I’m going to be in China over the next few days, and I probably won’t have regular email. The Japan office will be open around the Golden Week holidays, and I’ll be back on email from the 5th. Just one thing, if you do email me, please check your spam folders for my reply. I do still reply to all my emails but sometimes things disappear in spam filters, so if you haven’t heard from me in a few days, try and get in touch again.
Right, off to brush up on my Chinese now. Doing that Thai intensive course the other week really helped with the tones, let’s see how I get on tomorrow! Have a nice Golden Week!
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Over on the forum there’s a really big list of very good websites building up. One of the links put up this week was for a massive pdf book of games and ideas by the JET teachers down in Okinawa. It’s a really big download, but there are so many ideas for Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) that it’s great resource. Have a look:
Massive ebook of games for JHS & SHS ( Thanks to Roger for the link)
Don’t forget the Team Taught Pizza or Joel’s “Teachers & Kids” book if you’d like a real printed book instead.
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I actually had a bit of time free today to catch up with emails and blog links and things. One of the good sites I heard about is www.chinesepod.com. This is a really great site with loads and loads of podcasts ( which are actually free), all done in a very up to date style. Nice. Highly recommended.
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I didn’t get the last lot of software done for Monday, it took till four o’clock this morning! Then today was spent checking everything. It’s amazing how things have changed in the last year though. Before I used to have make CDs and have them expressed to the factory. These days I can just email them.
Whilst I slept I also had the English proof read in England, and in Germany they were recording the new Genki German songs, which arrived in my inbox this morning. All whilst I slept! A little crazy, but it means stuff gets done a lot quicker these days.
Once I’d sent off the final email it was back into stress free mode again after so many late nights, so I decided to take the evening off and went to see V for Vendetta, which was good.
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You know I’ve never actually had to get a visa to visit somewhere before. Especially having a European passport you forget how easy it is now to travel to so many countries. However next week I’m in China, so have to get a proper visa. It’ll be strange not having my passport for 3 days!
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With all the talk recently of reforming or changing the elementary school “English” curriculum, I figured I’d better check up to make sure that there have been no changes to the Course of Study of this year.
The Course of Study or “Shidou youryou” ( 小学校学習指導要 ) is the official word on what we have to teach in elementary schools. Your schools will have a copy in the Head Teachers’ room, although most teachers won’t have actually read it! It’s worthwhile showing your teachers though, it really puts people at ease when they see it. You can also buy it from bookstores, ISBN4-487-28682-4 for 100 yen. Note that it’s not the blue “Handbook” but a small green book with the more formal description of the course all in Japanese. You want page 69 ( it’s only one page for “Kokusai Rikai”).
So anyway, I had a quick look and luckily nothing has changed. I just updated the version I have on the site to have the new page number, but the content is all the same. i.e. it isn’t to be seen as preparation for Junior High / don’t teach Junior High material in Elementary school, keep it aural/oral based, start of with “learning by doing” with “suitable songs, games, skits ” etc. then move on to exchanges of culture, crafts etc. with kids in other countries.
Which is very good as far as I’m concerned. Although it means the bad schools will continue as they are, it also means the good schools can keep going with the great progress they’ve been making over the last few years, and it’s another year without the fear of being forced to teach Junior High style boring grammar based lessons!
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