"Teaching" in elementary schools

[jessen100]

ok so recently, ive been trying to come up with good excercises to improve the english ability of the kids i teach, and since im a teach thats what im supposed to be doing right? Since the alphabet is the basis of literacy imo, and using english, I thought it might be a good place to start. I had a class full of second graders listening attentively, as well as they seemed to be legitimately interested, and got them , or at least a few of them to actually read. i used colors, then moved on to some other simple words that they havent seen before. I thought it was a great sucess.

however, the next time i talked to the head of the education or wtf you call kyoumu sensei, I was basically told that my teaching was ineffective because they werent having fun. then i almost stabbed him. i refrained.
i hate fun anyways.

ive somewhat gotten over this as of now, but am relatively at a loss for what to do, since everything i have been planing to do, is now useless, because it doent meet the fun requirement. though in reality there is plenty of fun that can be had with letters, no one believes me.



so im thinking of teaching my 3rd graders the Cha Cha Slide. THAT would be great fun, no matter what any of them say.

[regardo]

glad to see you made it to the forum, jessen100

this could have happened exactly the same way at my school, with the exception maybe that they even wouldn't have given me an explanation. they would just say no.... and then i would stab them.

so as an alt always remember. "be a clown. that's all they want"... or as my boe told me: "don't be mistaken, we don't need you for english education. if we need teachers who teach the kids english we just hire japanese teachers." WTF?

[junkdna]

i use a hammer, everytime the make a mistake, i hammer a finger. i usually only have to make it through 3 or 4 kids, then the rest catch on pretty quickly. after that, they are MEXTing english experts.

[crustpunker]

wow! I can't believe you were told that your lessons weren't "fun"! I would be livid as well to hear that after putting hard work and careful consideration into the needs of the kids. I do see the point though that was trying to be made. That at such a young age, having fun really is just as important as actually teaching or something like that? In that case I suppose the trick is to integrate the two but then again, Who the hell ever said learning was supposed to be fun anyway? School doesn't conjure up images of "fun" for me
especially in Japan...

Are the other teachers at the place where you are teaching having fantastic fun lessons? I bet not......Why is this an expectation that is (unfairly) imposed on you?

I guess you should try to have it made clear to you what exactly the school expects of you.
If they want you to be a overly genki positive gaijin fine. Do that and don't stress out about actual teaching. If they want you to really help the kids acquire some English well, explain to them that this is what you are attempting to do.
I dunno though, it's tough with some of these hard headed battle axes.
You're damned if you do and damned if ya don't.
Maybe the best thing to do is pay NO attention to their winging and just do the things that work well for you?

[Paul]

I feel for you edutainters out there......I really do. I was able to convince my BOE that due to my particularly adept language skills that I would be wasted on just dancing around like Dumbo in a tu-tu(sp? )

I managed to have them let me teach the much more enjoyable and fulfilling "Kokusai Rikai" classes, which means I get to teach the "International Understanding" classes. I get to pick the topic and I actually get to pick what time of the school year I "need" to go to the schools to teach these wonderfully imformative and amazingly simple to prepare and I get to sit on my fat ass and let winodows movie maker do all the teaching for me.

Or I get to carve pumpkins at Halloween, this year I only carved about 40 different pumkins in the space of 10 days....still can't seem to get the stink of pumpkin out of my car or my cutting board. Must be my imagination but "old" stale pumpkin sure smells like barf to me.

Or I get to show a movie at Christmas that I prepare and update every year showing different Christmas light displays and animated Christmas lights from the US!

Tons of fun and the kids think I am God's gift to English....I am a God/Legend in my own mind.

[hokkaido1]

How often do you teach the classes?

I assume once a month. Yeh I keep the 1st and 2nd grader lessons low level and try to have at least 1 game.
I have been told by the homeroom teacher that the level was too difficult once and I have been told that the songs were too difficult but not that my lessons weren't fun!
Yes, that would make your day!
I would throw in a few simple games in each lesson, their attention span is very short to try to keep things ticking over

[Paul]

Me.....they are graced with my hallowed (un)godliness exactly 3 times during a school year.

