Some More Warm Ups

So the school year has just begun and there is a lot of notebook organizing and preliminary explanations going on. Since we're not really into the book yet that's given me some time to experiment with some warm ups. Some I got from other teachers, some I came up with myself. I'll explain how I did them and what the reaction to them was like.

One Letter
I divided the blackboard into four sections. (The students desks are usually arranged in four columns. Each column consists of two desks side by side so that makes it easy to divide the class into four groups) At the top of each section I wrote a single letter. A in one C in another S and D were the letters I started with. Then I told the kids that they had to think of as many words  that began with those letters as they could. I made the rule that they couldn't use their dictionaries or textbooks. It all had to come from their heads. I gave them three minutes to write the words on the blackboard, first one kid then the next for three minutes. At the end of three minutes I called time. Before counting the words to see which team won I read the words out loud and had the kids repeat after me. Words that were misspelled or were not words at all were crossed out and not counted.

For the second round I tried it with consonant blends: gl, gr, br like that. Because I expected it to be harder that round went for only one minute. They actually did better than I thought they would.

Some things  I noticed

I was able to correct spelling mistakes on words that I crossed out. 

Sometimes a kid would misspell a word but still come up with something meaningful.  A young man trying to spell brown came up with brawn. I was able to correct his spelling mistake and teach him a new word to forget.

The two classes I did this with enjoyed it.

It doesn't require any preparation beyond a blackboard and is easy to explain. Either by having the JTE translate or by writing on the board. This is a good thing in a warm up. They're not supposed to take up half of the class time, the JTE has his or her material to get through.

Last Man Standing

I had all the kids stand up. Then I asked some simple questions. The kid who could answer the question was allowed to sit down. They could also pick two friends to sit down too. Very simple. If you want to you could also vary the way the students are allowed to sit down. Instead of having the student who answers correctly chose friends  you could say that if a student answers correctly the two students behind him or her get to sit down. Or, if the student answers correctly everyone in his row gets to sit down; the next correct answer allows everyone in the student's column to sit down. You alternate row, column, row, column.

Things I noticed

The kids really enjoyed the game--important.

It allows me to ask questions that review whatever material the kids are studying.

Again, it's easy to prepare (you almost don't have to prepare at all) and quick to do.

The Secret Word

I had the JTE sit in front of the class with her back to the blackboard and told her not to turn around and look. On the blackboard I wrote a word. It was monkey.

Then I told the kids that they had to make the teacher say the word. Not by using gestures or by using the word but by asking questions. I was hoping for something like What animal lives in a tree. What I got was silence.

Things I noticed

I got silence.

I wanted something that would make the students generate some English beyond writing on the board and answering questions but I think I made a mistake in having the kids ask questions. Maybe if the rules were a little more open ended it would have been better. Instead of just questions maybe allowing them to say words like banana, jungle, tree words that suggested the secret word.  Now that I think of it I believe there used to be a game show on US television called Password that was based on that idea.

Check Out the Useful Links

There is a new link in the Useful Links field that should prove very valuable. It's called Englipedia and it looks to have speaking and writing and listeninsg exercises built around the Plus Units of the New Horizon books. There's also something for elementary school, games for using with Eigo Notes. The home page also provides links to information related to the slow motion disaster taking place in Fukushima; information on radiation levels, the IAEC's facebook page and so on.

Grade 1 Unit 1 Are From America?

Filter's off. And just in time for the new school year. Here's something new for first year students that gives them a chance to practice most of the 基本　sentences in the first chapter. Each student is given a copy of this worksheet and one of these flags. The flag represents the student's nationality for the purposes of the game and of course there'll have to be some preliminary discussion to make sure the students are familiar with all of the flags. I chose six at random that I thought the students would already know. ALTs who want to make changes and use the flags of their home countries, go right ahead. Although there is more than one way to do this here's the variation I'll use.

