Today was a big school today. One of the schools that I did a workshop for in Summer was having their parents’ day ( where parents come to watch lessons), and the theme was that all the teachers would be teaching English. Then afterwards I had a presentation for the parents, because their support is really important.

So after the greetings and formalities it was time to tour round the classes. I only get to see teachers doing their own lessons every once in a while, and it always surprises me at just how genki elementary school teachers are!! I thought I was genki in class, but these teachers get first prize! Usually when I do these types of visits I spent half my time thinking “oh dear” as the teachers very often teach stuff that’s simply wrong English, or just let the kids rely on Japanese to get by in the activities. But today they had things well researched, the language was all well chosen and correct and the kids were actually using it in the games. Nice.

The first grades were doing “Rock, Paper, Scissors“, and it was interesting to see that the teachers took the time to make sure the kids knew what the game was all about. This is something I often forget, and just assume that the kids all know it, so it was good to get the reminder. Other classes were doing Christmas themes, “Where are you from?“, the 3rd years were doing the classic “fast food ordering” theme complete with the hats, packets and menus that McDonalds will give you if you ask. I was a bit surprised that the fourth graders were doing “fruit basket” as their game ( a game I’ve never used it in class as it’s too easy for the kids to wait for the words in Japanese!), but at least they had the question in there and got all the kids to say “What’s your favourite colour?” before each round. And it is the questions that are important. As the kids can already understand the colour names we need to teach things they don’t actually know! One of the fourth grades also did the “Where are you going?” song and they had thought up the most genkiest, craziest dance I’ve ever seen. It was great to hear the board of education people praising the teacher’s enthusiasm!

Over all it was really well done, and way above most of the demo lessons I’ve seen over the years. Some of the teachers taught with ALTs, and many of them taught on their own which was great to see the confidence they had. The only thing that did surprise me was they had a “goodbye song” that was set to the tune of “happy birthday”. That seemed a bit strange as that song is a great song to use as is, but that was the only thing I picked up on. Good!

Afterwards the teachers had a report to the parents about how they were doing English. One nice thing in there was an survey from the kids. ….

Then it was my turn. When we were preparing this the teachers weren’t sure how many parents would actually stick around for a “lecture” ( as it was billed in Japanese), so they put in lots of request for new themes for themselves to follow on from the workshop in Summer. But as it happened there were loads of parents there! That was great, and it meant I could start from the beginning with the “English is easy” stuff, and it was really great to see the parents with their looks of “oh no, English is far too difficult for my child”, where as the teachers had the “ah, just wait a minute!” look on their faces! We also did a couple of new themes to illustrate the points, and although they are a little tricky for first timers, they did really well with “What sports do you play?“, “I can do it?” and well as “How are you?” and the game.

So that was really nice for me to see how the school is really progressing, and to be a very small part of it. If I just go and do a kids show the teachers don’t really follow up, then with a workshop the teachers start to re-think about why English is important, but usually they get too busy and never really get round to implementing things. But with a second workshop it’s always a case of “right, we’ve tried all the other stuff and we want more!”, then now with workshops for parents it should really help take things to a new level. The teachers and ALTs are trying 110% and have the full support of the head teacher and board of education, which is half the battle. The kids are certainly showing the results, the kids don’t know me here, but when I walked in I was asking them questions and stuff and they were trying really hard and using the English they knew to get across what they wanted to say. So let’s see what happens now!