Job Discussion Forums

[tokyo_girl]

I was a history teacher in my previous life and don't have much theoretical background in language acquistion or language teaching.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good introductory book - oriented toward the practical rather than being very academic (I would like to avoid books that are high on jargon) - that would be a good place to start.

It appears the school I will be at has no program as such for the conversation course. In Australia I was accustomed to outcomes reporting - that you had to have specific teaching goals. It seems not to be like that in Japan. I am not really sure what I should be setting as target outcomes for my students - junior and senior high students that I will see once or twice a week.

Is there a list of outcomes that go with each STEP test that I could use as a basis for prgraming? I have yet to come across copies of the step test.

I have not met them yet but the previous teacher has told me that the level is quite low.

[PAULH]

Tokyo Girl


I have not taught in a high school ( I teaach at university level) but have a good understanding of the education system here and what they are taught in the high schools.

First- are you teaching under the JEt program as an assistant to the the Japanese teacher, or more like an ALT (Assistant language teacher) who will be given your own classes? A lot depends on the school, the attitude of the teacher you work with and what they are trying to achieve.

If the students are being prepared for exam preparation such as STEP the teaching method will be quite different than if you are trying to etach them a regular conversation course as you will be teaching them test-taking techniques, how to listen for 'gist' and content of questions.

I taught STEP briefly at a university I worked at an generally the spoken ability of students in listening and speaking is quite low. I am familiar with teaching TOEIC and aquick check on a Japanese STEP website would suggest they are lower than 450 on the TOEIC which is about a Level 3 or below on a STEP test. You are dealing with students who have been studying English grammar for only a couple of years, they study English once a week and have no chance to use the English they learn. generally speaking English lessons are taught IN Japanese with very little spoken English being used. For high school students you will be teaching them very basic English such as greetings and inttroductions, present and past tenses, descriptions etc. Students will want a chance to hear a native speaker and learn to speak with correct intonation rather than 'Japanese' phoneticised English as used by their Japanese teacher.
If you are only seeing them once or twice a week you will have them for about 30 periods during the term or about 30-40 hours per semester. You will not see a lot of progress in that time and their main energies will also be focussed on studying for the entrance examinations. Many schools are introducing communicatiev english into their curriculums but often it takes a back seat to the more important entrance exam preparation which is heavily reliant on grammar and rote memoristaion.

I dont know the circumstances of the particular school you are talking about and the role of communicative English in the curriculum (is it lip service and the foreign teacher is just a decorative assistant, or do they play a more important role)? These are things you have to find out.

I have a background in teaching TOEIC and to some extent STEP tests (about a decade ago) so you would best concentrate on teaching the early levels of STEP. TOEIC has come out with a new test called 'TOEIC Bridge' for students with scores under 400, which is shorter and more punchy that ma be of benefit as well- I know they are teaching the shorter version high schools in Japan now.

As Imentioned teaching for a conversation class and teaching for a STEP test require different techniques so you have to be clear about what your aims are and what you want them to be able to do.

Hope this helps and please post if you have more questions.

As for books I can think of a couple - I think H Douglas Brown has put out a good book for new teachers beginning teaching EFL and one I have is "Success in English Teaching" (Davies Pearse, Oxford) which is for people thing of teaching overseas.

[tokyo_girl]

Thanks - that's very helpful.

I am teaching at a private girls school and basically have my own clases.
I do 'share' one very small class but the teacher with whom I share the class has very poor English so I expect it might turn into a year long observation class for her (that's not my intention but I have found myself clarifying things with her in Japanese because she doesn't understand. I asked her how she planned to teach the class and she thought her basic technique would be to say a sentence and get the students to repeat after her....)

I got the feeling today I might be there as a token foreigner which would be pretty disappointing but I guess I don't have to lower myself to their expectations...

The conversation classes are not integrated into the rest of the English program. Furthermore it seems like I am not accountable to anyone for the class... I have asked the school what grammar points are being taught at what stage so that I can aim to do oral classes that are with familiar grammar - if they haven't done past tense I don't want to start asking what did you do in the holidays. I was told 'there isn't really anything like this' . I am not sure if that is true or not true - perhaps it was easier than showing me...

I don't know what the schools objectives are with either English or the conversation component - I get the feeling that they mightn't know either actually. The students do sit for the STEP test. I haven't been asked to, and am not interested in teaching exam technique - their grammar teachers can do that - my Japanese is very weak and no up to explanation of this type of thing.