1. Two players meet.


2. They do the necessary greeting, I don't care who goes first.


3. They janken.


4. The winner of the janken gets to ask the question. "Are you from ...?"


5. The loser answers with yes or no and tells where they are from.


6. Only the winner gets to record the answer and collect information.

Doing it that way adds a competitive element. Or, you could remove the need to do the janken and just have the kids talk to as many partners as possible; with or without a time limit. The person who gets the most can collect a sticker Yeah! Stickers!

I've been thinking about making a special sheet on which the students can collect stickers rewards. Many of the teachers use them and it's always surprising how motivating they can be.

I remember when I was their age something like that would have seemed puerile (note to self: check dictionary and make sure I'm using that word right) and almost insulting. I probably stopped being interested in gold stars about the age of nine.

Anyway, the kids all have their English notebooks that they are encouraged to keep old assignments and test papers in. If I make the reward sheet the teacher can have them put it in the back of the English notebook. The only drawback as far as I can see is the need to keep putting out money for stickers.

Oh, and there was an earthquake a tsunami and six nuclear reactors are spreading radioactive poison in the land sea and air and may well be on their way to a meltdown.

And I'm worried about the cost of stickers?

First Year Warm Up

I haven't posted for a long time. There's a filter on at work that keeps the school's computers from saving any changes I make in a new post and I'm too tired when I get home. But not much to do today, only one class. Anyway, here's a good warm up that I saw the other day. It's based on the game Shiritori. The way that game works is: the first player says a Japanese word. Maybe neko.

The next player says a word that begins with the last syllable of that word, konbu. This continues with all the players until one of them inadvertently says a word that ends in a n sound. The player who does that is the loser. If the second player in the example I gave had said kobun, a word that ends in the n sound he would have lost.

The warm-up game is English Shiritori so it doesn't use final syllables it uses final letters. Here's how it goes.

• The teachers divide the class into three groups. Each group is given a section of the board to work with.
• The teachers write the first three words on the board, one for each three sections. Something simple. Something they know.
• The first kid from each group comes up and writes a word that begins with the final letter of the word the teacher wrote.
• And it continues like that for five minutes or however long you want to do it.
• At the end of the time period the teacher check the words (mistakes don't count)and the group with the most words is the winner.

The kids are allowed to use their books and they are allowed to give each other ideas.

Fun for the whole family.

Grade One Unit 10 Can You Open the Door?

This is for the first grade. It"s an activity sheet to get them practicing making requests and asking permission. I don't know why but when I use the google docs account to publish to the web the page doesn't look the way it does when I view it through the print preview function. Why can't the page you're working on look the way it's going to print out. Come on google guys get on ball and fix that. Until they do whoever clicks on the link will get something that still needs to be edited to get all the page elements in the right place. No problem if you have the password but a little annoying.

Grade 2 Unit 2 Are You Going to...?

Here's a simple activity sheet to get the kids using Are you going to.... It's nothing more than a list of activities that a junior high school student might do on a Saturday. The kids are to ask one another about their plans using the the grammar from Unit 2. If they get a yes answer to their question the person they've spoken to signs their name on the list. Doing it I noticed a tendency for some of the kids to drop the necessary verb and come out with sentences like Are you going to soccer Saturday. So that's something to watch out for. If it seems too many are making that mistake stop the activity and review the grammar again.

Grade 3 Unit 2 Present Perfect Interview Activity

The JTE for this class made something nice to practice the present perfect as it appears in Unit 2. Here's the activity sheet she used with some changes I made to eliminate some awkward English.

Every kid gets one of these sheets. Then they are told to choose one of the names on the list and to answer the questions directed to them with that character's information. Kids pair off and janken in the time-honored fashion. The winner of the janken asks questions first. The idea is to find out who their partner is. Let's say they do the interview three times. That should give them enough information to zero in on the correct identity. After the two partners have determined who each of them are they go and find new partners to interview.

It went off quite well and didn't take a long time to explain. Just one demonstration from the teachers.

