Are All Animals Equal on Animal Farm?

 I don’t think life on Animal Farm is fair for all the animals.  

At the beginning of the story, all the animals believed they were in an equal society. They thought the human was not good for them. So, they worked together to kick out Mr. Jones, and they hoped that everyone would share the work. For a short period of time, it seemed like everything might get better.

However, as time was passed, the pigs started to take more and more power. They said that pigs were the “smartest” animals, so they should make the decisions. At first, the other animals accepted this, but soon the pigs began to act like leaders. They got better food, they slept in beds, and they did not work as hard as the other animals.

The pigs also changed the rules. For example, they rewrote the commandments so their actions look correctly. They used Squealer to spread propaganda and made the other animals believe that everything was fine, even when it was not. The animals like Boxer worked extremely hard, but they never got respect for their work.

In the end, the pigs became almost the same as the humans the animals had tried to escape from. They walked on two legs, drank alcohol, and made deals with humans. The other animals were tired, hungry, and confused, but they were unable to fight the pigs because they had no power or education.

For these reasons, life on Animal Farm is not fair for all the animals. Only the pigs enjoyed a good life, while the rest of the animals cannot feel freedom. 

The animals of Animal Farm were not equal

I think life on Animal Farm is not fair for all the animals.

At the beginning of the story, all animals are equal. They work together and share the same dream. They believe that life will be better without humans. The rules of the farm say that all animals are the same and should live in peace and fairness.

However, this fair life did not continue. As time went on, the pigs became more powerful than the other animals. They made important decisions and changed the rules little by little. The pigs began to live a comfortable life. They ate more food, slept in beds like a human.

Other animals, such as horses and sheep, continued to work very hard every day. They believed the pigs and did not question them. Boxer was a typical example. He worked harder than anyone else and always trusted the pigs. When Boxer got injured, the pigs said that he was taken to a hospital. However, in reality, he was taken to a Horse Slaughterer, and his body never came back to the farm. After his death, the pigs made up a story about him. They said he died happily and praise them. They used his death to make people believe they are good leaders.

This shows that life on Animal Farm is very unfair. Even the most loyal and hardworking animal is used and then thrown away.

  

Appropriate shopping

 When I was in my twenties, I would go to Shinjuku once every few months to buy clothes. I would walk around all day, carefully consider what I liked, and buy the things I loved. I really enjoyed looking at clothes in different stores. I can understand how Sophie felt happy at shopping.

I have gotten into the habit of prioritizing my shopping within the limits that don't disrupt my daily life. Because of this, it was difficult for me before to spend money that did not match my income. This book and my ex-husband helped me fully understand that some people will spend any money they have on hand immediately and go shopping even when they have no reliable income.

For those who struggle with managing money, it may be beneficial to minimize the amount of money they have or to offer them fun activities other than spending money. This book also taught me that it's nearly impossible to make more money easily.Hitting the lottery is a miracle that may happen once in a lifetime. I should enjoy the lottery with the extra cash in my pocket.

Telling your students to "Go Away!"

 

Go away, kids!

A risky strategy if you want to get paid next month!

My kindy classes fell on Feb 3rd, which is 'setsubun' festival in Japan this year. It's an occassion when children throw (soy) beans at a monster (usually the oldest bloke in the house) shouting 'oni wa soto' - literally, go away monster.

The idea is to shoo away bad luck/evil spirits from the house, and to invite good luck in through the open door. I am sure many cultures have similar mid-winter superstitions/traditions (what are they?).

Monster mash

Who doesn't like making masks?! I wanted two different ones so I could divide my class into 2 groups, to shout at each other by the end of the lesson. Content was reviewing/recognising some letters of the alphabet & following colouring directions. We had not done a Hallowe'en theme last year - for several reasons including I think it is a cultural imposition & inappropriate! But the Super Simple Song "Go Away" from Halloween fits this task rather snuggly, so first time of hearing, my monsters quickly got the idea and could use their new English phrase at home on demand :)

What do you think? Monsters banished?!