I don't have to teach the rug rats or curtain climbers in the lower grades due to the fact that once roughly 5 years ago I walked into a 1st grade class in April and one boy started immediately crying which then like wildfire spread amongst the rest of the little tykes effectively ending the class before the bell starting the period even rang.

I made such an effective impression on them with my towering mountain of jellyfish presence that I was excused from class and teaching anything under 5th grade from that point on.

Seriously though I actually had a class of 1st graders cry their little eyes out upon seeing me walk into their classroom, while they were sitting in their desks, which didnt even reach my damn knee-caps, I had to be a modern apparation of the "white-godzilla".

The principal and vice, along with the BOE laughed their asses off when they heard what happened.....I just breathed a sigh of relief because I was damn sure they were going to fire my ass right then and there.

They didnt, and now..........I am that friendly "white-godzilla".

[Otaku]

Yeah, Jessen100, welcome to the new forum. Hopefully, you'll get your work firewall problem sorted soon. I know the pains of having your hands tied...I moved prefectures because something similar happened to me.

Anyways, what you're teacher at school said is correct, "fun" is of the utmost concern. However, the students are secondary...YOU need to be having fun. If it was up to a lot of Japanese ES teachers, students English classes would most likely be filled with three most overused games in Japan: Fruit Baskets, Karuta and Bingo.

The ES English plan MEXT is introducing in 2011, the top two priorities are 1.) internationalization and 2.) keeping the English class fun. I would think learning English would be the most important ( ) but the moment 'English' is the goal ES teachers need to have licenses and in my experience in Japan, many teachers probably wouldn't pass those tests.

One of the stupidest things I've ever heard is, "ES 'English' classes need to be fun." WHY?!?! Like Crustpunker said, no other subject in school is bound by that requirement so why should Engl...internationalization class?!?! Speaking of which, how much is one ALT internationalized anyways? Most of us ALTs have backgrounds from only our home country. I would dare argue this is by no means makes us stuarts of internationalization. Now, put us all in the same room, that's a different story... I think what it comes down to is this: by MEXT not including 'English acquistion' as the main goal, I think demonstrates their lack of taking English classes serious.

Enough ranting...

Anyways, one of the most fun and popular English activities in ES for years with my students was the Eto game. It practices the alphabet but it takes the emphasis off of knowing the letters and shifts to remembering the letters erased from the board. I love putting all the smart students in the classroom and the teacher on one team and the rest of the class on the other team. Usually, the not-so-bright team wins and it helps build their confidence.

As far as other subjects, when I was teaching ES, I used to try and connect each class to the prior one. No big explosive new idea there but I found this to be the best way for the students to review what was taught in the prior class while at the same time building on what is currently being taught. For example, if I taught colors in the prior class and was teaching animals in the current one, the animal would never be 'dog', but rather a 'blue dog' or a 'yellow cat'. This isn't the greatest of examples but my students are pulling me to class.

[Paul]

Speaking of which, how much is one ALT internationalized anyways? Most of us ALTs have backgrounds from only our home country.

Not being a smart ass here but to the kids that is one country more than they have been to.

You represent "gaikoku" to these people and that is such a huge, wonderful, scary, and yet intruiging place. That's you, I represent a walking Mount Fuji and since every kid here knows what that looks like the newness wears off real quick.

Ever get tired of hearing "How big are your feet?" or "How tall are you?" or "What did you eat as a kid to get so big?"

I have the patience of a saint so I brag, but the point is that is what "internationalized" is. The difference is whether there are times you feel like a complete fool, I never have btw , you are teaching them something, even if the same kid asks you the same insidious question every damn time they see you. Then I want to teach them something else about "gaikoku".....quit buggering the frick outta me, slap, slap, slap, body slam, slap slap slap.

