If you’re flying from Japan to overseas locations, the company I use to book my tickets is No.1 Travel. They’re cheap, friendly and they’re just sorting out my schedule for next month which is looking just crazy. There’s something to be said for putting development time and presentation time in blocks, but it means in the next few weeks I’m going to be taking 11 flights and they all need co-ordinating down to the hour. But you know what they say “If you want something done, give it to someone busy”, either that or I should stop trying to cram so much in. Hopefully I might be able to fit in a visit to one of the tiny pacific islands south of Tokyo, that should be interesting! I love these islands in that their address is “Tokyo” but they are miles from anywhere. Anyway, the teachers are wanting a bit of help, so if I’m nearby I might as well pop in.
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I got an email this morning saying the phone number on the Kids English page was wrong, and indeed it was. The correct number is 0898-48-0256. I’m really grateful to the lady who wrote in. If anyone else spots any mistakes in the site, please let me know!
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The British Council ( who are organising my mini Thailand tour next month) are again this year running their Team Teaching competition in Japan. The first prize is a Virgin Atlantic ticket for you and your JTE ( Japanese Teacher of English) from Japan to the UK. Very nice.
I attended the prize giving ceremony last year and to be honest the winners weren’t all that hot ( JTEs translating everything the ALT said was a huge problem!), so I’d say you’ve got a really good chance of winning. And I could be wrong, but I don’t think you have to be a UK ALT to enter, last year’s winner was from Israel.
One of the best entries last year was an Elementary School lesson plan about “trash”. The British Council have put the lesson plan online ( pdf ), it’s well worth a look, as although it’s not that easy to tell what to do from a written page, it was a really good lesson, highly recommended.
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When I first wrote the Kids English series in 2002 I was really happy that I could do all the fun parts of writing a course for kids, but the publishers paid for people to do all the hard work of putting all the nuts and bolts together! They always sold the product for kids to use at home, which is who it was aimed at, but I also kept in the design the ability to use it in classrooms.
Now that we distribute the set ourselves it’s a lot more affordable for schools to get their hands on, so in yesterday’s newsletter I put up links to 12 pages of help and info on how to get the most out of the Kids English set in a classroom or kindergarten. If you’re looking for new themes, it’s well worth a look.
1. Bubble Bubble ( parts of the body)
2. In the Kitchen…
3. Photo Safari ( animals)
4. Going Shopping
5. Happy Birthday
6. At the Beach
7. Ready, Steady, Go ( transport )
8. At the Park
9. Hide and Seek
10. Dressing Up! ( Clothes )
11. Just imagine …
12. Merry Christmas
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Sent off the new newsletter today.
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I’ve always liked CD3s “Do you like…?” song, but I’ve had a lot of feedback from teachers who don’t like the fact that the kids have to rehearse the song before you can sing it. This is one reason why I don’t often use it in demo classes myself. Similarly I’ve also had feedback from teachers outside Japan that the food theme can be a bit tough to do in one go. So to help with both these problems I’ve just uploaded an “Easy to Teach” remix of the “Do you like…?” song. It uses the first 12 food words, and it’s dead simple as the teacher just points to a card and says “Do you like apples?” etc. and the kids reply with either “Yes, I do” or “No, I don’t”. It makes going through the food vocab a lot easier, and there’s a nice progression through the songs. Plus it also helps Japanese teachers who have trouble explaining the “Do you like apple/apples?” problem, this way the kids learn the correct way using the song, without needing any tedious grammar explanations. Dead easy and just the task songs are best at!
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