My great cousin Hiroko

 I like my cousin Hiroko. She's my father's older brother's middle daughter. She is seven years older than me. I often played with her when I was a child, but we spend less time together  since she got married.

She is very active ! She likes to travel. When she was young, she went to India to volunteer at Mother Theresa's House, by herself. She plays Japanese drums with her daughter until recently.

She is tall and has brown eyes.

 One thing I love about her is her sociable, cheerful, and sunny personality, so she can change any atmosphere cheerfully.

She has a son and a daughter. Her son got a job this year, and her daughter will become university student from this April. So she  will become active again. She's trying a challenge 100km walking now!

Assumptions - a hand game that tanked!

We make assumptions all the time - mine was to expect my young students to be able to take turns. How old do you need to be before you can manage this 'simple' chant with hands in a stack?

One potato, two potatoes seemed so simple, but boy was it a hard to achieve! Understanding the 'drill' was a hard sell. It's not a familiar chant to Japanese kids. Sticking to the beat, one at a time, was anathema.

Taking turns with a partner vs 'me first' or 'mine on top to win' strategies...

Moving a hand from bottom to top, a new concept...

Keeping up with the speed & remembering English numbers...

Including all group members, not pushing, don't want to stand up...so many variables I'd not factored into this quick & easy hand game!

This group having a second go, a week after trying for the first time. A bit of familiarity helped, but I think you can see for yourself how complex this little game is for little ones! A learning opportunity, no?!

Task based learning - is it?!

As I keep saying, I'm not an expert! I'm not sure if this classroom activity actually meets the methodological definition of "Task Based Learning" (TBL) or not...but it felt like a task, looked like a task, and resulted in something tangible which the students really enjoyed doing...so, whatever it might be labelled, it was a win in the classroom.

I went to see a presentation about TBL on Sunday, at the ETJ event in Tokyo. Another one of many presentations that was 'talk to the people around you' variety...very frustrating as I want to learn from someone whose abstract suggested knowledge would be imparted. Instead, I'm floundering with other audience members unknown on a vague topic with no idea what the outcome should be. After that, given a task which I was 100% unable to do. The first was annoying, the second actually made me think that as a student, I'd be angry & humiliated in this sitution.

Both these situations made me think about where my learners were on Saturday afternoon. 

• They know each other well
• They have the language they need (I know)
• They have practiced , because they wanted to
• They can manage the tech (app on my iPad) intuitively (I know)
• They're a bit shy & reluctant to speak up (I know)
• They want to do something 'safe'... within their capabilities
• Very different artistic 'skills'

The 'task' had been a follow up to 'finishing' their graded reader -  draw a picture of your favourite animal as homework. This takes the 'performance anxiety' out of drawing, and can be done in 2 minutes or half an hour (not a classroom time management problem waiting for perfection or "I'm done"). The language aspect = answer some questions about your animal. The result had been one word responses (predictable) which we 'repaired' together, building full sentences & reviewing structures from the reader on the way (so, it did involve grammar, it did involved syntax, it did involve spelling).

I've posted before about using Chatterkids, and the benefits of anonymising student output...here are the results of my students using each others' work to personalise their work. They controlled the device, blinged up their work, re-recorded if they wanted to & agreed with each other when they were done. As you can see & hear, I think a great pay off which got a lot more language flowing than I know they'd usually not be keen to do :)

Students get to keep their work - parents can also see the outcomes as we shared to their Google Classroom. Genuinely happy faces...what do you think? Task based learning?

Seiko Matsuda biography

She was born in Fukuoka on 10th March 1962. When she was born she almost died, but she survived. Her real name is Noriko Kamachi. She has a brother , Mitsuhisa Kamachi.

When she was in the first grade of high school, she thought she wanted to be a singer, so she tried lots of auditions. However they did not think she was going to be a good singer. She participated in a tournament, and she got first place. At this time she decided to be a singer, and she quit her school in Fukuoka., and she transferred to Horikoshi High School in Tokyo, which is famous because many idols and actors went there.

She appeared in a Japanese TV drama in October that year. At the same time, the name “Matsuda Seiko” was officially decided.