Fun is important though because until MEXT can actually get it's head out of it's anal cavity and decide how much longer they want to waste billions of dollars a year on English Edutainment and finally get around to teaching something reasonable nothing is going to change.

See there is a much larger problem that is often hinted at but never spoken about because it's taboo here. To accept and actually teach English in such a manner that kids learn to speak and use the language as a communicative tool would mean having to accept another culture(s) and dillute the ethnocentric myth about the Japanese people.

So wasting money on education and letting those people that have the desire and cash to learn on their own will be the modus operandi for the foreseeable future, even though public JHS are going to go back to 4 hours per week as well within the next couple of years as well.

[Shamisen]

Yes. I think they should give us "job descriptions" before we start so that everyone is clear.
I think their job description would be something like this:

"name of position: Foreigner
Duties: Smile. Wave. Be friendly. Sing. Dance. Try to inject enough enthusiasm into kids to last 3 years
of Junior high school with dull teachers.
Not required to: Plan lessons, teach English, do any "real work"
Forbidden to : Teach kids how to read.
(reading is only learned in the magical time between Elementary graduation
and the 2nd week of Junior high ,at which point kids are expected to be able to write the
alphabet and read fluently and it is taught by the magical English fairy which only appears during this time. )
Forbidden to : Teach kids how to write. (because on the High school exam, points are taken off if you write a Y
with a curved tail - I swear that's what the BOE rep told me - I further investigated and found this to be false. )"

And this is where a lot of troubles come in.
We ALTs believe that we are "teachers" and try to do our best to be good teachers. Even so far as to get teaching degrees in our home countries in hopes of doing a great job here.

The BOE here however, believes we are... "entertainers?mascots? does anyone even know?" and so they expect us to play games with the kids that allow for social interaction. They expect us to show interesting things about our countries to express the idea that we are foreign and exotic and exciting. Do Activities that encourage kids to look each other in the eyes and for once reward self confidence instead of rewarding shyness. I think thats their goal actaully - to try to get some of our Western boldness to rub off on the kids.

[junkdna]

loved that post mybelovedsushi.

i just have one thing to add, i wish JET would stress the ASSISTANT part. i think people really need to remember this no matter what they are told.

[regardo]

my teachers tend to either treat me like a moron or like a full teacher, sometimes both at the same time... but i never feel like an assistant.

[hokkaido1]

loved that post mybelovedsushi.

i just have one thing to add, i wish JET would stress the ASSISTANT part. i think people really need to remember this no matter what they are told.

I totally agree on both points!!!

That post by mybelovedsushi was spot on!

[crustpunker]

ALT:

A Little Tired
Another Length of Tedium
Ah! Language Time!
A Lads Trial
Accused, Lazy, True?
A Lesson Train
Ask Less Tards!
A Learning Tank
Apes Love Tacos....
etc,

[hokkaido1]

Another Language Taperecorder

Applied Lesson Tipper

Another Lad To be paid

[crustpunker]

I think the prize goes to you for

"Another Language Taperecorder"
HA!!!!!!

[Paul]

I like...
Another Total Lush......

Animal's To Let.....

Arseholes Telling Lies..........(There are some stuffed shirt ALT's out there)

[crustpunker]

A few more off the top of me head...

Ape Like Tendencies
A Likely Truancy
Another Limp Teacher
Art degree Landed me in Teaching (this is very crust specific hehe)
Ahhh Lick Turd
Abstain, Learn, Triumph (I hate this one)

[Paul]

loved that post mybelovedsushi.

i just have one thing to add, i wish JET would stress the ASSISTANT part. i think people really need to remember this no matter what they are told.

Why is this?

Maybe it is just me but I often hear complaints from JET's that they are not allowed to do things their way and would prefer in fact that the teacher stay out of their realm of responsibility.