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Gaijinheadpothead
Joined: 08 Sep 2009
Posts: 27
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 Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:30 am Post subject: JHS ALT needs advise. |
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I've become a bit stumpted at the moment for ideas.
We've being doing alot of the reading sections.
How can I spruce it up, I've made some crosswords and wordsearches and stuff!
What's a good way to introduce new vocabulary?? |
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stevenbhow
Joined: 13 Mar 2008
Posts: 58
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:03 am Post subject: ALT lessons |
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This is a really good site for ALTs.
http://www.sendaiedu.com/lessons.html
Board games are a great way to introduce simple questions and phrases. The students love it. You usually need about 20-30 minutes of class time at least to set up and get it going. There's a few websites that have blank board spaces you can use or you can hand make them if you have time to kill.
Good Luck,
Steve |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:41 am Post subject: |
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Give them vocabulary before class, not the day of class. You can't expect them to look things up and remember them beyond the class time. Give them homework to look up and memorize the words.
Then, quiz them when class starts, and provide activities to recycle the words. You mentioned some good ideas already, but have you thought to polish them?
Crosswords.
Give one pair the clues for DOWN, the other pair clues for ACROSS. They read these to their partner teams who already have the answers on their puzzle page.
Or each team simply has the answer and has to MAKE the clue for the other team. |
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cornishmuppet
Joined: 27 Mar 2004
Posts: 642
Location: Nagano, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:58 am Post subject: |
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| What I did with crosswords in JHS was write the questions on cards which they they had to BUY from me. The way they got money was by asking the JTE various questions, usually in the form they were studying that class or recently (sometimes I allowed any question they liked depending on how high the grade). For each question the JTE gave them a bank note (look on google images, get the currency you want - I used pounds, made them small enough to get about twelve 10 pound notes on each sheet of A4 which I then chopped up) then the students came to me and rolled a 6-side dice. If they had enough money they could buy the question of their choice, if not they had to go back to the JTE and ask more questions. I had them doing it in groups of four usually, but you could have pairs if its a small enough class and you make more than one set of question cards. |
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move
Joined: 30 May 2009
Posts: 132
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:16 am Post subject: |
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^^^^^ I really like that. I'm totally stealing it.
For vocab review, I do a kind of criss cross game. Write the vocab words on some index cards or pieces of thicker paper. Students will walk about the room forming pairs. They give the other student a clue, and that student has to guess that word on their card.
They can give the clue in 3 ways:
1. Use the word in a sentence. "I went to the ice cream store and ordered a ____ split."
2. Give the definition. "It's a long yellow fruit."
3. Give the opposite (works better with adjectives obviously).
If the other student still can't get it, then they can give them the first letter, or start sounding it out. Most importantly, after both people have guessed the other person's word, then they switch cards, and switch partners. I tried a variation on this where they had emotions that they had to act out with charades, that was fun. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Depending on what vocabulary you are using, you could always try the old $10,000 pyramid game show approach. |
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cornishmuppet
Joined: 27 Mar 2004
Posts: 642
Location: Nagano, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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| move wrote: |
| ^^^^^ I really like that. I'm totally stealing it. |
It works well in groups because although I tell them to take it in turns to go up and ask a question you usually end up with the genki kids doing all the question-asking while the more studious types sit and figure out the puzzle. Everyone's happy.
It helps if you have an up-for-it JTE, though. If you get some douche bag who sees your class as bum time its a bit of a wake up call. Its also good to swap ALT/JTE roles every few minutes or so. |
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starteacher
Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 237
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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Forgive me for butting in but why does teaching English HAVE to be fun ? Is English that boring ? For student and/or for teacher ?
When I studied a few other languages in my teens, I do not ever recall ever having any games in class, just texts, exercises, speaking and listening and repetition, and I also never ever been to those countries. Yet managed to get through it all. |
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ssjup81
Joined: 15 Jun 2009
Posts: 664
Location: Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| starteacher wrote: |
Forgive me for butting in but why does teaching English HAVE to be fun ? Is English that boring ? For student and/or for teacher ?
When I studied a few other languages in my teens, I do not ever recall ever having any games in class, just texts, exercises, speaking and listening and repetition, and I also never ever been to those countries. Yet managed to get through it all. |
We played games in mine. It wasn't all the time, but it was nice to do something to keep things interesting. I took Spanish in school. Sometimes we'd have like maybe a Spanish Bingo or something as a way to review vocabulary.
With my Japanese lessons, I recall playing a game to help remember Hiragana and Katakana characters. It was pretty cool. She'd put down cards with, say, Hiragana characters on them. She'd then randomly call out a character (let's say...ひ)...and the first person to spot the card, has to pick it up. We continue until all the cards are gone. Whoever has the most cards, wins the game. She'd then do the same with her Katakana cards. It's helpful to try and get us to identify them faster or try to get us to the point where we can identify them without even really thinking about it, like we would our own alphabet.