I think my teaching will be more effective if I try to write a program - I was struggling with what to put in it. The STEP test grammar seems the most feasible so far - I picked up a copy of books 5,4 and 3 today at school. Is there an actual grammar vocab outline that goes with it.

Otherwise maybe going through the books and picking out the sentence patterns and vocab may be the best option. Has this already been done in a text book?


Thanks

[PAULH]

Tokyo Girl

From what I read you are just going to tie yourself in knots as you will be doing something you are not trained to do nor have experience in and 'overlapping' the Japanese teachers classes. The Japanese teacher has learnt English with the grammar-translation method, is taught to teach that way at teachers college, without the need to ever use conversational or spoken English. English here is taught as if it were Latin back home.


If you are trying to teach them conversation using grammar that the students study in their class with their Japanese teacher, you will be doing things in class that are way above their heads in terms of difficulty and level of acquisition and they are simply not capable of doing in your class. They are not learning grammar to speak English but becuase that is what they will need to know in the university entrance exam which is 99% written, multi-choice, underline the phrase, translate this passage etc. Speaking does not come into it.

To give you an idea what the Japanese teacher does when she teaches an English class.

English classes in Japanese high schools are highly teacher centered, where the teacher stands up the front of the class with a text book in his hand, reads the english sentence and translates it into Japanese. She then explains the grammatical parts in Japanese and the students make notes in japanese in their books. They will not try to say the words or use them in context. Think of it as a class where the teacher is a mechanic and pulling a car to bits and explaining what each nut and bolt means. No one ever teaches the students how to get in and drive the car.

What you are doing in the conversation class is teaching them how to drive, not how to dissasemble a car engine. Japanese spend six years learning evety bit of grammar, every bit of vocabulary, memorise it for the entrance exam and then forget evrything they learn. iI have students in my first year class with six years under their belt but they can not tell me the time, how to get to the bus stop or tell me what they did yesterday.

What you should be doing in your classes is not teach them grammar because as a native speaker you have not had to study grammar but picked it up through natural acquisition i.e since you were a baby and copied your parents. In a conversation class you will be using the grammar but not at the level that the Japanese teacher is using it in her class. She is teaching a very theoretical version which is way above the students level of understanding or usage. She is also teaching in the students own language whcih you obviously can not do. You will not be able to teach them past tenses, conditional -if clauses, superlatives etc in Japanese even if you wanted to.

As conversation teachers teaching elementary students what you are doing is teaching them how to drive by giving them the keys, showing themthe steering wheel and gear lever, not putting them in a Ferrari.
In a conversation class the class should be student centered i.,e not you standing up the front giving a lecture but having you model the lesson or dialog and then getting them working in pairs or small groups e.g. for using the presenb tense I might use surveys where they have to go round and ask questions from 6 people e.g whats your favorite icecream> whats your favorite sport etc.

Probably a good book to start with for really low beginners or high school students, a book that uses grammar points and is conversationally based is Side by Side. This one uses pattern drills to teach 1st and second person (I, you he etc) verb agreement, tense agreement, -ing verbs etc.

If you look in the contents of most elementary english conversation text books they will list the grammar points contained in the lesson e.g. present tense, future tense, conditionals.
Chances are that as a native speaker of English they probably wnat you to teach natural spoken English, not grammar and you will do things like role-play, pair work dialogs, interviews, Q & A. As your Japanese teacher has not learnt English this way it is totally foreign to here, to use communicative teaching methods that we use. If she is interested in English conversation you can invite her to join in your class but she may alsoi be embarassed to admit she does not speak English in front of her students, seeing as she is their English teacher.

In summary,


for a conversation class dont concentrate on teaching grammar or eeping up with your Japanese teacher- they will be way ahead of you in content area and they do it IN JAPANESE.

Make the classroom student centered, not teacher centered. get the students doing the talking, not the teacher.
Make learning fun by concentrating not on explaining grammar rules by but showing how we use it e.g. what we do every day (present tense) what we did yesterday (past tense)
get students being active by getting them asking questions with their partners, playing games to find out information etc.

