is in this country. Critical thinking involves considering implications and forming your own ideas based on the evidence provided. I sometimes wonder if this is part of the disconnect. Students, and I imagine your average office worker, aren't often asked to think critically about problems or give opinions.

Therefore, I wonder how important critical thinking could be in this country? Critical thinking is an important element of the American education system, but does that mean we should be cramming down Japanese students' throats? Perhaps it's just not a useful skill for the average Japanese person, and as a result who are we to say that they need it? However, I think critical thinking would be advantageous for Japanese students for at least two practical reasons, and not just because critical thinking as a means to its own end:

1. Being able to critically think in another language would require higher-order thinking in a second language. Therefore, students would be pushing their language abilities into new territory not just by having to use the correct grammatical structures or vocabulary. I can't imagine this would do anything except help improve their language abilities.

2. As the world becomes ever-increasingly globalized, Japanese workers will be expected to be able to think critically if they work abroad. If they want to be competitive with multinational companies, it seems likely that critical thinking will only become more required as a prerequisite skill for working at these companies if it's not already.

As an American, critical thinking was so ingrained in me that I was confounded when my university-level students English education major students could not discuss the meaning of famous English-language quotes. I remember the head of the English department observing my class and commenting on this phenomenon: "The students aren't that smart". Well, that's not true. They just haven't been given the means to think that way.