English Teaching Discussion ,Book Reviews, Grammar, and more Blog

My First Passport 2 Book Review

2007-08-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well I already did my first review on the My First Passport series and now it is time for the Volume 2 review. If you want to read the first one check this link.

http://fesjapan.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-first-passport-book-review.html

This review can be pretty short since the format is exactly the same as volume 1. One difference is the level of English. This book is much more difficult and might have been better off as volume 3 with an easier book bridging the gap which I feel is quite high.

Another new addition is the use of examples in the workbook. The workbook has the first problem completed for the student so it is easy for students to understand what they are supposed to do. This feature would have been more useful in the first book I feel, but better late than never.

One point I disliked was some of the listening exercises. One unit had some sentence part matching which made it very easy. Also, in general, the listening exercises are VERY long and have way too much information. This is not that bad however as you can ask extra questions to make it more challenging for higher level students and it teaches and important skill for listening for keywords and extracting only the relevant information.

A lot of lessons use advanced grammar such as comparatives, superlatives, past tense, and even present perfect tense. One unit I liked was using " going to ..." for future instead of the present progressive for future (i.e. I am playing tennis tomorrow). It is far less confusing. Passport does not explain grammar so it is up to the teacher to teach and expand upon the ideas presented.

Other than these minor points, it is in the same easy-to-use format of the passport series and a good book. Although aimed at younger learners (JHS or HS) this book can easily be used with advanced beginners. I feel another 8/10 for this book. I have used with about 10 people over the past 4-5 months and have really liked it.

Happy teaching and hopefully more book reviews to follow. Anyone who wants a book reviewed can make a request for a specific book or a specific skill (grammar book, listening practice book) can feel free to email me. If I do not have that particular book, you are out of luck unless you want to send me a copy.

Cookie Cutter Lessons Don't "Cut" It

2007-06-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

This new school year has been very interesting for me. Since I am teaching at the same schools and teaching the same classes. My original plan, since I am so busy, was to use the same lessons and materials as last year. For my Juku job, I have made some minor changes mostly due to the fact I have more books and materials and my disposal, but for the most part the lessons remain the same.

As for the high school job, I find this year that students are slightly more mature and capable than last year. The first few lessons last year were very easy, often (after using the textbook) only using one Q and A pattern. After the first few lessons things progressed into more complex patterns and more situational conversations. This was due to lessons in the textbook. Since the first few lessons were very easy, my lessons that corresponded were equally easy. I always try my best to maintain the theme of the lesson, although I found the last few lessons in the textbook impossible to do so. I thought 50 min of gestures, Asian trivia, and American trivia would just be incredibly boring.

One lesson this year that I will make more difficult is the lesson about hobbies. Last year I made a simple survey using "Do you like ". I used the 10 hobbies that were taught in the book. This year I will teach "What do you do in your free time?". After the student's partner answers they will use that answer as an input to ask "How often?" "Who ..with?" "Where?". I will also play Concentration using the 10 hobbies from the textbook just like last year but this year I have made new cards using color, bigger paper, and much bigger text so they are easier to read.

All my lessons went very well last year but it is exciting to see them improve this year. I also completely revamped my special lessons to the students travelling to Australia. Last year's course were very haphazardly put together since I had little time and lacked information to plan good lessons. This year I had almost a whole year to think about it and was able to put together an extremely useful set of lessons. The students in that class were also much better than the previous year so things went smoothly. Good students can make all the difference.

Different Languages, Different Structures

2007-05-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since my last update, I have been very busy with new classes at my school. The Juku has started and is very easy this year. I kept good notes on my lesson plans from last year so I am teaching the same topics as I was. The kids are great and motivated.

This post was inspired by something that drives anyone learning Japanese or English (or any language) as a second language insane. That is the different usages of certain types of words. One such example came this week. The students were filling out and info gap sheet where they had to ask the name, age, job, marital status, and how many family members in their family etc. When it came to the marriage question, a very common mistake came up. "Do you married?" instead of the correct "Are you married?” Anyone who knows Japanese knows that the question would be 結婚してる　which is the grammatical structure in Japanese for present progressive (-ing). If you were to translate literally it would “Are you marrying?” which of course sounds strange in English. In Japanese, I am sure if you say “結婚ですか？“　it would also sound very strange. I am sure in either case, the meaning of what you want to say can be understood.

I always explain to students that they use as a verb form where as in English, it is an adjective form. Are you married? Or single?