[tokyo_girl]

I am not in knots!
It's just that I am not quite sure what to expect!
I do teach that way at the moment at an eikaiwa where I have free reign over what is taught - I get the kids to ask each other questions and try and take a back seat.
I have no intention of teaching grammar at all . I was just wanting to avoid being in a situation where kids want grammatical explanations to something they are learning.

[PAULH]

Tokyo Girl

I can only speak from my experience with my students but in general I will avoid getting into grammatical discussions with my students as it will only confuse them further- if thy are high school they wont really understand the mechanics of learning a foreign language and if you are fuzzy on grammar yourself it may make things harder for them, especially if you try to explain in English.


. Usually the conversation lesson is geared to their level of acquisition i.e what they are capable of picking up on their own with your help by the use of gesture role play, pattern drills etc. If the lesson is at the right level students can work out what the rules are on their own without the need for a detailed explanation by the teacher. for presnet tense e.g draw a clock on the board and say what do you do at 7 oclock, at 9 oclock etc while pointing at the board. use picture and cue cards if you have to. " I eat breakfast, I get dressed etc. Make a game out of it . Once they get present you can then do past future etc. For past perfect you can do 'have you. ever...? ' Make a game out of it and get them asking their friends.

I do not usually get into grammatical discussions with my students- I have had students ask me the difference between present perfect and past perfect, or use of articles and prepositions etc but i will simply say I dont know or get them to ask their Japanese teacher. I do know how to answer in japanese or even answer individually but it slows down the lesson considerably.

Im not sure about what the goals of your class are but i suspect that the school wants to introduce a communicative aspect into their curriculum and its a bit of a diversion for the students and not seen as being a 'serious part of the curriculum. Serious learning goes on in the japanese teachers class and not the gaijins class. If they have not told you what the goals of the course are or what you are supposed to be doing, you are doing your own thing, you are free to do what you like so make it fun., light and breezy and make the kids feel like they are actually learning something, that English is not just about memorising grammar and vocabulary they will never use. Make the language applicable to their daily lives, and dont confuse them with grammar explanations. With the stuff you do in class they should be able to work out the rules on their own, or else the class is too difficult for them. Probably a good idea is to learn the basic phrases describing each grammar point e.g. present tense (genzai-kei; past tense kako-kei an dannounce th egoal of the llesson at the beginnining of class. Students will tune into what you are focussing on and will understand the goal of the lesson and what you wnat them to do (you might wnat to learn a few command phrases such as get into pairs, role-play, listen etc.


You will get some students who wont want to study in your class unless it has direct application to their exam preparation class, but the goals of each class are completely different. Its like having a train going in two different directions.


You are not being asked to to teach them grammar, so DON'T. Make the lesson relevant to their lives, use simple language- if you are teaching junior high school you are talking about 14-15 year olds with a very limited command of the language. they can not understand basic sentence structure let alone a complicated explanation in English, so i dont even try. (Usually I will use some Japanese with individual students but seeing as you dont speak Japanese you will just have to get them to speak with the Japanese teacher, or for them to give a quick explanation in Japanese.

[Mike L.]

I teach my own conversation class, all 1st grade, in a co-ed high school in Tokyo. Your situation sounds very familliar. I was dropped in there last September with nothing and no experience teaching this level. As of next week I will have 15 classes of 20 kids every week. The school has absolutely no expectations of me.

But, this is a good thing. It means you can focus on building basic conversation skills without interference. Beyond this, your most important goal, you can make sure they know how to do things like write basic sentences etc. Your focus may be conversation but other skills are important too.

The previous poster is dead on about the other instruction they are recieving. My kids are doing things like reading the Japan Times with their Japanese English teachers and are expected to grasp terms like "nuclear non-proliferation." The level is beyond them. The tests they are given are a joke. Fill in the blank type deals where you write in either the appropriate English or Japanese vocabulary. They probably forget it all after their exams.

The older English teachers in my school can't even speak English! :shock:

Anyways, my point: You are totally in charge by the sounds of it. Design a simple curriculum with attainable goals in mind. Use the first class for some administrative stuuff and try to figure out the level of your kids. Then try to do things appropriate to that level.

If you want a really good book I recommend "Now You're Talking" by Chris Elvin. It can be photo- copied and tapes for some listening activites can be had too. The activites are straight forward, interactive, at times fun, and try to get the students talking. I'm going to use parets of it in combination with my own material.

You can get it at the English Resource Center in Shinjuku . Sorry I don't have the address and it's not easy to find.

