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[JimDunlop2]

Hi guys,

I could really use a hand with this one.... I've been concentrating on listening skills recently to help my JHS kids bring up their listening test scores on their English exams.... It's been a hairy struggle thus far but the kids are improving (slowly) and they know what to listen for, and how to answer many questions I ask...

HOWEVER...

When it comes to numbers, the kids are hopeless! I'm not only trying to figure out why, but I'm doing my best to help them improve this aspect of their English development with little success.

For example, today I gave a listening quiz that involved a short story in English (that I read to them) followed by 5 questions. (multiple choice)...

Here is an excerpt from the test:

During winter vacation, Mike will go to Tokyo to study Japanese. He likes to study Japanese. The lessons will cost 6,000 yen for four hours.

3. How much will the lessons cost for four hours?

A. 600 yen B. 6,000 yen C. 3,600 yen D. 60,000 yen

On the test I could divide my students into two groups. Those that got 100%, and those that got questions #3 wrong. This was over half the class.... And may of the smart students too - not just the slackers.

This is all after I did a LONG class on numbers, the differences between the Japanese "man" system an our system of tens, hundreds and thousands, etc... I even did a lsitening test involving only numbers (dates, years, times, etc...) The average score (out of 20 questions) was 7.8.

Can anyone please give me some tips on how to effectively help Japanese students hear & understand numbers??? (Any and all numbers, such as dates, times, years, prices, etc...) cause major, major problems and they would be so much better if they could just get over this major obstacle.

Cheers,

JD

[canuck]

When you taught the class, how much time was spent having the kids work in groups by themselves, or how much of the class was spent lecturing?

If kids can get numbers from 1 to 999, they can get numbers from 999 trillion and down.

Bingo is great for listening skills with numbers, and when a kid gets bingo, make sure you get them to read the numbers back, after bingo.

I have not found the same problems whatsoever. Best of luck though!

[JimDunlop2]

The biggest problems I find are the following:

Stresses: i.e. the difference between thirty and thirteen, eighty and eighteen, etc, etc...

Numbers between 100 and 999

Fluency in converting numeric dates to month names (in English) or translating English months back into Japanese. They can translate shichi-gatsu to English very fluently but if I say "July" they count on their fingers...

The difference between: 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 (and being able to do it quickly enough to keep up with someone speaking these numbers

I'd do BINGO with them, but unfortunately BINGO is SO overused in JHS, the kids are sick of it just by seeing the BINGO grid sheet handed out to them...

[canuck]

13-19 Raise your hand up....TEEN
30, 40....90.....TEA, hand down

They all know tea....then go from there. Even the gesture like drinking tea sticks.

[J.]

The only way to get good at listening to numbers is to practice. Think of when you came here and how long it took you to hear all the numbers at the store. Bingo is used a lot because it's a relatively painless way to practice. I do it with kids; I do it with adults, but the key is to keep the practice time short and frequent. You can spice it up a bit by getting those packs of Hyakku-En store cards where they push back the numbers (and reusing them) and by giving little prizes, like single candies, chocolates, any gifts you want to recycle, post cards. You can gets lots of cheap ones at the Hyakku-en again. When I start off, I say the numbers twice and then hold up the card and show everyone. That way any level can play and they slowly learn what the numbers sound like. Advanced, don't show, or only show some. Also you can give the students turns to be the caller. Just don't do it so long they get bored. It's only a small part of any lesson.

Alternatively, you could try shopping role plays (using photocopied or monopoly money and coins) or just read a lot more of those stories with the embedded numbers, but I think they are far more boring than the Bingo games. :)

[J.]

I've also played Monopoly with them and get them to say the rents to whoever owes them, " sixteen dollars/sixty dollars please". You can find reasonable ones at Toys 'R Us. There's a lot of talking about money/numbers in one game.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

for thirteen v thirty (for example)

Make sure they know that the pronounciation for thirty is "[devoiced]ther-dee" (initial stress syllable) and thirteen is "[devoiced]ther-Teen" (final syllable stress). Once they know this, it's a lot easier for them.

