Posts Tagged: english teaching

ESL — 2 Comments
25
Oct 07

Don’t Forget Your Pencil!

Time for a quick rant about my job as an English teacher in Japan. Before continuing, please read my disclaimer.

This post is about children who forget to bring a pencil to class. Do I even need to say more? Surely that’s like going swimming without you’re trunks! If you’re going to school, take a pencil. It really shouldn’t be any more complicated than that, right?

Why then, do I have kids who repeatedly forget to bring a pencil? I’m going to assume that they have two bags; one for regular school, and one for English class.. but only one pencil case, and you know which bag that’s in.

After one of my seven-year-olds forgot his pencil for the umpteenth time, I decided to teach him a lesson. Instead of lending him a pencil as I usually do, I sharpened my own pencil and deliberately broke the tip off it. I gave him the tiny broken pencil tip and told him to write with it for the rest of class, and if he didn’t like it (which he clearly didn’t), he should bring his own pencil the next week.

One week passed and back he came, again without a pencil.

So, what can you do? In the Eikaiwa industry, making your student write with a tiny, broken piece of lead is such a horrendous punishment that any other school would have a disciplinary meeting with me and put me under observation! In the Eikaiwa industry, disciplining students doesn’t go much further than having the secretary ask the student to be a little nicer… and to bring a pencil. Why? Because parents pay for their children to enjoy learning English, not actually to learn English. At least that’s the way it seems. Either way, they don’t pay for their children to be told off, and it makes you wonder if ESL in Japan is a big joke.

What did I do? Well, I stepped out of the classroom and told his mum directly, in front of the other mothers, that he had forgotten his pencil (and homework) again, and to make sure he comes to class prepared next time. If you can’t discipline the kid, embarrass the mother!

ESL — 2 Comments
26
Feb 07

Walk the dinosaur

When I was a kid, thirteen to be exact, Was (Not Was) released a song called ‘Walk the Dinosaur’, which was a huge hit in 1988. It’s one of those songs you don’t forget, and I tend to sing it to myself every time one of my elementary school students chooses the ‘dinosaur’ from a bunch of stamps I use for homework and rewarding the kids at the end of each lesson.

Today, in my 4th-6th grade class, without prompting, the kids all started singing the song along with me, and after the first time, they all wanted the ‘dinosaur’ stamp, and we kept singing the song! I found it hysterically funny that a group of Japanese kids, who weren’t even born when Walk the Dinosaur was released, would not only find it funny, but actually make a conscious effort to remember the words and sing it aloud with dinosaur gestures!

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it would be that children do pick up on teacher ‘chatter’, that is the things an ESL teacher says to him or herself during a lesson which the kids aren’t expected to understand. I often talk or sing to myself when I teach…”Now where did I put my pencil?”, “Wow, he actually did his homework this week.”, “Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep them wagons rolling… Rawhide!”

When you say the same things repeatedly every lesson, directly or indirectly, children remember. So, today’s tip is to be aware of what you’re saying, make sure you say it every week, and in a few months your kids will be saying it, too!

ESL — 1 Comment
19
Feb 07

Programming and English teaching

When I was about nine, my parents bought me a Commodore 16 home computer, the little brother to the hugely successful Commodore 64. This was to be a turning point in my life as I started computer programming, which eventually led to me a degree in Computer Science.

While I was never really mathematical, I loved problem solving, particularly when I could create the problems I would have to solve. I find figuring out how to fix a bug or get something working in my programs extremely satisfying.

Computer languages offer endless possibilities for creation, but are limited in rules and ‘vocabulary’ which in my opinion makes them relatively easy to learn. Spoken languages are of course, much harder. Japanese for example, despite its strict and simple grammar, is a terribly daunting language with its thousands of Chinese characters. English on the other hand, is riddled with exceptions to the plethora of grammar rules, which makes it hard to learn even with its comparatively small alphabet.

So how do you go about teaching Japanese children a language as complex as English, when they really don’t have any desire or need to learn it. Like a video game, they’d rather play it than program it, right? Well, not if you make the ‘programming’ fun and rewarding.

When in the classroom, don’t just play games to test the kids’ memories; play games that involve problem solving. For example, if you’re doing a spelling race, let them race to search through their books to find the right spelling. If you’re teaching a function such as “How do I get to the toy store?”, write it on the board as “How do I ____ to the toy _____?” and let the kids find the missing words in their books. Alternatively, with something simple like “I want a (hamburger)”, they can experiment with substituting ‘hamburger’ for other words they can find in their books or on posters. My young kids love to use silly Japanese words like unchi (”poop”) in their sentences, but I’m not too bothered if they run around screaming “I want an unchi” because the are using and understanding the function I’m teaching.

Like computer programming, with problem-solving activities your students can have fun finding out for themselves the knowledge they need to win the ‘game’.

ESL — No Comments
4
Jan 07

Back to School: Rule Reminders

Since I’m back to school tomorrow, I’ve been thinking again about my ESL lessons, and remembered an interesting moment from last term. I was getting frustrated with one of my kindergarten classes so right at the start of the lesson I told the children that if they crawl under the tables they will lose all their points.

I usually give my kindy kids four points at the start of the lesson next to their names on the board. Each point represents a stamp that they get on their ’stamp card’ at the end of class. When they finish their stamp cards they get a nice present. With the older kids, I start them on two points which encourages them to earn more points as well as be in a position to lose the ones they already have if they misbehave, but the kindy kids seem to respond better to losing points and then earning them back.

Anyway, I was in quite a friendly mood when I gave this ‘lose all your points’ warning and since it was the start of class, some of the kids hadn’t arrived yet. So, I was amazed to see the children pass on my warning to those late comers as they came into the classroom. Needless to say, not one kid went under the tables.

The next week however, while singing the ‘Hello Song’, H-kun snuck away from the group and started for the tables. I quickly stopped the song, and asked him if he remembered last week’s warning. Suddenly, one of the girls said “Eh? You mean we can’t go under the tables this week either?”

The moral of this little story is that young children need to be reminded constantly of the rules. This doesn’t mean disciplining them after they do something wrong, but rather reviewing the class rules before they have a chance to.

If you aren’t already doing this, give it a try! You’ll probably have a trouble free and enjoyable lesson!