A while ago, for the ESL group I volunteer teach with, I came up with a game for them to review some of the verbs and their tenses. It went over very well, and they wanted another game because it was fun compared to having to sit there and keep doing repetitious stuff. It's just like with other subjects. Lecture and stuff is okay, but it's a very boring method if you want to keep the attention of the students. For instance, a quiz game in a history class might be fun. For young kids, maybe an activity where the students get to move around.
I do feel that lessons can be both the way you explained it, but have something to make it fun and interesting as well. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| starteacher wrote: |
Forgive me for butting in but why does teaching English HAVE to be fun ? Is English that boring ? For student and/or for teacher ?
When I studied a few other languages in my teens, I do not ever recall ever having any games in class, just texts, exercises, speaking and listening and repetition, and I also never ever been to those countries. Yet managed to get through it all. |
Your personal experiences probably don't coincide with those of Japanese JHS students. Where do you teach now, BTW? |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| starteacher wrote: |
Forgive me for butting in but why does teaching English HAVE to be fun ? Is English that boring ? For student and/or for teacher ?
When I studied a few other languages in my teens, I do not ever recall ever having any games in class, just texts, exercises, speaking and listening and repetition, and I also never ever been to those countries. Yet managed to get through it all. |
I started studying languages in school at about the same age that many of these kids did. The only reason I chose to continued studying them for more than 17 years, is because I enjoyed doing it. Up until I was about 14/15 games and songs were a regular occurance.
At these young ages, many kids don't fully understand the importance of studying and even less the importance of studying English (many of my students have told me that will never use it once they leave school, so they don't understand why they have to learn it). So if a lesson is boring, they don't pay attention, they don't learn anything and it shows in their results.
But fun doesn't always have to mean playing games. You can make a lesson fun and memorable by having the right presence in class and developing a good rapport with the students. Most of my favourite childhood classes were the ones where I liked the teacher regardless of whether they plaed lots of games or not.
And perhaps if teachers tried to make subjects like English, math and science more fun back home, we wouldn't have schools turning out tens of thousands of teens every year unable to read, write or count. |
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cornishmuppet
Joined: 27 Mar 2004
Posts: 642
Location: Nagano, Japan
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| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| starteacher wrote: |
Forgive me for butting in but why does teaching English HAVE to be fun ? Is English that boring ? For student and/or for teacher ?
When I studied a few other languages in my teens, I do not ever recall ever having any games in class, just texts, exercises, speaking and listening and repetition, and I also never ever been to those countries. Yet managed to get through it all. |
Yeah, me neither, which is why I hated both German and French. In fact, one of the few classes I can remember is when a visiting German teacher taught us a song. I can still remember some of the words 15 years later.
I think a lot of the reason is that school for Japanese students is so ridculously dull and teacher-centered (walk round any JHS or SHS while classes are in session to see what I mean) that if you want the students to do anything productive you have to make it fun. Doubled with the fact that foreigners are supposed to teach SPEAKING, something that at times I think the government and Japanese teachers are actively trying to suppress, means its even more important that we do something fun if you want to hear any English at all. Case in point is that if I give my students a reading or test based task they get straight to it, because that's how they're conditioned. Give them a sheet of ask/answer questions to do with a partner and half the class starts to sleep.
What I remember from school is that every lesson had listening, speaking, reading and writing involved, pair work activities, conversations, etc. If I say that to my JTEs they just smile wistfully and go back to planning their next sleep-inducing translation lecture.
When I worked back in Eikaiwa students actually used to quit if the class wasn't fun. I even had one of the two managers I worked under tell me not to worry about teaching anything, just make it fun for the kids. Queue lots of fun, but pretty time-wasting card and bingo games. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| cornishmuppet wrote: |
| Doubled with the fact that foreigners are supposed to teach SPEAKING, something that at times I think the government and Japanese teachers are actively trying to suppress, means its even more important that we do something fun if you want to hear any English at all. |
Some JHS/HS teachers are also saddled with the responsibility of teaching reading, writing, TOEIC/TOEFL prep, speech class, prep for college entrance exams, etc.
But I know what you mean. |
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Gaijinheadpothead
Joined: 08 Sep 2009
Posts: 27
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| Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:37 am Post subject: |
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I've thought alot about what it would have been like if my german class was like this in high school!! I would have loved it , all these games and stuff.
But unfortunetly it was just the old textbook every time.We had a German teacher for awhile actually but she ended quiting because we nearly caused her to have a nervous break down! (no joke)
God , I feel so lucky I don't have to put up with that crap here in Japan.
Anyway , making these classes as fun as possible leaves everyone happy and encourages learning and improves attention , participation, energy levels, your happiness, the students happiness , the jte's happiness ( get the picture??) and keeps us all awake.
Thank you for all your ideas , my classes have already improved , and the JTE's attitude towards me, I'm happy, the students are happy, the JTE's happy. It's a wonderful world!!! |
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