It is quite confusing. Japanese also use these forms when saying “I am angry”. “（私）怒っているよ！”

The situation gets even more complicated when talking about verb tenses so I won’t even go into that.

I was lucky because a lot of my Japanese was picked up through listening to many people and then trying to use what I heard which is the best way anyway. I would hear something over and over and over and then I would think “Ok, I am going to try and use that if I can.” Sometimes　it worked great, but others I fell flat on my face and got puzzled look from the person I was talking to. At any rate, there a few things to think about and I will close by saying.

You only learn to use a language by using it.
If you use a new language, you will make mistakes.
Therefore, we can conclude you can not learn a new language without mistakes, but you will learn from making mistakes.
At least that’s how I feel about it.

Another School Year

2007-04-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well it is April and time for the new academic school year in Japan! I am happy to report that I will continue to work at the Juku from this Saturday and from the same high school from May.

This brings me to an interesting point. The school year for me at the high school is stating later than it did last year. Why u might ask? Well I feel it is simple. The BOE is trying to save a little money. For me, I really do not care since my school keeps me busy on its own, but I think for many teachers it really hurts them financially. This is one of the reasons I started my own school.

Anyway, I am looking forward to this year because it is the first time in a long time I have been able to return to the same schools and I will not have to make new lesson plans. I will just adjust ones I did last year which makes it very simple!

From April I will be using My first passport volume 1 and 2, Passport to Work(my first time using it). Passport, English Time Volume 1 and 2, Let's talk about it, Tactics for listening, as long as other materials.

This should be a very busy year and a very good one for me. Wish me luck!

Bilingual Kids

2007-03-19T03:34:00.000-07:00

Well it has been awhile since I posted so here we go.

Last week I had an interesting trial with 5 kids who are basically bilingual. They went to an international school for many years so they know lots of English. I would say their reading level is as high as any child in an American school.

Although my trial lesson was too easy, I was lucky enough to get these kids into my school so I have been spending my time researching materials for these kids who will take a special 90 minutes lesson once a week.

In all my years of teaching in Japan this is the most difficult challenge I have ever faced but I intend to conquer it like any challenge with good planning following intense research. Mostly I have been looking at web sites that have the benchmarks for regular American children and I have found some amazing sites and have found lots of good ideas. I look forward to starting the class next month.

Has anyone ever had any experience teaching such children? This is one area my school excels because I can teach lessons that do not fit the cookie cutter style of Eikaiwas whose policy is, same age, same class, same book. My school is flexible and I take pride in that fact. Anyway, wish me luck!

More Kids' materials for my school

2007-03-06T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well I am excited as I purchased some more book and things from www.nellies.jp. Purchases included some flip charts with vocabulary ranging from body parts, numbers. color, etc. All the basic stuff kids love and need. I also bought a magnetic calendar which can be arranged to be suitable for any month. It also includes spaces to put what day it is, the weather, season , etc. In addition, I bought some phonics wipe-off charts where the kids can play with as a whiteboard and I can erase( i.e. wipe off!) for later use. Finally I bought some alphabet tiles which can be put together like a jigsaw to spell whatever words that I want the kids to spell. I bought the lower case, word beginnings, and word endings sets. Some of the materials were a little bit pricey but in the end they will be well worth it. I even do some phonic work with adults as it helps with their pronunciation if they can learn the basic rules that native speakers take for granted.

I also bought another poster for the classroom and it will probably be my last as the walls of my classroom are just about full! I am always looking for great new materials for my classroom, especially for kids where a wide variety of materials keeps kids interested and motivated. I am hoping to get some more kid classes this year since I really enjoy them. Seeing students improve is great, and kids can improve so quickly!

西宮英会話 www.fesjapan.com

Reflections on the past school year

2007-02-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

Well my first ALT at a High School has finally drawn to a close. The worst part of my experience was the long commute(about 90-100 minutes) and very few other things were bad and since my name is on this blog I do not want to be specific about it :).

But overall I enjoyed my experience at the HS and it was the easiest public school job I have had. The class sizes were broken up into A and B so I had no more than 20 students per class. I taught about 8 lessons a week over 4 days and would teach the same lesson cycle for 2-3 weeks. Over the year I taught 12 classes.

I have always had good experiences in the past with team teaching because I was flexible but this experience it became a different level. I was left to plan the lessons as I saw best but I would mostly base it on the textbook(something that the teachers and I discussed). If the lesson included a lesson theme about giving directions then I would develop games or activities to expand what the textbook had and try to make it interesting, useful, or fun. Doing all 3 at the same time was a challenge but I had plenty of prep time to make materials and research games and I hope I was successful.

