My First Passport 2 Book Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.