In 1980, she debuted as an idol, the most famous things about her is “Seiko chan cut”. Its name of her hair style. In the 80s, lots of Japanese girls had Seiko chan cut.

Her most famous songs are “Akai sweet pea” and “Aoi sangosho”. These songs are still famous and most people still knows her in 2026.

She also made her international debut in the 90s. She sings R&B or English Dance Music.

She got married in 1985, she had a daughter Sayaka the next year. In 2021, her daughter Sayaka passed away suddenly.

And now 2026, Seiko Matsuda is 63. She appeared on the Japanese big New Year TV show Kohaku Uta Gassen the end of 2025.

Professional Development from an "expert"

 I'd been losing sleep for weeks over the Christmas & New Year holiday, about an invitation I'd accepted to be a panelist for OUP about teaching pre-primary children.

I think they asked me because everybody else was busy (shopping for daughter's wedding dress or at a conference in Turkey...instagram is insightful!)...

So this time last week I strapped into presenter chair with my ideas printed out (large font, don't want to squint to camera!). I really appreciated the rehearsal we'd had a week or two prior, to get the idea of the flow & pace to expect, and to actually 'meet' the other people involved (Taiwan, UK, Korea, Japan). Who would speak when, and trying hard to relate with what other speakers were saying naturally.

Behind the curtain!

In the green room - what's that?! Just me. Am I in the wrong meeting? Does my camera & mic work (they did, my speaker decided to mimic the inside of a submarine though) and then boom, off goes the rollercoaster. Don't fidget. Don't fold your arms. Slow down. Use names. Don't talk over people. Relax - there's only 1,000 or so people watching this webinar (and they're recording it for Youtube) ...no stress. Don't look in the chat column!

"...and thank you to our experts, Yumi & Jim, goodbye!"

Fastest hour of all time. 

What was I talking about? With quite a bit of on the floor experience at kindergarten, how to survive, basically, teaching pre-primary learners. There is not a lot of professional training available to language teachers for this age group, and any teacher new to this part of the market is daunted by a myriad of unknowns...When I did my CELTA in the last century, I was asked to give an expert opinion on the last afternoon of the course for 'teaching children', as I was the only person who had done so previously. So, a bit like that! The publisher had noticed me tagging their product on instagram I think. It is a great product, and makes my life every week a lot less stressful and a lot more predictable. 

What could possibly go wrong, working with little kids?! Now that's where you need strategies! Be it music, transitions, behavioural rules, achieving realistic expectations, self-preservation...working in an unfamiliar environment with things you have to carry/plug in/not break...wifi you can't access or no screen to project onto...someone just ate your flashcard and/or their crayons...the homeroom teacher disappeared to cope with a 'code brown'. Here's a topic I could keep going on for quite a while without referencing childhood psychology, methodology tags, curriculum design etc. How to get to class number 32 in a year's time, with a smile still on everyone's face.

The product? Toy Team from Oxford University Press...recommended bookseller = English Books because Colin Bethell is a great bloke, really helpful, and a mate since before I suddenly got famous(?!).

Get yourself noticed by sharing the good, the bad and the ugly from your lessons. Share your aspirations, your fears, and your fails. Connect, network, tag products & publishers, fellow teachers & people you want to meet. Am I an expert? No, my classes were 'quite ordinary' yesterday with a dead laptop + no wifi, nauseating hayfever ;)

Intonation is key! Encouraging learners to bounce

Having 'learned' the vocabulary & structure - third person + be + adjective - to describe how someone is  feeling...and also expanding with 'negative' information with our trusted Everybody Up 2 text book, sorted out word order & spelling heads down if you like; time to take it out for a road test!

Aim of this exercise/task was to make the exchanges real, really quick, making output not only 'correct' but interesting to the listener. To achieve that, I insisted the speaker point to the object card, but look at their listener. In a way, the speaker takes a snapshot of the phrase they are going to use from the card, and uses language independent of the support from memory. I really pushed my students to 'bounce' intonation across their complete utterances (not words 'one by one' drone), and even the most reluctant/shy felt able to let rip as the room was so noisy/fast moving & supportive (want to win the game, after all!).

