Today was the second time I’ve visited a school in such a short time ( I was here exactly a year ago), and it is so nice to see how the kids have progressed through the year. The ALT schedule has been a bit up and down, but the kids attitude and speed of learning is just fantastic.

First off was a “show“, except that the teachers had requested a couple of higher level themes as it was the second time. So it wasn’t quite a “show” as such, but more of a 160 kid very fast lesson. The topics chosen were Rock, Paper, Scissors, Where, Where, Where? and Can you do it?. But with the exception of Rock, Paper, Scissors (which is really easy) the other ones I’d never done in a show setting before so there was always the risk of everything falling apart, which is a good to keep me on my toes! For these themes I also need some visuals for running through the song acapella, so had a projector which worked really well. The second song was Where, Where, Where? and the kids, even the ichinensei were great. I must admit there was a bit of cheating as a couple of classes had done it before, but everyone else was also cool. One of the good things about this song is that you can teach “Where’s the toilet?” ( so as to be understood everywhere, not just North America), and “Where’s the phone?” and then move straight on to asking the kids “Where’s the piano?”, “Where’s the TV?” etc. without having to teach them and they can answer with an “Over there” and point in the right direction the very first time they here it. And these kids were great with it.

By the time we got round to I can do it! the kids were pretty tired, it was a very hot and very muggy day! But they had the “I can do it!” attitude, and they all nailed how to say it in English really quickly, I was quite surprised. The first time through the song they were a little quiet as the CD player had been turned down, but I turned it back up and asked them if they could do it again, and they did, and they were even better. So I finished 5 minutes early and they were all very glad they had achieved their aim of doing 3 lessons in an hour! I was shattered, but quite happy it all worked out OK! But I tell you, doing these three in one hour is not to be recommended!

There were also a few teachers from the area who came to attend, and I think they were a bit shocked at how quickly the kids picked stuff up, especially the bits where they had to think and answer rather than just repeat.

Then it was a 6th grade class. As you probably know 6th graders are not my speciality, but they asked, so I thought I’d give it a try! I asked whether I should do something that I know works, or to try some new experimental stuff, and they were like “Experiment away!”. So that was cool, it’s one of the things I miss about my job at the moment, not getting the chance to try new stuff!

First off I started with the “Can you understand English?” line ( eigo wakarimasu ka?), to which a few of the kids, as expected said “No!”. This is something you have to get sorted straight away before it turns into an epidemic in the games. And the way to do that is to use the vocab from the foods theme. So I just told them to translate into Japanese the words I say. I left out “Ugli Fruit” and everything else they got, and even the “no” kids were saying “well, maybe we do know quite a lot!”. I also did the part about how every Japanese kid can understand around 200-300 English words, and the New York Times only usually has around 600 words in it!

For the next bit it was to try something new. What I thought of doing was a new theme that teaches the words used in the Card Game i.e. height, length, weight, top speed and age. The picture cards I used were the dragon for height, .the caterpillar for length, the hippo for weight, the mosquito for top speed and the cockroach for age. As expected the 6th grade girls like the cuteness of the pictures! They also got all the words really quickly and could recall them very well. So then I said I was thinking about writing a song for this theme, and would they help me choose some music. They were all very keen on this. So I loaded up some loops and stuff on my laptop and let them choose. Lots of English here as well, as I assigned each loop a number and they had to agree amongst themselves which was best. In the end they chose the Trance version.

