Week 2 - Blog 2
Theories regarding organizational communication could be applied to not only workplaces but also educational fields, such as schools. This is because schools are big organizations with a variety of sub-organizations, with working contexts that have diverse cultures, powers, leaderships, and ethics.
One of McGregor's two managment theories (pp. 89-90), Theory X, reminds me of high schools in Japan. One exmpale is that English-language education in Japanese schools, in general, follows Theory X because the organizations are "control-oriented" and of course have a "bureaucratic style management."
Many high school students in Japan studying English are neither motivated nor encouraged. One well-known reason is that the students are pushed to study English so that they can enroll at a high-level university. This enrollment depends on successfully passing a very difficult entrance examination, a big part of which is the English test. Unfortunately, in their real lives after the examination, students only have English skills that have been "crammed" into their heads for the purpose of passing the test and no real-life language skills to use. The high schools do not care about the needs of the students. Or, in other words, their approach is not very high up on Maslow's hierarchy (pp. 87-89) in terms of meeting the needs of the students!
4 days ago
You’re example reminded me of going to high school out here. The major class being my Spanish class, which I took all four years of high school. It’s been about four years since I have graduated and I really cannot speak a lick of the language anymore. I remember being able to talk, talk, talk about anything in Spanish and being able to understand anything. Now I find myself not understanding and frankly not caring that I don’t know anything anymore. Great example and explanation of the concept!
ReplyDeleteI found this very interesting. I didn't know that high schools in Japan study the English language, and I guess the reason I didn't know this is because not any high schools that I know of here study the Japanese language, at least none in my area. This is a great idea though, at least for those that want to be business majors because I know a lot of businesses out here in the United States tend to do a great deal of business with the Japanese.
ReplyDeleteThough from what you have said they don't seem to have a very effective approach to teaching their student's the English language, and should maybe rethink their English language teaching program so that it will better their students and the future businessmen of our world.
Good point in comparing schools to organizations. In comparison to McGregor's Theory, I found that most of my teachers in high school and community college employed the control-oriented, bereaucratic style of management or "Theory X."
ReplyDeleteMandatory attendance to every class at the expense of your grade is an obvious component of this kind of management. Rather than believe that students value education and thus will come to class, I think some teachers get in this mind set that students are lazy, and prefer to be directed which in turn I think makes students NOT want to come to class because honestly, why would anyone want to sit through an hour lecture where you are talked to like an incompetent fool?
I understand what you are saying. I was born in the Philippines and we are forced to learn English as it is becoming a national language now along with Tagalog (main Filipino language out of 170). However, I must say that learning English in the Philippines helped me learn to speak English fluently when I immigrated here when I was sixteen years old.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that Theory X relate too much about your example as the English requirement is recommended to be prepared in the future, and that requirement itself do not uses the theory. Some students like me actually like that idea as it is very useful in the future. But that beside the point, Theory X is a theory of motivation. So in order to make it more related to Theory X; you can say managers (teachers) uses force, coercion, threat to motivate their students, instead of Theory Y’s positive reinforcement.
This is just my opinion. =D