eigo no sensei

Grad School

peeps2 — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 03:35:28 +0000

My first semester in the MA TESOL program at my university is well underway, and this weekend I’m attending our state’s TESOL conference. It’s been a great bonding experience with those in my program, as well as a great resource! I picked up several complimentary books today, schmoozed a little, and generally had a great time.

After waiting so long to get my MA, I’m really glad that I decided to do it, and wish I had done it sooner. It’s been really eye-opening for me, and made me think a lot more about how I can help my students the most. Plus, I get to study English grammar, which makes this English nerd quite gleeful. I would recommend it, but not to everyone. If you don’t LOVE the English language, linguistics, and teaching, I think it would be pretty hard to succeed in the program. It’s pretty intensive.

Featured on ESLEmployment!

peeps2 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:50:52 +0000

Yay, this blog is now a “resource” for English teachers at eslemployment.com! Thank you!

Rock, Scissors, Paper Thief

peeps2 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:29:44 +0000

This one comes from our school’s previous teachers (upper-level staff? Who knows?). It is great fun until kids get tired of it.

Give each student 5 coins. Give them a command (walk, run, ski, skip, be a chicken…) and play some music. When you stop the music, they must ask a question to the nearest student. The other student responds and asks a question back. They then play Rock, Scissors, Paper, and the “winner” gets a coin from the “loser.” Repeat as time permits or until kids/you get bored! The student with the most coins at the end wins the game.

For younger kids, I tell them what question to ask when I stop the music. For older kids, I sometimes let them pick their own questions, but if they’re too lazy with it (ie, asking “What’s your name?” every time), I give them a formula and have them fill-in-the-blank (ie, “Are you good at _____?”).

Sticky Ball

peeps2 — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:02:13 +0000

When I arrived to teach at our school, there was a little ball in each classroom that was covered in suction cups. This ball, when thrown at a white board, would presumably stick to said white board, and thus, some teachers before us invented “Sticky Ball.” Unfortunately, the aforementioned balls were falling apart, and therefore were not very “sticky,” although sometimes the suction cups would stick to the board and not the rest of the ball, to the students’ amusement. Suddenly it occurred to me that these balls were probably still available, so I asked our amazing coordinator to find us some new ones, and she did. At the 100 yen shop, no less (side note, I <3 the 100 yen shop).

Anyway, Sticky Ball is a great game with many variations.

Variation One (the original): Target Practice. Draw a giant target on the board. I like to make the bulls-eye about the size of the ball, then draw concentric circles around that. Start with five points in the middle, then have circles worth 4, 3, and 2. I give them one point for hitting the white board anywhere outside of the target. Have students line up, ask a target language question, and then let them throw away. Award points based on where they hit the target.

Variation Two: Flashcard Sticky Ball. Instead of a target, draw random circles on the board and, using magnets, affix target language flashcards in each circle. Let the students throw the ball, then ask them a question about the circle or card they hit. Award 2 points if they hit the flashcard, 1 if they get the ball inside a circle.

Variation Three: Picture Sticky Ball. Instead of a target, draw one big circle on the board. Ask a target language question and let students throw the ball. If they get the ball in the circle, they can add 1 thing to the circle (arm, leg, eye, whatever). Works well with non-competitive classes, but I also tried this with a class of 4th grade boys and they about fell over they were laughing so hard.

Gambatte ne!

Typhoon

peeps2 — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:05:49 +0000

Happy New Year! Er…a little belated.

Anyway, I’d like to introduce another game that I love tragically, “Typhoon.” Although you may have to be sensitive to where you are teaching, and whether your students may have negative associations with certain natural disasters. With the recent natural disaster in Haiti, for example, you may want to change the “earthquake” to something else. I’ve found that most kids in Japan enjoy it the way I will describe.

Draw a 4×4 grid on the board. Label each column and row however you want (I like to use spelling and phonics words that the students are supposed to have learned up until that point, but you can just use ABCD, 1234 if you prefer). Before your class, draw the same grid on a piece of paper, and write different point amounts in each square. Include 2 “typhoons,” which mean the child or team get all their points taken away, and 2 “earthquakes” which mean that you will exchange the points between the 2 teams (for example: team A has 10 points and team B has 2. Team A picks an “earthquake” square. Now Team A has 2 points and team B has 10).

Divide the students into 2 teams or, if you have a small class, let each student play for him or herself. Students/Teams take turns picking a square from the grid (ie, lemon/rock! or A3!). Consulting your pre-made grid, write the point value, earthquake, or typhoon in the square that is chosen. Ask the student a target question, then give them the points.

