Shohei Ohtani: A Remarkable Athlete

Shohei Ohtani was born in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, in 1994. He has been playing baseball since elementary school. From a young age, his talent was appeared in baseball and joined the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan's professional league in 2013. He established himself as a two-way player in Japan’s professional league.

After spending successful seasons, he moved to Major League Baseball in the United States and joined the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. He became famous for his ability as both a pitcher and a hitter. In 2023, he joined the Los Angeles Dodgers. Furthermore, he played in the WBC in 2023. He was a great pitcher and hitter in the tournament. In the final game, he struck out his teammate and helped Japan become world champion.

In 2026, he became the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball, with total earnings of about $127 million. Around 98% of this income came from sponsorship deals. He has partnerships with more than 20 global companies from Japan and abroad, which makes him one of the most successful athletes in the world.

He married in 2024, and he is a father for 2 kids. Even though he has his own family, he has continued to focus on baseball. His wife is supporting him very well.

He also helps other people through charity work. In 2023, he donated about 60,000 baseball gloves to elementary schools across Japan. He hoped that more children would enjoy playing baseball. (I saw the gloves at my kids' school!!)

I think fame and fortune have brought Ohtani happiness. Although he has natural talent, his happiness today is the result of his hard work and his sincere attitude toward everything he does.

Ignoring L1 in game play to extract English!

The background to this blizzard of interaction is that two of the students are new to the class, and originally a bit reluctant to speak up/take turns/be decisive (is scared of 'being wrong').

Aim of this game was to pre-teach the difference between singular & plural nouns - notice a) the right name of the animal...b) has it got an s on the end or not? Why/why not? I did not 'teach' this but rather, asked them to notice when it is used...form their own idea & check it out together - then remind each other as each image gave them two 'wrong' animal names, the others a 50/50 singular or plural option. 

Liverpool fan - "off side, ref!"

That the students used quite a lot of L1 while engaging in the game play = totally fine with me. It was
focussed, respectful and enabled them to 'manage' their participation in the game as teammates (encouraging each other to choose the correct answer/use the mouse) & competitors (throwing in bad advice!). What does annoy me enormously when I observe other classes is when L1 interferes with the progression of the activity - back channel to discuss other thiings, which indicates a lack of engagement/interest in the exercise...and/or the whole game is in L1 with next to no English input/output.

I also felt the children in this class were switching languages without thinking about it - really keen instead to get on with the game & win. That they didn't win = small beer; both teams scored loads of points and got most of the answers right - and they did all the hard work...teacher's job to notice 'glaring mistakes' (ignore mis-steps with the mouse or make light of jumping in too quickly & chosing the red-herring). 

This activity on Baamboozle not a filler at the end of class (the 'reward' or lack of a full lesson plan). Rather, previewing the next topic we are going to be dealing with in Everybody up Starter - essentially flipping the classroom & already drilling the vocab set (domestic/farm animals) & grammar point.

Win win.