I tried a variety of activities so that different personalities could enjoy. Some students like games, and others like conversation, etc. I tried to keep it balanced and the best compliment for my lessons was the school put them on the test. This also helped teaching since the material was on the test and not in the textbook. My class became that much more important.

I would recommend anyone working at an Eikaiwa to get into teaching at a public school right away. The hours and job content are more satisfying. Of course there are drawbacks but I think I will leave that to another post. I hope to work at the same high school from May if all can be worked out. My schedule is quite hectic.

My First Passport Book Review

2007-02-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

What would be English teaching without great textbooks to guide you and your students through? Here is my first review and it is a book I have used in 3 different settings; a juku, my English school in Nishinomiya http://www.fesjapan.com/ , and at the high school where I work during the very few ESS(English Speaking Society) meetings.

First a brief intro of the book. The book follows the adventures of Japanese students on a home stay, a school trip, and Japanese students who have English-speaking students do a student exchange at their school. A very nice variety of situations. For more information please visit the oxford site ... http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/. There is also a workbook to use with the series.

The basic layout of the book is quite easy to understand. It starts with an introduction of the characters that will appear in the book. I can often turn these 2 pages into a lesson by reading the passage to the students, asking them read it, and after I check their understanding(I ask them if they have any questions) I ask them questions about the paragraph for Q and A practice as a double check of comprehension.

The next section is a "Where are you from" which takes some information from the introduction and asks where they are from. There are a few more questions for students and this lesson has a workbook page for review. I find this is a good tie-in to the introduction for the 2nd lesson as usually the 1st unit in the book is very easy and takes little time.

Now we get the to the meat of the book which are the lessons itself. They all start with a picture speculation (always good) to get the students thinking of the situation. Then the first listening which is nothing more than checking whether the words from the word list are spoken on the CD. I found for low-level adult students I would skip this part and just have them repeat the words as I do with everyone. The next is the listening section part 2 which can be anything from multiple choice, True/False, or open-ended questions(which I prefer). For higher students I often ask them more information, especially for the T/F which can be quite easy. After all, the students have a 50/50 chance even if they have no idea what was said. Both these parts use the same conversation so for low students, they have 2 chances to hear the conversations.

The next part of the lesson is the key words and phrases section which I really appreciate, as I do in any book. It shows the students exactly what language is used and what they will use themselves later in the lesson.

Next is the conversation which has 2 parts. The first part is a listening where students must fill in the blanks, and after that is complete the book has 2-3 new substitution words which can be used to make a new conversation but based on the model, i.e. "I am going to the bank." but the new conversation might change bank to shopping mall.

The last part of the lesson is the activity which is an information gap between students. Each student A and B have different pages with different information. The workbook usually reinforces the vocab and structures used which can be used at the end of class if there is time, or done as homework.

And that concludes each individual unit. Every 3 units there is a review which I often skip unless the students really struggled with the lessons. Also at the end of the book are culture files which explain a culture difference between the West and Japan which were great for ESS meetings. They correspond to the topics of each unit. For Adult students I do not use or let them read for homework. And at the very end of the book there is a English word list that has Japanese which is great for lower students although I admit I try not to use it if possible.

So that is the book format. Let me give a summary of the good and bad points.

Good points.

It is colorful. Easy to understand pictures.
Well-rounded. Listening practice, vocab, structured conversation, free talk.
Easy to understand structure makes it ideal for lower students.
Very reasonable price for the textbook, workbook, and classroom CD.
A lot of useful situations: introductions, shopping, sightseeing tours, etc.
Related to Japan and Japanese learners.
Almost no preparation time is required. Good for busy teachers.
More resources are available on the web such as tests and more review.

Bad Points:

The Conversation listening practice where students fill in the blanks is often too long so students can listen and understand, but do not have enough time to write so they forget the answer.
The difficulty of the lessons often varies considerably but this due in part that they chose useful situations so this point is forgivable to a degree.
No Japanese instructions, also a minor point.

I hope to review other books in the passport series at a later date including the new my first passport 2. I will start to use this book in the coming weeks.

Overall rating for this book: 8/10 I highly recommend for beginners and young learners.

Different uses of “like”

2007-02-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

This one topic from a few lessons I have taught recently and students who confuse the different uses of "like" which lower students often assume is 好き.

The first use that they have encountered is indeed using 好き "Do you like dogs?". But 2 other uses have come up in the textbook so I will write more about them.