Schwa

The phonics project has been moving along nicely. The more I get into it the more I see how really difficult this stuff is to teach. There are just too many ways to make the same sounds in English. I also see that I'm going to have to keep reminding the teacher to let me do it. She's got a lot of things to do and a lot to get across to the kids. However there was one ray of sunshine. One of the kids in 1kumi was able to read the word ham without a trace of and accent. At least not to my ears. When I do it again I'll have more teachable words prepared going in so there's no fumbling around thinking about what to do next. ...Actually next would be a fun word to have the kids read.

And schwa. I want to do schwa. I'm not going to explain schwa and I'm not going to point out it's appearance in the unaccented syllables of multisyllabic words. I do want them to hear it as it's pronounced in the consonant prior indefinite article. I want them to be able to make the distinct vowel sounds in a ham.

Of course I'm pretty sure that it's something that they would pick up naturally without my help but I like teaching the proper pronunciation of English sounds and hearing them improve.

So, anyway. I'll start calling atention to that sound when I have a chance.

Grade 2 Unit 1 You Look Strange

The teacher asked me for a worksheet for Grade 2 Unit 1 that has to do with the grammar point
subject looks adjective. It's such a small bit of grammmar to deal with it's hard to make something interesting. Especially given the amount of time I'm willing to spend on it... ahem.
But maybe this will catch the kid's interest. I'm just happy to be able to use some of those cool illustrations from .... I forgot the name of the website they came from, but if you search back in the postings you can find a link to it.

Grade 1 Unit 1 Are you Ms. Green ?

This activity lets the kids practice the second person interrogative present tense form of the verb to be. To do it you need to make some game sheets and another sheet that has the pictures and names of characters from the textbook.

I wasn't able to find any pictures of the New Horizon characters on the web so you'll have to make the game sheets by xeroxing images from the textbook. Paste them into this sheet that made. If it doesn't print out correctly you can just use it as a model to make your own. Teach the two convesations at the bottom of the page. One is used when you find the person you are looking for and the other is for the opposite case.

Pass out the game sheets and cards and tell the students that they are not to show the cards but are supposed to remember their own new name.

Chorally practice the question. Are you ~ using the names of the characters on the game sheet. and the two possible answers, Yes, I am. No I'm not.

The teachers and some volunteers demonstrate the game.
Now the children have to find as many of the people pictured on their game sheet as possible. If you want to you can put a time limit on the game. The students who find all the people or the most people on their game sheets are the winners.

Hitotsuba

We have two classes for kids with developmental disabilities at my school. The teacher in charge of the classes doesn't seem to be trained for handling these kinds of kids. I don't mean that they are discipline problems or anything like that it's just that teaching these kinds of kids must call for a training and understanding that the teacher doesn't seem to possess. To be fair neither did the last teacher who was given these classes and I certainly don't. It looks like the responsibility for coming up with a plan and materials is going to be up to me.

The biggest problem is that the level from kid to kid is so different. Two of them live pretty much in their own worlds. One of them is very high level and his problems seem to be more emotional than anything else.

So we improvise.

I'm making notes on the lessons and plans for further lessons and saving them on the page called Hitotsuba you can find on the right hand side of the blog. Maybe someone else has a problem like this and the lesson ideas might be helpful.

And if anybody has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

More on "The New Thing"

So the new thing is teaching phonics.

We're going to be showing the kids a series of phonics flashcards with example words to get across the idea that the letters and their combinations represent particular sounds. The method is to present one set per month until we run out of combinations. The goal is to give the kids the ability to read an English word without having to sound it out in katakana pronunciation. Of course we'll be reviewing as we do this and when we get to the point that we are presenting them with whole words their will always be a natural review that just happens ...naturally.

I started yesterday with the first year (it's a first year project) and it went really well. But after I had finished I realized that there are some problems that need to be addressed.

For example: the o sound that occurs in the word do isn't covered by either the long or short vowels sounds that are taught for o.

For another example: the a in the word father has the same problem.

Yet another example: the s in the word is is pronounced like z.