So we did the song with a trance beat and they were cool. Then it was the game. I planned to do a new version of the “What did you say?” game. The only problem with the normal version of this game is that using things like “What’s your name?” isn’t really communicating anything as the kids already know each others names, and they can cheat! So what I did was to put them in 6 groups using Mingle, then paired up the groups, making sure the pairs of groups were well separated. Then I gave 9 card game cards to one group, and a sheet of paper with 9 card game cards with the numbers blanked out to their partner group. The idea is they choose a card, then shout across the room to their paired group who then write down the numbers. At first it looked like this would be a total flop, but we kept trying! Each group got to try their Height and Length, so they knew what to do. Then came the main bit where they had to finish off their card whilst all the groups were shouting at the same time. Once they figured that the first team to correctly fill in their card is the winner, they were well into it!! Doing one card at a time was just right as it took about two minutes. I was quite surprised they managed to do it well, with only one mistake – confusing a “15” with a “50”, which is fine in my book. So a very good lesson and highly recommended!

Then it was lunch with the 6th grades, just chatting about music and stuff.

Then a first grade lesson ( the school certainly got their money’s worth today – well at least they would if it wasn’t a volunteer gig!). Anyway this first grade is a little special as there are quite a few special needs kids, all with distinct needs, hence why I asked to try and help. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but my brief was to “do something where the shyest kids try and express themselves” so I thought I’d try the new “Under the sea” theme as it’s very popular with younger kids. First off I warmed up with the Warm Up game, and already I could see I was losing a couple of the kids! So I very quickly went in to a review of Rock, Paper, Scissor, which apart from them being so loud, was great. They were totally on the ball with the “losing just means try again”, which help a lot later on in the game. It is really difficult trying to help the most needy kids in a class of 30 though!

I started off teaching the first four sea animals, and as expected the quiet kids were very quiet. So I did the trick of asking the kids to come up with the gestures, and that was good as they were all trying at least something, and things like the “Sea horse” got most of the kids involved, so that was a minor success! It was a bit hard going, so instead of doing the Balloon Game I switched and did the Sticky Fingers game. The beauty of this game is that you can do one round, then add in another piece of vocab, then another round of the game, then another piece of vocab etc. etc. I makes sure the game doesn’t get boring, and they are happy to see a new word. Again highly recommended. One kid looked slightly on the verge of crying (this is first grade!), when she lost, but everyone did the “Try again!” thing and she was quite happy. Then at the end I got all the kids together at the front and we did the new “Under the Sea” song. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something magical in this song, in the slow bits that surround the animal parts the kids all quieted down and were paying 100% attention, wow, pretty cool. So not my best lesson in the World, but not bad for a first try.

Next was a 30 minute break and the teachers’ workshop. As it’s term time they could only spare an hour, and it was an exact even split between teachers who’d seen last years’ and who were new teachers, so I sort of had to start from the beginning with the “English is easy” type stuff. They got that, but I was surprised to see they had so much difficulty with the Food Song! I’d tried it on kids, and more recently on private teachers, but this was the first time for elementary school teachers. But it was good as it threw up 2 important points. One is that they were trying to read the lyrics instead of just say the words, and secondly they were singing in katakana, which doesn’t fit the rhythm! Once they’d figure that out, it was a bit easier, but still very interesting! So then I moved on to the Balloon Game which they just loved! Elementary school teachers go mad for these types of game!!! And then the Food Worksheet game, which they thought was clever and useful, but they weren’t as crazy as the balloons!

The usual questions came up again, pronunciation, curriculum, how to communicate with ALTs, and I showed them all the info I have on the site, but I think they are all looking for the “Pera Pera Pill“, rather than reading up and learning the skills. I can quite sympathise with their time constraints, but I also know that if they took the time to just read up a bit it would save them a heck a lot of worry time! And that is far more stressful! But they are good teachers and the excellent attitude of the kids speaks for itself.

Wow, so that certainly was a day and a half!! But it was good to get back in school again, I’d love to be an ALT again! But I wouldn’t want to be a Home Room Teacher, they make far too much work for themselves! It was so good to see the kids getting the English and being able to use it, unlike most kids they actually answered when I asked them things like “Where’s my computer bag?” later on.

It will be very cool to see how these kids do.

And for me I’m now on the train back to Fukuoka, where I’m going to have a 2 days of business emails waiting for me. Fun. fun, fun!