The next use is the meaning どのように　or どのような　as in "What is the weather like?" which students confuse with どんな天気が好き？　That same lesson also teaches "How is the weather?" which is far more easier for students to understand as 天気はどうですか？

The other use that popped up yesterday was "Would you like a bag?" Which they confused for カバン好き？　instead of the polite form of "Do you want a bag?". The situation was a shopping lesson and the customer just bought a pair of sunglasses and was asked by the clerk "Would you like bag?".

I always teach my students that for listening, often key words are very important but in the above cases they only heard too few key words and mistook the meaning.

I know this is two grammar posts in a row and so I apologize. I knwo for most grammar is very boring btu from my engineering background, I am fascinated with the structure, especially the differences between the two languages.

Present Progressive for future

2007-02-08T04:35:00.000-08:00

This is a post I hope my grammar god friend will look at and comment. Today I was doing a lesson in one of my many many books at my school in Nishinomiya. The lesson topic was "What are you doing tomorrow?". Now when I worked at Nova and ECC their textbooks always taught going to .... for future. ECC also had a lesson where they had both and explained the difference (wish I had that explanation). In my view , using the present progressive makes the statement more concrete. "I am playing tennis tomorrow." would be 明日間違いなくテニスをするつもりです。" and then "I am going to play tennis tomorrow" would be ”明日テニスをするつもりです” but I am not sure. I always recommend students use going to as the present progressive does not always seem to work as in I am watching T.V. later tonight. Sometimes being in Japan so long and thinking too much about the grammar can drive a person crazy. Anybody got an opinion I would love to hear it on this one. I wait for the experts to reply.

Happy New Year(3 weeks late)

2007-01-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

I have not recently posted because I lost my account info and to make a long story short, I forgot I had tried to do a blog before using the old blogger. This blog I started while it was in Beta so when I went to recover the password , it gave me to my OLD blog which has nothing on it. Anyway, I have now solved the problem.

I only have 1 more month left on my contract for the high school where I work. I of course will have my own students so I will still have income, which is good!

Anyway, when I went back to work I had a great time quizzing my kid students on the grammar/Q and A that I taught them for the last 8 months. It was interesting the difference between the ages. The younger they were, the more they remembered. It was quite satisfying.

Anyway, I enjoyed my time off. I think from this year I might add more things to my blog than just the English and English teaching things.

Making flashcards

2006-12-16T10:23:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Use of Japanese in the classroom

2006-11-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

Ok for this blog I hope to get some feedback from anyone who is reading this blog, not many I am sure at this point. Anyway, it is of course the use of Japanese in a classroom. It depends a lot on what classes you are teaching of course. For Elementary school students I admit I would rarely use English to explain anything about a game. I would use a little Japanese but then demonstrate the activity, some kids would get it and I would let them explain it in Japanese to the rest of the class. This worked almost 99% of the time and in some rare cases I would explain in Japanese. I also used a lot of Japanese games like fruit basket, karuta, and 神経衰弱(concentration) that required almost no explanation since they are popular and well-known in Japan. I also do this method with my private kids.

For Junior and Senior HS I use English at least 2 times with instructions, but after that I really just want to use Japanese or have the teacher translate. Most students at those ages will not even listen to you, even if you use Japanese, but most students get used to commands like "open your book to page <>".

My reasoning for doing this ( and I feel my way is the best, of course) is that what is important is the activity, not that they understand the English for the instructions. Setting up the activity for success is key, so it is most important that they understand the activity so they can use the English in the activity successfully.

I will post about Adult classes in a later post.

Welcome to an attempt at a Blog

2006-11-19T05:39:00.000-08:00

Well I have finally setup my blog to link with my business website. I will start by saying I will hopefully be posting my experiences as a teacher from past to the present and beyond. I have been teaching since Sept 1999 and have come a long way. I believe the key to success as an English teacher in Japan is quite a bit to do with personality but also with experience and access to the right materials and a willingness to always be looking for something better or more appropriate for your students. I have taught from big "Eikaiwa"s, a Juku(cram school), a senmon gakko for interior decorator students, Elem, middle, and high schools as well. I have taughts kids from 1 1/2 years old to a business men who is 65 years old. I have taught doctors, dentists, housewives and everybody in between. The variety makes it interesting. Anyway, let me know what you think and if any of my ideas are useful to you. You can find my business website at www.fesjapan.com which is my English School in Nishinomiya city. I teach adults and kids and enjoy it very much. I have been doing it about a year. It continues to grow even though I have been lazy promoting it. ( I prefer just teaching, and not all that advertising stuff).