For some reason the younger kids (1st and 2nd graders) really love this game, although the older kids seem to enjoy it less. Maybe they’ve just been overexposed to it though.

Enjoy!

Verb Pass

peeps2 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:54:20 +0000

On Monday in my 4th grade class, I wrote all the verbs that they’re supposed to know in present tense, with an arrow pointing to the past tense and reviewed it with the kids (who were not getting it AT ALL). I then had them all stand up, and threw the ball at them while yelling a present tense verb. They had to yell (ok, say) the past tense of that verb and throw the ball back to me. When they got the hang of it, we sped it up. It was particularly fun to throw the ball at the same kid multiple times while shouting the same verb at them until they got it. Of course, I left the chart written on the board so they could look if they completely didn’t know. We’ll see if it helps them to remember the verbs next week….

**I got this idea from my one-on-one Junior High class, where I had no game, so I grabbed a ball and threw it to the girl while asking her questions. She deemed this game “fun” for no apparent reason.

Adult Classes

peeps2 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:05:40 +0000

I don’t have nearly as much experience teaching adults as teaching kids, but I really enjoy my adult classes. However, sometimes I find them…well, boring. Occasionally the books we use here have fun speaking activities, which are nice, but they’re few and far between. There are some supplemental game ideas in the back of the books, but I always wonder how adults will react to playing games.

Two of the things I’ve tried most recently that were kind of fun were:

1. For a class studying phrasal verbs, I had the student tell me things to do around the room, which I then did (i.e., turn off the lights, turn on the lights, put away the pens, etc). She seemed amused….

2. For a class studying prepositions of location with is there/are there questions, I drew a map of my hometown on the board. I then gave the student a marker and had her ask me questions about my hometown (i.e. “Is there a laundromat on Washington St.?”). After I responded, I had her fill in the map with the places she asked about. It was a good change of pace, but I’m not sure how “fun” it was.

Any thoughts on adult classes? What has worked for you in getting concepts across to adults?

Tower Game

peeps2 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:13:47 +0000

For this game, divide the class into 2 teams. Or, if you have few students, let each student build their own tower.

Get some blocks. I use Jenga blocks, because they are readily available, and the kids all think we’re going to play Jenga (which can cause either excitement or dread, depending on the class), and divide them into a pile for each team or student. Put the piles on a table at one end of the room, and line up the students on the opposite end of the room. Ask the teams a question simultaneously. They must answer correctly in order to go to their respective pile of blocks and start building a tower. When the last student has answered correctly, count down from 5. When you reach 0, they have to stop building (I take blocks off the top if they continue after I say “Stop!” which makes them berate the student who committed the atrocity and be very careful to stop when I say stop). The team or student with the tallest tower when time runs out wins!

If one team is struggling to keep their tower standing, I usually wait until they have their tower higher than the other team, then award a “point.” I generally still let the more skilled team acquire more points (if they can!), but this way it doesn’t get boring for the other team.

English Notebook Success!

peeps2 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:05:31 +0000

On Friday was the first day of standard “English Notebook” usage. It was a big hit, with 1st graders writing and drawing “I’m _____” and 4th graders writing and drawing “I’m going to __________ tomorrow.” Yay!

English Notebook

peeps2 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:24:21 +0000

In my classes, I assign homework every week. It’s usually just one page with a few questions on it, but I want to make sure that my students understand the homework, so I go through it with them, asking them comprehension questions. It takes about 10 minutes of class time to do this, which is a lot for only a 60 minute class! Also, not all of my students have elected to purchase the extra homework book. Therefore, I usually have kids sitting (running? dancing? climbing?) around the room, speaking Japanese and generally being loud and rambunctious until they get way out of control and I have to tell them to stop, or until I’m finished. Anyway, it’s idle time, so I’ve come up with what I hope is a solution….

Our wonderful school coordinator was kind enough to put together little 20-page notebooks for each student. Today was the first day, so while I checked homework I just had them decorate the front covers. I pulled out all the stops – stickers, glue, construction paper, etc. They seemed to really enjoy it (4th grade boys included!), even when I made them write “Today is Friday, October 16th. It’s cool and sunny. I’m fine/happy/tired.” on the first page. One of the kids said he was “excited” in Japanese and asked me how to say it in English. It was great fun, and a nice change of pace. I look forward to seeing how much writing they can get done in 10 minutes of class each week!