There’s a reason why Okayama City’s teachers are considered some of the best in the country, it’s because they are all forced to teach on their own and hence usually just get on with the job instead of only discussing how to get on with the job!

As it’s my 5th ( 6th?) year here I wanted to talk about how to link the various themes together so that the kids can use what they’ve previously learnt. For example many schools simply set their curriculum up with things like “fruits”, then “jobs”, then “feelings” etc. but as there’s no links between the English used, instead of building up a structure a layer at a time, it turns into islands that are isolated from each other. So ideas to fix this was my aim for the day. I planned on introducing a ton of different lessons that all flow, link in and compliment each other. For example today we did:

Do you like food? which then in the next week’s lesson links in to …
Do you like animals? Same English, different topic. The next lesson would be …
Do you have any pets? Same topic, new English. Then….
Baby Monkey family. Off the path you may say, but then we link it with the previous theme to get…
Do you have any brothers or sisters?

You see how they all flow and overlap into each other, whilst all still being phrases that the kids ask and use all the time.

Next was the adjectives themes, which we could then link up with the animals this morning for the pink fish game. Again, building on what they’ve studied and using the old language in new ways. It’s such a fantastic feeling when you learn just one new phrase that you can mix into your skill set to make hundreds of brand new expressions.

We also did the similar thing with the Come on, Come on song, which you follow up in the next lesson with the Can you play? lesson, which I would then follow up with I can do it?

There is actually a ton of content there, almost a year’s worth, and I was really surprised the teachers could keep up in the morning, but in the afternoon I think I had burnt them out! But a lot of those themes most teachers won’t even touch as they say they are “too difficult” ( i.e. it’s just that they haven’t learnt them themselves!), but when you build it up layer by layer, gradually going from the shallow to deeper water, you can eventually swim out on your own. The teachers today were great at this. There were also 8 new ALTs here today. The BOE had printed the Japanese Lesson Plans book for all the teachers, so I also set the Japanese teachers the task of explaining the games to the ALTs in English, which was also a great success.

The first problem was that for half of the teachers it was their first time at my workshop ( we never usually do more than 100 teachers a year and there are nearly 1000 in the city!). The other teachers managed to pull them along as they knew the Genki English motivation ideas, but when I came to talk about goals and things, which I figured would be a 5 minute review, they had no concept at all of goal setting for their classes. I was a bit taken aback and as I didn’t have my goals workshop prepared I sort of made a mess of a half hearted explanation which nobody got. Sorry!

But worse than that was the general lack of communication skills. The aim of a lot of the higher level themes is to use the English to give information to another party i.e. communication. If the message doesn’t get across, it’s not communication, it’s just moving your mouth. For example in the “I have a question” Guessing Game the kids, or teachers in this case, have to ask questions to figure out what object was chosen. Nobody could hear them! I was in a bit of a panic as I figured the mics were broken. Afterwards I checked and they weren’t. The problem was simply that the teachers were refusing to speak in a voice loud enough for anyone to hear. “Shyness” doesn’t cut it as an excuse, this is a basic fundamental skill, if you’re far away, move closer, if you’re too quiet, speak louder or more clearly. There’s no point just moving your mouth if the other person can’t hear. The only person who could do it? The ALT!

The same in the Pink Fish game, I couldn’t hear a word any of the teachers said. If this was in a classroom nobody would get any points until we could all hear what was being said, the kids usually get this in 5 minutes or so. But today, the only person who could do it? Another of the ALTs! This has nothing to do with English proficiency, it’s a simple communication skill, and it’s easy now to see why most Japanese companies say the skill is decidedly lacking in their new recruits. If teachers don’t realise it, kids will never learn.

Finally we did the Where is Baby Monkey? theme and game. This time the ALTs were saying “Why are the teachers over thinking everything so much?”. They couldn’t get their heads round the rules at all. Again it was up to yet another ALT, who couldn’t even understand the instructions as they were in Japanese, to take the lead and figure out how to win the game. Although I actually messed up the ending by missing one of the cards – very embarrassing & sorry again!

Anyway, it was maybe a bit too much for one day, and I guess I can’t complain as I messed up quite a few of the things myself. Usually when there are so many new people I do take it very slowly and a lot more “holding hands”. But the other half of the teachers who knew Genki English wanted to see the next level and I really wanted to show them that. I can see why the kids at the school I went to the other month were so good, because their teachers have their goals set and know how to communicate!

I think next year I’ll split the course up and re-do the basics for first timers. But for today, certainly very good on the courage on tackling higher themes, no problems on teaching kids the basic level stuff and with a few tricks to really experience what “communicating” actually means then I think most of the teachers can be as good as the many superstar teachers that Okayama already has!