So, here's what I think I am going to do. As I come to the problem letters I'll take a moment to write the exceptions on the blackboard. It won't take too much time since their aren't that many and maybe it will prevent problems later. Right now here's what I think might need a special explanation.

a, father
c, pencil
g, garage
o, do, one, some
s, is
x, xylophone
y, happy

Silent e's and voiced and unvoiced th can be worried about later but these exceptions to the rule are encountered early.

Maybe not garbage and xylophone but the words one and some occur in the first year book.

Grade 3 Unit 1 Passive Voice Worksheet Part 2: The Return of the Passive Voice Worksheet

As the title of this posting subtley hints this is simply a reworking of something I used last year. The difference is this one has a section that gives the kids the chance to make some sentences of their own. The vocabulary in the first section is all from the textbook so they will be able to look up the words using the glossary their textbook supplies. What they are to do is simply draw some lines that connect the phrases into the best possible sentences. Before you pass out the worksheets make sure that you have drawn in a line to make a sentence from the example on the master sheet before you make copies of it. The kanji 例 means example. Some of the vocabulary in the second section might not be in the glossary but they are fairly common words. However, in order to make a good sentence out of those words based on the models given the kids might have to use another dictionary or ask the teachers.

Second Grade Self Introductions

Here is a worksheet that we used for the first day of second grade. It's easy to understand.

The first part is just some example sentences that the kids study and use as models for the second part. In the second part the kids use the pictures in the box as cues to make their own sentences. In the second part it isn't necessary for the sentences to be factually correct. Whether they are actually in the Kendo club or not is not important. It's only practice. In the third part the children write about themselves. In the event that a child has no pets remind them of how to form negative sentences. I don't have a dog. It can be a teachable moment.

By the way. The first line of Japanese means, Make sentences like the examples. The second line means, Make sentences about yourself.

A New Thing

Okay, a new year and new posting and a new thing. The New Thing is the attempt to teach phonics to the first year kids. Of course this is contingent upon the JTE's permisssion. What we are planning to do is to take from 3 to 5 minutes at the begining of each class and present the kids with some letters or groups of letters along with example words and try to help them remember, in some cases learn, the sound that letter or group represents. We're going to start with short vowels and consonants for the first month. The next month digraphs, then consonant blends and then vowel blends.

The idea is to go slow and with a lot of repetition. What we want to have happen is; at the end of the year the children should be able to pronounce a word they have never seen before.

If the teacher lets us.

Spelling Bee

In the post for Third Year Review Activites there is a list of words for use in a spelling bee. It seems like a good idea to make some similar lists for first and second year as well because something like that could be fun. In the spelling bees I remember each kid is given a word to spell. They may ask the teacher to use the word in a sentence or what part of speech the word is.If they spell it they continue on with the contest. If they don't spell it correctly they are eliminated. Now, we don't really want to eliminate kids in the classroom because we want them to keep trying to spell the words. If it were a real spelling bee that would be different.

In our classroom spelling bee we'll do it like this.

The kids are divided into their lunch groups. The first group is given a word to spell and they can choose either a one-point, a two-point, or a three-point word. Three-point words are the hardest. If they get it right their team gets the number of points for that word. If they are wrong there is no penalty.Or maybe missing a one point word could carry a one-point penalty. That might make them challenge themselves with the harder words.

Here are the word lists for
 first grade,
 second grade
 and third grade.

Grade 3 Review Activities

It's February and the kids in third year junior high school are busy studying for their entrance exams and practicing the speeches they will give when they go for the interview portion of the high school entrance process. I guess it doesn't all happen on the same day for all of the different high schools so occasionally there will be groups of four or five kids absent from class as they go to take their exams. There are a lot of worksheets for the other kids to do as part of a global review of all the grammar they've studied; and one of the teachers really likes bingo to keep the kids occupied when they are not otherwise studying studying. But because worksheets and bingo can get a little boring one of my JTEs asked for a fun activity based on the grammar from the third year New Horizons. Another one wanted some sentences with the words out of order for the kids to fix, also from the same book.

Here are some questions presented in the form of a Hurricane game. (Remember that from the warm-ups post? If not you can search the blog for a description of how to play the game.) Some of them are hard, some really easy. The variation from hard to easy is supposed to be funny. I'll let the kids work in groups to answer the questions.

