Notes in Nagoya

One way to get an abundance of English teachers in the same place? Put on an Expo. On Sunday I went to one of the many that are on throughout Japan; armed with a pen and notepad I made my way down to Nagoya, ready to learn about different techniques and tools that I could use in class and how they would benefit the students. My personal favourite was from David Paul and hearing about his seven-step sequence to teaching phonics. As this is a very new topic for me, I found hearing about these techniques from someone who spent so long developing them here in Japan to be incredibly valuable; thank you David! After meeting many other teachers, hearing about how their teaching journeys and going to a handful of lectures, I can honestly say that this is one field that will never stop evolving. The number of resources we constantly have at our fingertips is astounding and I can’t wait to slowly make my way through them.

A new job, a new start, a new teacher.

It’s Sunday 26^th of January and I’m up at the crack of dawn to meet Jim at Matsumoto station to catch the first express train to Nagoya for my first ETJ experience: a series of presentations at the Sugiyama Jogakuen University. Or so I thought. After missing our train by the skin of our teeth, we decided to hole up at the nearby Mos Burger for a quick nap and recharge before getting on the next express train to Nagoya.


We arrived fashionably late, so unfortunately we missed the first set of presentations which started at 10:00. We went to get ourselves signed in and were asked to make some name badges for ourselves, I felt like a student arriving for his first day at a brand new school. This feeling was further enforced by every presentation that I observed, learning new and creative materials or teaching tools from many experienced English teachers and publishers working around the country.

Ritsuko Nakata

My first presentation, “Getting forgetful kids to remember” by Ritsuko Nakata, outlined the importance of her “MAT (Model, Action, Talk) method”. It focuses on giving students a meaningful context to the language that they are learning, as well as encouraging the use of gestures within to classroom to aid students when learning vocabulary so they are not dependent on the teacher to practise the language by constantly listening and repeating. This allows the students to practise the language among themselves and also feel accomplished for doing so.

Next up was David Paul’s presentation on “motivating teenagers and adults to communicate”. This was a presentation I did not want to miss as from personal experience a student who is not willing to communicate is the most difficult to teach. Many ideas and techniques were presented with an emphasis on personalization and the importance of recycling language to build confidence in the students (also as a way making sure they aren’t forgetting everything you teach them as soon as they walk out of the classroom!). We looked at using activities which encourage a communicative response rather than using language that is situational and regurgitated from any old classroom textbook.

Mari Nakamura

My next presentation was by Mari Nakamura on her new book “Lily and the Moon” to engage children’s hearts and minds with a picture book. A story inspired from her childhood following the adventures of Lily the ladybird as she meets an array of little critters on her journey to see a ladybird on the moon. The book can be used as an aid for teaching times of day, colours, animals, nature and comes with an array of activities and flashcards to use within the classroom. There was a strong emphasis on the use of gestures and the involvement of the students whilst reading.

David Paul

Next was another presentation by David Paul on his publication “Finding Out”, a step by step child centred course for children. What I found intriguing was his use of “nonsense” words in his book to strengthen the students the ability to read, rather than focusing on their ability to recognise written words from exposure and repetition. In this manner a student can’t learn to read any word regardless of if it is real or not and will never be afraid when faced with an unseen word.

Last of all was Jo Ando’s presentation on the importance of phonics textbooks in the classroom. Albeit more of a sales representative than an experienced teacher with multiple publications, he pressed the importance of incorporating captivating images and the use of colouring in phonic textbooks to maintain the interest of the students.

Having only just started teaching my own classes the Monday before, I have had very little opportunity to try and implement ideas and activities of my own into the classroom. Now having attended the series presentations, I feel armed to the teeth with new techniques and activities that are going to help engage the students in the classroom environment and inspire them to further develop their English language skills. The whole experience has aided me in broadening my mind into the depth and excitement of English language teaching, and I am looking forward to implementing the plethora ideas, techniques and activities that I was able to take away from this event.

Thank you to all the staff involved in organising such a wonderful event, I will be waiting in anticipation for the next event.

Also a very big thank you to Jim for encouraging me to attend, showing me around, introducing me to many new people, as well as convincing me it would be a great idea waking up at 6 a.m on a Sunday!

Damian Gowland

Blending media: graded readers + iOS devices

This was originally going to be a quick posting about how I was trying to integrate Quizlet sets more into class at the table (rather than at the PC) now that I have my old iPhone 3 freed up as de facto iPod Touch.

Created on Tagxedo - regular past tense verbs in "Lost in the Jungle"

I was just about to start tapping away when I came across a blog posting on a very related topic - how to "teach" the pronunciation of regular verbs in the past tense: the -ed ones. It has taken me a few days to think about this one in a wider context...

I do not think (young) learners need to be told what they are going to learn, explicitly. Nor do they need to be scared with the mechanics of what they are going to do - before `we` have got there together (something I am sure David Paul would want students to realise for themselves). Of course, we (teachers) need to teach; that does not mean we have to stand at the front of the class & deliver pronouncements from on high. Far from it...

Complementary media - book & iOS

I like the dawn of realisation to sneak up on my students nice and quietly - preferably while they are reading. And that is secret weapon number one, methinks. Graded readers, deployed nice and strategically, quietly. Children aren`t daft - they recognise patterns, form opinions, arrive at conclusions. And after that, they ask questions or can have ideas teased out. With -ed endings, my favourite is to ask them to underline all the verbs (or 'doing' words, however you explain them?) as we listen to a new reader. My fave series has a CD narration of each title in the pack. I don`t have to explain they are all past tense; by the end of the book they want to know why they have all got -d or -ed stuck on the end (they have already come across the same words enough times to keep Paul Nation happy!). Teacher question = "When did this happen?"

Using Quizlet app to find irregular past tenses

Leave "it", the nutty crunchy grammar thing alone. Play with the book; get into the comprehension questions, true/false stuff, vocabulary mining. Mess about with the pictures and generally ENJOY READING. Again, my fave graded reader series has a dedicated workbook for each story - puzzles, yes/no, gap filling. They get suitably harder as the books climb in ambition. These are not a class activities; extra-curricula & opt-in. We follow up in class for sure - but the past tense thing is something I want to focus on here.

Once we have done everything else we usually do with the readers ("finished" them if you like!), one last teacher challenge. Listen for the words you underlined, and circle them in one of three colours (you choose the colours - but be consistent after this decision!)

• Red - if you hear a /d/ sound on the end
• Black - if you hear a /t/ sound on the end
• Blue - if you hear an "extra" syllable (ie longer than the original word) = /Id/ sound on the end

A word to the wise; every teacher has a slightly different way of pronouncing words. Decide how you are going to say your own -ed endings as a teacher, and hereafter be consistent. There are no golden rules; a general agreement, yes. What does your school want the students to be producing? What do the other teachers teach?

After all of that, I can`t imagine a book which managed to only use regular past tense verbs. Can you? Would be rather odd. I love Quizlet for making, saving & sharing online falshcards; a dedicated app means they can also be accessed by iOS. In this instance I wrote a list of the verbs (present tense) that occured in the story, and asked students to copy the list onto the inside back cover of their readers - usefully bank. Using the 'learn' function, students could match the present & past tense forms & then scribble it down - if they had not already known or guessed (encouraged them to dive back through the book to find the words too).

Screen shot, Quizlet app 'learn' function

Once learners have finished this task, there is a 'scatter' game, with a timer = immmediately compels YLEs to compete. Drilling, anyone?