Making flashcards

Well it has been a week or so since my last post. This time I will talk about how I make my flashcards for my school and what I have done in the past. When I worked at the Elementary school, I would use their cutter machine to cut pieces of cardboard to about the size of playing cards. Next I would search the internet(check my links page from my website http://www.fesjapan.com/) for colorful and easy to understand pictures for whatever vocab I happened to be teaching. I always wish I could just draw what I needed but in that way, I have zero artistic talent, especially when it comes to drawing. Anyway, once I find the pictures, I use Word to make them the proper size and print them out. I prefer color as in the case of my old company (an Eikaiwa in Japan), the pictures were black and white, boring, and quite often visually confusing. For example, a picture of a stream had a big bridge on it so the students assumed it meant bridge, but it was supposed to be stream. This is when knowing Japanese comes in handy, you can check their understanding.

That was the old way, the flashcards would last about 20-30 classes. The next generation flashcards I make were MUCH more durable. I use the same steps but I use a laminator to keep the cars nice and new-looking for a long time. Kids tend to want to bend them, but I obviously do not let them do this.

Quite simple, but effective I think. The cards are not see-through so you can use them for shinkeisuijyaku (concentration), which is very popular or any other game your creative mind can think up.

My kids' class formula

I recently had a few people ask me about teaching kids English and what I do so why not put in on my blog?

So anyway, my kid system , like all the systems at my school, are composites of all the places I worked, and all the experience I have on what works and what doesn't( for me anyway).

So my classes are 50 minutes long, quite long enough. they study at Elementary school for 45 minutes so this works well I think. The first 5 minutes is a review game. I use quite a few so I will not go into detail here.

After that, I do some kind of alphabet practice. Younger kids start with writing practice always with words connected to that word "A for apple, B for banana etc.". Older kids do phonics, short a sound, long a sound etc. This all takes about 15-25 minutes.

The next activity involves the new vocab for the day. It is always introduced and students repeat it (lots of ways for that) and then we play a game where they must USE the new vocab they learned. I am never harsh with students if they forget the words of course, I often use the same set of words over 2-3 lessons and never introduce more than 10 words in one lesson. After they learn the words to my satisfaction, I might even teach them a Q and A set to use. (especially with older students). I always start with simple games where speed is not important, it is just to get them to use and remember the word. After they feel comfortable with the new vocab I might do a game where the fastest students gets the point. But be careful with these games, especially young kids (say under 8 years old or so) , they tend to get frustrated an upset if they can not get a point at all. This is where its best to know your weak students and even slyly stack the game in their favor somehow.(If your doing karuta , for example, call out cards closer to the weak student so they have the advantage to get first).

And that usually takes me to the end of 50 minutes. I try to end on something fun but not too wild, otherwise they do not want to leave the classroom!

As for materials, I use some textbooks, workbooks, Internet printouts, and even books I bought in America(which my 2 year old niece was using!) . Kids are quite rewarding as they learn new material so fast and are so eager to learn. They often pick up commands I use just naturally like "one more time" "last time" "upside down" .

What are your experiences? Anyone up for sharing?

What's in a name?

This post was inspired by my friend to whom this story happened . It is about names. A student recently told him to call her by their family (last) name instead of her first name as he had been doing. He asked me what I do for my students, and it is a good question.

I prefer to call students by their first name since it is friendlier, but these are mostly kids. As for my Adult students, I rarely even address them by their name and if I do I use their family name plus san as in the Japanese way. In itself it is quite odd.

But it brings up a good point, I have always been bothered by students calling me David先生 since they only use that title with family names in Japan. The confusion comes from their opposite use of names. i.e. Ken Wantanabe would be called Watanabe Ken here. So the usage of first names and last names is utterly confusing to Japanese. At the Junior High School I worked at , the JTE (Japanese English Teacher) made students call me Hartless先生. which was quite nice. Although I don't mind being David sensei, I do hate being referred to as just David in the public schools. It is quite disrespectful, and they would never do that to a Japanese teacher. I know that I might not be "qualified" to be a teacher in a school, but I work hard and I think I deserve that title. I also do not like being called Mr. David as this is just strange!

Another interesting point is why we change the order of Japanese names, I have heard (and I could be wrong so PLEASE tell me if I have this wrong) that we do not switch around names for say Korean and Chinese names. Is this true?

I would also like to note that at the current High School, I know the students but their family names, i.e. Mr. Tanaka, Miss. Suzuki etc. I see no problem with this but they call me just plain David, rarely with the sensei attached. I know they mean no harm but it is not good. Are the ALTs not there to teach about culture as well? Well names are very important. But then respect is lacking for the gaijin(foreigner) in Japan as many of you know.

What do you think? Post your stories.