[JimDunlop2]

Thanks for the flyswatter game... I will definitely try it.... I will just put a whole mess of various numbers or dates or prices on the blackboard, and the kids can have at er'....

As for the confusion Gambatte pointed out in the test question... I agree it's possible... But As I mentioned, I've also done a pure "numbers" test -- like a spelling bee.... There is No context -- just "listen" and "write".

Eg. ME: "Number 5..... (3 second pause) July thirteeth... (5 sec. pause) ..July thirteenth." And I DO time my pauses because when they do their actual exams, the JTE who adminster them usually want that as a standard so I stick to the standard.

This is the test where the class average was 39%. So it's not just that particular question on that particular test that alarms me, it's their overall ability.

I agree the kids need massive amounts of practice. That's why as it is, I've adopted a policy of doing some kind of listening exercise in the first 10 minutes of each class (much to the jubilation of my JTE co-teachers) because they also know the kids' listening test score are hurtin' bad, and because weekly quizes also gives them something more to grade the students with... and since we always mark our papers in class (exchange your test with a partner) there is no correction involved... The JTE only has to record the grades in his/her ledger.

P.S. The example question about Mike and the 6,000 yen Japanese lessons is from an actual ni-nensei final exam (listening portion). That particular one I didn't make up arbitrarily.... Although I have made up other ones that are very similar.

[J.]

Sounds like you are doing your best to give them lots of practice listening. I guess I think, like gambattebbb, they are not hearing the distinction between the -teens and -tys. Maybe you need to point out the longer "e" sound and emphasize the "n" sound at the end of the -teens. In my experience students don't really hear the end of words and are often dropping them off in English, as they do in Japanese. I also blame the katakanization of English sounds that begins around JHS, I think. Maybe teaching a few phonics of the most common mistakes would help. I feel if they can recognize and say the words they have a better chance to remember them and hear them. (But all this takes time and it would have been better learned at a younger age.)

Also the students probably don't have much practical knowledge using English numbers. I know this doesn't seem to have any immediate relation to being able to pass those exams (with questions about Japanese lessons that probably none of the students will ever take and therefore have little practical knowledge of), but I think it means that numbers are harder to remember. If they actually get their hands on something real and practical to do with numbers and start integrating that knowledge into their lives, they would have a better chance to relate to them as more than just a bunch of spinning sounds and figures that they have to "translate" into Japanese before they can understand them. I don't know what the answer is for you because you are so obviously having to prepare them for just the tests, and probably that's all you have time for. But if you can introduce some "meaning/context" into the lessons, maybe it might help. Can they relate the -teen and -ty to real amounts and use logic to figure out which would be the most likely in any given problem?

This is no criticism of you, but spending all one's time preparing for tests and not learning anything very practical or interesting is the focus of the present, and fairly useless, way of approaching English in the schools, as we all know. I hope in the future it will improve. In the meantime we do what we can. Gambatte.

[JimDunlop2]

J. It's true. I have to spend a good deal of my time preparing students for their exams, BUT given the fact that I'm also the foreign English teacher, I have more leeway than my JTE co-workers.

I usually teach each class once a week... (Out of 3 hours a week of English)... IF I can churn out a solid 2 classes a month that are aimed specifically at exam prep/textbook consolidation, I can use the remaining time for more creative activities... Stuff like teaching the practicality of using numbers in English....

This balance also works well with the other staff.... I find that if I start teaching any more extra-curricular activities than that, I start getting increased requests to abstain from attending classes because the students get too far behind in their textbook and the JTE wants to use the class specifically to get the students to catch up.

Next year, I anticipate the problem will only be marginally better because 1-nensei becomes 2-nensei and 2nensei becomes 3nensei... ALL 3 grades are FAR behind this year.... Just to give you an indication, 2-nensei right now is just barely getting through Program 9 in Sunshine 2.