Good luck! :lol:

[tokyo_girl]

Thanks Mike

I have checked the address of the Book Shop you recommended.

http://www.englishresource.com/

I hadn't come across it before.

Thanks and best wishes

[Glenski]

Tokyo girl,

I teach at a private high school, too. Heed Paul's and Mike's words of advice.

If you want to discuss things privately, send me an email.

What I and the other foreign teachers do at my school is use whatever resources we have on hand as best can. That means if we are supposed to teach a speaking class that parallels the syllabus from a Japanese teacher's listening class with grammar, then we look at that syllabus and do the best we can. Last year the book we had was awful, and even though the kids had to buy it, we never used a single page. We made all of our activities to practice the grammar points (learned in the J teacher's classes). So, we cut and pasted material from books like Side by Side, Talk a Lot, and many other eikaiwa materials.

The key for the speaking practice, in my opinion, is to have students in pairs or very small groups. And, if you can give the classroom an atmosphere of fun without putting on a clown's makeup and costume, that's good, too. Give directions about 20% of the period, then let them do the talking for 80%. Don't treat it as a grammatical exercise. If you have to slip in pronunciation activities, so be it.

I've written before that foreign teachers shouldn't be surprised when J schools take the grades they've given to students and adjust them to fit their own designs on who & how many get (the equivalent of) A's, B's, etc. So, just do your best to get the kids to practice stuff that they should be learning in their other classes. Talk to those Japanese teachers to find out what is being taught. Even if you don't have good Japanese skills, and they don't have good English skills, they are not ogres and will be willing to tell you what they do. You CAN communicate with them.

Good luck.

[tokyo_girl]

Thanks Glenski.

Iam sure I will be able to get along there no problem - so far
though things there have been a little unusual though.
When I asked about what the students learn in their other classes
- whether there was a curriculum etc I got a very blank look
and was told only government schools have this. They did give
me the reading text book though that the students use.

I had to go in on Mon. There was a ceremony for new teachers -
so I got up with the other people at my table to go down to it
and was told by the teacher in charge that I wasn't to go - I was
to wait in the staffroom.... So I waited there until everyone came
back - there was no explanation of why I wasn't to go - nor did
I have anything to do in the time that the other teachers were
attending the ceremony. There were no department
meetings - .( I was expecting there would be discussion by the dept.
about what the agenda for the year was.) No nothing. A complete
waste of a day...

At the end of the day I said to the other teachers at my desk - who
are all quite pleasant - that I would see them on Thurs- and they all
said they weren't coming in until Fri - the day the lessons begin.
Being a bit puzzled I thought I should check with the teacher in charge
of 'part time teachers - what ever that means since i am there five
days a week - whether I should come in on Thurs or Fri.
She went to check with someone else and came back and said thurs.
I asked her what I would be doing on the Thurs and she said work.
I asked her (very nicely) what sort of work - [I haven't met the class
and there are no records of their level in last years class - so it is pretty
hard to do much planing] as I didn't really have much of my own
work to do at this point. She said just work. I asked if this meant I just
needed to look busy and was it OK if I brought in other work - and she said yes.....

My (Japanese) husband was quite upset when I told him about it - esp not
being allowed to go to the ceremony on Mon. I am not bothered - though
I am a little bemused. Does this sound normal for a Japanese high
school? It strikes me as being very different from a school in Australia.

[Brooks]

well today we had our opening ceremony for the 10th graders (or ichinensei) at my high school, which is private, in Tokyo (Machida to be precise). If you teach full-time we have to go, but if we are part-time, we go if we want to.

One thing that was not mentioned is teaching listening.
I know administrators want our students to speak English well, but we shouldn`t put the cart before the horse.
Students need to be able to tell the difference between sounds in English (especially the vowels, but a few consonents too - l/r, b/v).
I recommend the book by Rinvolucri called Dictation, published by Cambridge. It is good for the students to write for a dictation, so you can see what they know.
I like to use CDs, tapes, and video too.

Pronunciation is also important. Last February I made all of my students give a speech. I made them evaluate each of the students. One thing I liked is that they noticed that if a student had good intonation, it made it easier to understand the student.

I think a topic based course is good. It is good for students to be able to talk about themselves. So that focuses on school, what they do in their free time, their hobbies, sports, vacations, etc.
Japanese students spend a lot of time at school, so we often talk about things related to school.