And here are the scrambled sentences.

And some words for a spelling bee that come from the third year New Horizons.

Grade 2 Unit 7

I haven't posted for a long time. Winter vacation was a month and a half. Well, here is something I'm working on for the 二年生。 I'm not sure what final form it will take but I really like the visuals that go with it. Superheroes! And here are larger versions of the same characters. I've chosen the superheroes I'm familiar with because I thought it would make it more interesting. And because they don't know these characters they really will have to ask questions about them.
So, how am I going to use them?
I was thinking of using them in Grade 2 Unit 7. In this unit they learn to make statements and questions using comparitives and superlatives.

Here's an idea.
I pick two superheroes. I tell them the superheroes have had a battle. Hulk versus Thor or Superman versus the Blue Beetle. Then the kids have to quiz me about the relative strengths and abilities or other special attributes of the characters in question; then they tell me which one they think would win. What kind of questions could they ask?

Who is stronger Hulk or Thor?

Who is faster Flash or The Atom?

Who is bigger.....

Who is more intelligent.....

Who is more powerful.......

Can Batman.....

Does the Blue Beetle have.....

Really I don't have a lot of hope on those last two questions coming out without a lot of prompting.

Grade 1 Unit 8 Object Pronouns

I was asked to come up with something for an observation class this month to practice object pronouns or possessive pronouns. It hasn't been decided yet so I'll do something for each just in case. Here's the activity for object pronouns. It's called It's Good to be the King.

A group of kids do a janken (thank god for janken) and the winner becomes the king. That person has to give an order to all of the members of group he is playing with. If he does so successfully then he gets to make a mark under the crown on his activity sheet. With five lines he (or she) can make the Japanese character for tadashii 正. If he wins five times and makes the character he is the winner of the first round of the game. The kids can do as many rounds as they have time to do. All of the orders have to involve an object pronoun:

Tell me your name.
Touch him on the shoulder.
Give her a pencil.

Things like that.

There are examples sentences on the activity sheet and of course the teachers will spend the first part of the class explaining or reviewing object pronouns so it shouldn't be too hard. Kids with less confidence in their English can keep giving the same orders; those with more confidence can be encouraged to ask the teachers for ideas for interesting orders. No punching, kicking or kissing allowed.

A good ideas is to have the kids form groups of five. (Where five isn't possible including the teachers will help.) Then make it a rule that a king has to give orders to as many different people as possible. Five different people, five different marks to make the 正.

Grade 2 Unit 5 What's Wrong

Here's a great activity for Second Grade when the kids are studying the Speaking Plus 3 on page 56. I wish I could take credit for it but the JTE came up with this one.

After the kids have practiced the Speaking Plus conversation pass out copies of the first sheet which is basically the same conversation. The JTE writes the questions What's wrong? and How do you feel? on the blackboard along with the answers that will be used in the activity.

What's wrong? I have a headache.
a stomachache
a fever


How do you feel? Not so bad
Bad.
Terrible


After the kids have practiced this vocabulary for a while the teachers pass out the slips of paper that are on the third sheet. These are the answers to questions that the teachers will ask the students.

When they are ready to go the teachers explain that they are doctors. The kids make two lines. One with the JTE and one with the ALT who then ask the kids questions about their symptoms and how long they have had them. Based on the answers the "doctors" make a diagnosis. The Medical Chart, which is the second sheet, tells the doctor what the student's problem is. The JTE who made this activity included cold, flu, eat too much, and cancer. I realize that last one might be a downer especially if someone in the class has had a relative with that problem but things worked out okay. If you want to, go ahead and change it. Maybe it could be AIDS. No just kidding. Anyway feel free to make it any illness you feel comfortable talking about.

Oh. The last line of the dialogue is I'll give you some medicine. The medicine is a sticker. It's surprising how such a small item can motivate even students who ordinarily don't talk much. After the kids have got their medicine have them trade answer sheets with someone else and they can go again and see how may stickers they can get.