Beauty of this kind of task is the non-speaker has time to listen to peers, practice what they are going to say & get things organised in their heads...and then cope with the need to repeat, go again etc (which is actually reassuring because they 'can do the first few more easily & focus on the far end of the table - listening to the other group?!). Tip = put the tough words in the middle so you can "pause" and model eg 'excited' with everyone's attention. Monitor subtly - cough if intonation not so great, wave an arm to encourage MORE oomph (technical term!), gesture encouragement (saying something breaks the flow) to inactive players 'on a break', and really encourage every student to have a go! 

I think this worked well - our learners usually need something to break the monotony of their school classes to get back to making English real, really useful, with really English speaking powers. What do you think?

 

On Thin Ice - the graded reader (not the state of Greenland)

Reading for detail - Read & Imagine

As you can easily see, there's a lot of text on the page, which most learners in Japan would baulk at immediately!

Our 'can do' learners at Luna have got used to this psychological barrier & can jump it with ease.

• Quiet reading? Yes
• Reading independently (at home)? Yes
• Overcome 'new' words? Yes
• Familiar with characters? Yes
• Enjoy the storylines? Yes
• Recycle language? Yes
• Personalisation with 'after reading' projects? Yes
• Work together with comprehension tasks? Yes
• Gain confidence with pronunciation of longer words? Yes
• Notice direct speech markers (punctuation)? Yes
• Read ahead for markers? Yes
• Look back in the story to refresh? Yes
• Travel in time & space, around the world? Yes
• Learn really cool stuff? Yes
• Put proper intonation into longer utterances (taking turns 'in character')? Yes
• Listening skills explored? Yes
• Gain confidence spelling? Yes
• Volume of vocabulary? Yes
• Expanding vocabulary sets beyond limited textbook content? Yes
• Yes.Yes. Yes.

There are so many benefits to our dedication at Luna to incorporating graded readers into our students' language learning careers. One of them is our adoption of Oxford's Read and Imagine + Read and Discover series - designed for young language learners with audio and activity books to enhance the learner experience. In our opinion, Oxford's Reading Tree is not fit for purpose, and the Extensive Reading Foundation's continued idolisation of that culturally loaded & unsuitable series is frankly annoying - driven by 'experts' who lecture from their high perches at universities without any idea what they're talking about wrt young learners, accessibility, learning styles, affordability. You never saw Oxford's Story Tree, which WAS ideal for the EFL classroom & independent home-readers?

Rant over? Not really!

Postcard from...Nagoya, Japan

Hi there blog readers!

I went to Nagoya to meet English teachers, school owners, an ex-student and a couple of really cool old friends I've not seen for a while. It was good to reconnect, talk about absent friends a bit, and to get new ideas for my classes and the year ahead.

My side hustle was making an excuse to finally photograph Nagoya Castle. I think I've been there before, but so long ago my photos will be faded as much as my memory. 

Honmaru Palace (foreground)

The first thing to know, is that it is a long walk from the station - so don't bother - get the subway! And understand this is a reconstructed, concrete job, with an awful elevator stuck on the side but ironically, no access to the main tower at the moment. Restoration to the walls is ongoing - somewhat slowly by the looks of it - and the grounds are sparse. The Honmaru Palace has been beautifully restored. A walk around the outer (now mostly dry) moat gives you a good idea of the scale (modest, I'd say). And don't be surprised when you see deer in the moat bed!

I got the impression that this castle was a bit of a peacock - look at my green roofing & golden kinshachi (fish) on the roof - but rather soulless and disconnected from the town (compared to Himeji, for example, which dominates the city...or Matsumoto, where there's ALWAYS something going on and the backdrop is stunning anyway).

Editing my photos, I realised black & white gave the structure more character. What do you think? The full set I took are here on Flickr

I was disappointed with this experience as there was not a lot of information to read, not much signage, and not a whole lot of story to attach to it....not a lot to explore or learn, nor clever angles to tease more out of the photography.