Interview with Professor Hideto Hamada

BY AGATSU KIMURA

Professor Hideto Hamada, a graduate of Sapporo University began his career as a college teacher at his alma mater April 1, 1997. He finished Takikawa High School and entered the Department of International Relations at the Faculty of Liberal arts in Tokyo International University. Two years later he enrolled in the Department of English Language in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Sapporo University as a third-year student. After graduation he got a job as a teacher of English and had many good experiences teaching at several high schools in Hokkaido. His ambition was to study English linguistics which led him to do four years of research at the Graduate School of Hokkaido University, and now he teaches English grammar, reading, a basic outline of linguistics and a seminar here at SU.

When we interviewed him he told us that he teaches English from a cognitive perspective which emphasizes a view that languages are affected by mental attitude. He thinks this perspective very important for understanding languages. His interest in this psychologically motivated approach, he said, originally stems from the ideas in the book Bumpou no Genri (Theory of Grammar) by Fumio Nakajima, which he bought at a used bookstore when he was a junior in college. He often illustrates various notions of linguistic phenomena using diagrams and stressing the mutual aspects of English and Japanese because he views linguistic phenomena as part of a total cognitive process of the human mind. So his classes are easy for students to understand. Sometimes he tells us about his high-school days. He was the second representative of the Jan Jan Club , which is composed of many bands in the Sorachi district. His band went around Hokkaido giving 100-yen concerts and charity concerts. Moreover, his band acted as an opening act in an Alice concert and in a Downtown Boogie-Woogie Band concert. He also told us that he worked at various places part-time and entered the hospital from malnutrition several times in his college student days. These stories make his classes not only interesting but also funny.

He seems to have taken a roundabout course in his life for he studied at two universities and became an assistant professor after quitting his job as a high school teacher. So we asked him about each turning point. When he transferred to SU from Tokyo International University, what was in his mind was to return to Hokkaido where he was born and study English language itself from a philological point of view, including its history, rather than do research into international relations and politics. He believes even now that teaching in high school was interesting, but he was not satisfied with conditions. He could not find enough time to help students understand through discussion because of the number of items students needed to study for college entrance exams, which caused the classes to be one-way. So he was longing to teach at the university in order to broaden his background in English language research and fulfill his desire to learn the English language through teaching it.

I asked him about the difference between high school students and college students. He pointed out the difference in their way of questioning. In high school, students asked him for one answer which necessarily exists. He would tell them the answer and say ﾒDo you understand? and so, the class had a tendency to be one-way and teacher-centered. But in college, they ask him questions on a higher level like "How about this situation?" or "I think this is better than what you said." and so on. There is discussion about the issue in question, which enhances our understanding of the English language. He said this was the point most different and he is happy about this. This is what he wants at this university. If he could not be closer to students it would be the same as teaching in high school. He was afraid that in the worst case he might be a teacher like a newscaster on TV who speaks one way and was anxious about a lot of things as a first-year professor. But he had been over anxious.

I asked him what advice he had for students in their university life. He said ﾒYou have surely had some dream, even if it is obscure, since you entered SU. Please make a four-year plan and do your best to materialize your dream. You should be as full of passion for studying as you are for your love life.ﾓ His words include his hopes as a graduate from SU. We should listen to them which come from his varied experience.

We would like to express our gratitude to Assistant Professor Hideto Hamada for giving us his times for this interview.