Talk a Lot is a good book but it worked better for me at the junior high.
But for 15 year olds it is good.
I am going to try a new book this year, called 50/50 by Longman.
The focus is on listening ad speaking.

At my school full-time teachers get 150,000 yen a year to buy books and materials. The money is given by the Tokyo government.
This may be true for teachers at your school too.

Brooks

[PAULH]

Tokyo-girl

None of my business really but a couple of cultural issues that you may want to be aware of:

You mentioned you are there5 days a sweek: That I guess would make you full-time (albeit on a one or two year contract). Part timers as such only teach a couple of days a week and just come in to teach their classes (I was part time for ten years at university and only came in on my teaching days). As a full-timer you probably have to be there when there are no lessons and during holidays as well, and look busy, by studying Japanese etc. It seems strange they have you at work but you cant attend the opening ceremony. (I ma full time myself but I neevr go to the entrance and graduation ceremonies- maybe it depends on the school)

Maybe they think if you dont speak and understand Japanese you dont need to attend.

I dont know about high schools but it sounds like you are being left out of the loop in a big way- no one seems to know whats going on or what to do with you, or keep you informed. Has anyone described what your job decription is or what you are supposed to be doing? It took me 6 months to work out what I was supposed to do, so it may pay to find out what you can and cant do.

As a foreigner who doesnt speak much Japanese you will be fairly low on the pecking order of the faculty, may not be expected to attend faculty meetings, and much less participate.

Foreign teachers are generally seen and not heard at faculty meetings, even if you speak Japanese, so even if you went you probably may not have much input into the discussion, especially if no one is telling what what you should be doing in classes or how it fits in to the curriculum. I may be way off base here but no one seems to be helping you get oriented, telling you what you should be doing or easing you into the school rhythm. Is there anyone you can talk to or are you just bouncing into walls?

This is not to be critical of you but methinks that in the eyes of the school you seem to be the 'token gaijin' to be pulled out in front of the students and the 'international' face of the school and nobody is telling you whats going on and perhaps leaving you in the staff room like some kind of staff pet.

[Glenski]

[tokyo_girl]

Suspicions rise... Didn't they tell you how their lessons were planned?

No they didn't - but at my table there are three other teachers, two
of whom are also new and seem to have not much idea of what
is going on - at least when I ask them questions they don't really have
any answers.



Don't you know if you signed a contract for FT or PT work? If not, why not?

I don't know if I am part time because it doesn't say so in the contract - the contract is actually extremely vague. It says I have to work 20 lessons / week according to schedules prepared by the high school. Mon-Fri 8.30-4. Monthy salary - 300,000Y will be paid on the 15th of each month. Vacation will be paid according to mutually agreed upon schedule.
This is tricky. They gave me a calandar of the term dates and I have assumed that like Australia I work on school days - not other days. If it has to be mutually agreable that is what I am sticking by as that is the info I was given at my interview (written in Japanese).

It matters because your benefits hinge on that fact. In contrast to what my colleague Paul wrote, five days a week at a high school don't necessarily qualify a teacher for FT work.

I am in the part time teachers staff room.... and have been told I have to write a test. Nothing has been said about extra-curricula activities - other than a brief mention of an excursion to Australia and being asked if I would help with the organisation....


teachers do not, and they can leave by 4pm. I taught 15 classes a week last year, and my FT co-worker taught 17. This year, I am FT, and I teach 16, while my PT co-workers teach 15 and 16. Some work 5 days a week, while others work 1-4 days a week.


Foreign teachers are generally seen and not heard at faculty meetings, even if you speak Japanese, so even if you went you probably may not have much input into the discussion,

I don't really care at this stage whether I have input or not - I just would like to know what was going on a little more clearly.

There are no other gaijins there - I am under the impression that classes
start on Fri - maybe that is isn't the case....

perhaps leaving you in the staff room like some kind of staff pet.


For a pet I can get very sharp fangs!!

[Brooks]

unfortunately, you will probably have to do as I have done at my school.
That is, ask if you don`t know something. Many times have I had to do this.
Today I innocently asked when 4th period started today. Turns out that 4th period is before lunch this year. It is a good thing I asked because there could have been students waiting for a teacher who wasn`t going to show up.
My boss had forgotten to mention it to me.

I really have to be a self-starter here. More than I want to be.

Brooks