Introducing Japanese Events (NH 5 U7)
Sunday, April 25, 2021This has been sitting in my drafts for a while, and I'm finally getting around to sharing it.
I've been teaching English here in Japan for three years, just started my fourth year this month! Over that time, I've had the opportunity to do a lot of fun things, and I hope to continue doing so. I figured I'd share some of the things I do! So I came up with a new series idea: Teacher Christiiney's Lesson Ideas♡
The first of this series is Introducing Japanese events.
A few months ago, I did a really fun project with my 5th graders.
The unit was Unit 7 of the New Horizon Elementary 5 textbook: "Welcome to Japan". The topic was introducing Japanese events in English. At the end of the unit, the students were expected to be able to say at least the event and one thing you can do during that event.
Instead of just doing another speech, my JTE came up with a fun idea: Introduce Japanese events to Christine sensei's family!
The unit came right after winter break, so I asked my family to film a short video message. My family talked about what they did on Christmas, and ended the video asking the kids to tell them about the events.
The unit consisted of eight lessons, so approximately four weeks.
LESSON 1
Introduce Unit - Watch Video
New Words (Seasons, Event names)
Think about what event they want to introduce
Ask any English teacher in Japan, the keyword game is the go to game when practicing new words. The keyword game is done in pairs, with students placing one eraser between them. With all the word flashcards on the board, one of them is the keyword. The teacher says a word and the students repeat. When the keyword is said, students don't repeat. Instead, they grab the eraser. The student that gets the eraser gets a point. At the end, the one with the most points wins. Unfortunately, with the pandemic, we can't play the game with an eraser (to avoid touching). So we made accommodations. Instead of grabbing an eraser, when the keyword is said, students have to do a decided action (e.g. clap hands, stand up).
LESSON 2
New Words (foods)
Grammar (You can eat _____.)
To practice this grammar we played Snakes and Ladders - Janken (Rock-paper-scissors) version. Each student was given a board with a bunch of different foods on them along with snakes and ladders. When the students landed on a food, they would have to say the sentence: You can eat (food). There were also ⭕️ spaces where students could choose what food to talk about and "janken one more time" spaces.
Same with the keyword game, in attempts to avoid contact between students, we had to take out the dice rolling element of snakes and ladders. This is where the janken comes in!
In order to move along the board, students had to play janken with a) me or b) their partner, depending on what version we were playing. Winners moved 3 spaces, tie moved 2, and losers moved 1 space.
As the topic was Japanese events, a lot of the foods were Japanese. The point of this lesson was to make sure that students could say You can eat, and the food can stay in Japanese.
LESSON 3
New Words (things, activities)
Grammar (You can see / enjoy _____.)
We played Snakes and Ladders again for this lesson. The board was upgraded to be able to use the new grammar. For this version, the ⭕️ spaces were free spaces, where students could use any of the learned sentences: You can eat / see / enjoy _____.
At my more advanced school, we added an extra level. Instead of just saying the sentence, students had to include the season and event. For example, let's say that a student landed on a picture of Hina dolls:
The minimum sentence is: You can see Hina dolls / Hina ningyo.
For my advanced schools, students were encouraged to say: In spring, we have Dolls' Festival. You can see Hina dolls / Hina ningyo. Of course, this was an optional step, only if the students felt like they could. It was only offered as an option for students who wanted to challenge themselves.
LESSON 4
Review all grammar
Start preparing
At this point, all the necessary words and grammar have been taught. So to review and make sure to address any problems, lesson 4 was dedicated to practice. We did a few listening exercises and then preparation for their presentation.
LESSON 5
Think about their presentation
My JTE came up with five skill levels for the presentations.
Lv 1: Adding greetings
Lv 2: Adding elements to make the speech easier to understand (ex. gestures, emphasis of words)
Lv 3: Order of sentences
Lv 4: Add extra information
Lv 5: Add questions
At the minimum, students were required to say: The event and at least one sentence (You can eat / see / enjoy _____.) It was up to students to add as much or as little as they wanted.
LESSON 6
Practice - Individually > Group > Teacher Observation
By lesson 6, the students were expected to have finished all preparations. They would get feedback from their peers and the teachers. This was the last day to make any changes.
LESSONS 7 & 8
Recording Video
After filming the videos, I had to go an edit them. With three schools, I had so many videos so editing took FOREVER. I honestly gave up halfway xD For the kids that spoke super clearly, I didn't see the need to add subtitles, so I just sent the videos to my family as is.
It's no fun if I just talk about it and don't show some of the videos, right? xD Faces and full names have been blurred/edited out for privacy reasons!
School A
This was my least prepared school, at no fault of their own. For the first 3/4 of the year, the Japanese English teacher we had was not elementary level friendly. She was more focused on students listening to her explanations and just memorizing lines. Due to personal matters, she did not continue on after winter break. I won't lie, I took advantage of having a new teacher. My students had really boring English class for 7 months and I really wanted to give them something fun to do. Despite the short notice, the kids did a really good job!
School B
B was a difficult school. There were a lot of special needs students with primarily attitude and attention problems. At this school, the Japanese teacher and I worked hard to assist as much as we could, but we definitely kept things as simple as we could.
School C
C was my best school in terms of class attitude and performance. They were always going above and beyond. They had so much that they wanted to say that they wanted as much practice as they could get.
As you can see, there was a big skill gap between my schools. Nonetheless, I think they all did a good job. I know that when I was studying Japanese, I was super shy to speak in front of native speakers. Even though they know that I would be sending this to my family, none of my kids were really against this assignment. I like to think that I build a comfortable enough atmosphere that my kids weren't shy to use the language~
My family enjoyed the videos and were kinds enough to film a reply message. I showed the kids the reply to prove that I actually did send the videos, and they really enjoyed it!
This was the last big project I did with these kiddos. I found out that I would be moving, so I wasn't able to continue their English journey with them. But I'm glad that I got to do this~ Now I have videos of the kids and it'll be impossible to forget them! xD
This is a project that can be a really fun things to try! Of course, there are a lot of logistics to establish before going through with it. The hardest hurdle is getting permission from the school. As you are dealing with actual videos of the students and there can be privacy issues, it is crucial to get permission. After that, things are really simple. You just need the technology tools to film the videos.
I absolutely recommend trying this! It's a nice change to simply doing speeches/presentations~ Please let me know if you do! I'd love to hear how things worked for you :)
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