I was booked today by the Shiga Prefectural Board of Education for a 3 hour workshop in the afternoon. In the morning a university professor was presenting. Hence I made sure I was there to check that anything stupid wasn’t taught ( e.g. one university guy goes round the country telling people not to teach “What’s your name?” it should be “May I have your name please?” – he’s obviously stayed in too many hotels and not been to enough schools! Plus it really messes up my workshop when teachers refuse to sing the What’s your name song?!).

Anyway the professor today didn’t say anything too weird but I thought she was taking the “English Activities” reasoning too far. In Elementary Schools in Japan they don’t like to call English English, or Eigo, as that conjures up images of Junior High School grammar, tests etc. so they use other names such as “English Activities” or “Eigo Katsudo”. The teacher today was saying that the kids didn’t have to learn any new English, just to have fun, like a table tennis activity where getting good isn’t the aim, just playing around is cool. She then went on to prove the point by showing a video of probably the worst lesson I’ve ever seen. The kids learnt nothing new, the teacher had terrible pronunciation ( no computers) and it was just a waste of time. I dread to think that other prefectures will be promoting this as model education in their workshops. Now I can see why some teachers mis-understand what we do in elementary school if this is all they see. The only good news is that it was just “talk & chalk” (without the chalk) and half the teachers were asleep, sorry “concentrating with their eyes closed”, so weren’t too badly influenced.

There was also a session where the teachers got in groups to figure out the good points and problems of elementary school English. Good. But they didn’t offer any solutions. Not so good and not very inspiring.

So I wasn’t sure how my workshop would go down, more theory and after lunch so activities where you actually learn something might not go down too well? But no worries at all, the teachers were totally on my wavelength and were the best group I’ve had all year! We had tons of questions and for many they had never heard of Genki English so were desperate to get their hands on Superpacks.

Activities wise we did: Disco Warm Up, What’s your name?, Come on, Come on, How are you? and When is your birthday?

With these types of workshops, though, it’s not the English, that’s really easy and anyone can teach it, it’s the energy and the general teaching philosophy behind it, and it’s great to present to teachers who really get what being a teacher is all about.

So another excellent day today, and along with yesterday I’m actually enjoying this week!

Right, now a 4 hour train journey to Kagawa.