So, if you have any practical ways to help me integrate that into their lives, please give me some input... It would be appreciated.

Funny you should mention "logic" because I introduced the concept of logic to them when I was teaching them "How to Succeed in a Listening Test 101."

In the original example question I listed above, after most of the kids get it wrong, I show them HOW they could have answered the problem even without understanding much English...

First, I write all 4 answers on the board, then I ask them if anyone would be interested if I offered them "eikaiwa" for 600 yen for 4 hours. Many hands go up. I explain that LOGICALLY speaking, that answer doesn't make sense because it's just way too cheap. Then I cross off 600 yen from the board with a red chalk. Again, I ask who would be interested in my "eikaiwa" class if I charged them "roku-man yen." The loud kids in the class usually respond with: "Yada! Takai yo!" So, I say "Exactly" and proceed to cross out the 60,000 yen answer. Finally, I point out to them that 3 out of 4 answers start with the number "6" so LOGICALLY it stands to reason that the people who wrote the test are trying to determine if you can tell the difference between 600, 6000 and 60000, so we can pretty safely erase the 3,600 yen answer. At this point, I usually get some "oohs" and "ahhs" and "sugoi!!!" followed by jotting down mad notes in their notebooks because I don't think many Japanese teachers ever show them this kind of stuff.....

The "logic" concept is #3 in a 3-part approach I teach them in how to do a listening test. #1 I teach them not to panic when they hear spoken English, and not to worry when they can't understand ever word they hear... I tell them that if they TRY to undertand 100% they will only drive themselves nuts... #2 I introduce the concept of "keywords" and give the kids some ways to pick out keywords in a sentence or question... That way they target their listening straight to what's really important. E.G. In the question: "How much will the lessons cost for 4 hours?" the keywords are "How much" and "cost." You don't need any other words to answer the question correctly. That's 3 words out of a sentence containing 9 words... I also tell them that there will ALWAYS be a VERB that is a keyword because you cannot have an English sentence without a verb (unlike Japanese where you can). Finally, #3 is using "logic" in the way I explained above.

As a bit of an epilogue, the "numbers" thing is a work-in-progress, and likely WILL be for some time... However on a highly POSITIVE note, the latest batch of practice test scores show an exponential rise! Over 1/2 of each class across all three grade levels scored 100% on their last test... Made me feel really good, y'know...

[J.]

Jim:

Seems what you are doing is working, so keep up the good work!

I really like the idea of teaching strategies for passing the listening test. I have done the same with high school students studying for college entrance. It really makes a difference if you teach test-taking strategies, and that goes for any tests whether they be TOEFL, Step, or school. I got two marginal students through the Interview with these alone, including coaching on confident posture and advice to look in the interviewers' eyes rather down or over his/her shoulder.

On the question of practical lessons for your students. I am a little thin on ideas there, because I'm teaching younger children and adults and my experience with JHS has been limited to short listening/ pronunciation modules in longer lessons, using the New Horizons Texts. Also so much depends on the character of your students and each class, what they will do and won't do, as you noted with the Bingo. However, I think I would start by talking to the students and asking what they spend money on in their lives, where they get it, how much they have, if they had x amount of yen what would they buy with it, anything to gather some info about how they view and use money. Then design some exercises where they detail their use of money, write it down and then ask some of them for the answers in class. Or get some pictures of some great new tech things( or real ones) or other things they might want and hold them up and get everyone to guess the prices before you reveal the answer. For dates you can ask them "What's the date today?" at the beginning of every class and have them write it and answer orally.( If they do it every class they will start to remember all the months.)

You could get each student to write his/ her birthday on a slip of paper and collect them. Write the students names on the board next to numbers from 1 to x and then read off the dates and students will try to guess whose birthday it is and write the number. These are just beginnings of ideas off the top of my head, so might be a little weak, but are examples of starting to get the students listening, writing and speaking numbers they are using in their everyday lives. The more they do this the more comfortable they should be with them. Good luck!

J.