A little bit of Project Based Learning

How do you make pentagons?

Just because you didn't turn to the next page in the text book, does not mean your lesson went nowhere!

Learners need a change of gear, a change of task, a change of procedure...whilst they can recycle the language they've been exposed to & need another way to exploit (they don't know they want to do this, by the way...they do know they want to do something not English, maybe, involves some art and yes please, a game on top :)

The basic premise, nicely embedded in Everybody Up 2 is an arts & crafts detour to review learning in units 1 & 2. Themes/topics = jobs, the five senses, and places around town. Some drawing, review of spelling & flipping back & forth through our text books = priceless refreshment of learning. None of this explicitly teacher directed, but rather, learners realising what they need to do & help each other out & find 'short cuts' (aide de memoire?).

The hardest part = how do you divide a paper plate (left over from our BBQ!) into equal fifths?

End of the day, don't sweat the details (we do not have protractors...and bannish erasers from any task like this!); just get on with it - primary objective is the language output (next week, conveniently open/observation week at Luna). 

We're ready - bring in the parents :)

So, what we actually accomplished is a nice little ambush; students "have" all the language embedded  into their paper plate, subliminal cues & rehearsed structures etc.

All I have to do next week is arrange the extra chairs & maybe provide the odd prompt, notice if we've got something to fine tune (the week after open week, without parents critiquing) and give high 5s.

 

Luna's Open Week

A flipped classroom this month with Jim and Damian coming under the microscope for a change. Luna was open for eager parents, sleepy siblings and any other family members who were curious enough to sit in in classes or watch via webcam in the waiting room.

Quizzing mum

Luna holds an annual 'Open Week' to give an opportunity for busy parents to have a peek, see what goes on in our classrooms and sit down and have a good old chat with the teacher. A full-on week (for students, parents and the Luna team!) where our younger learners show that they are CAN DO students and are using English as an effective communicative tool in the classroom. Of course not everything goes perfectly swimmingly or according to plan, but we did get through the week with minimal tears, tantrums and mishaps. More importantly, however,  there were smiles all round and plenty of fun was had! Even mums and dad feeling the pressure when thier kids are asking them questions in English!!

Big smiles!

A few parents did express their concerns over the lack of exposure or opportunities to use English at home, so for some mums and dads it was an eye-opening experience to see their children really enjoying themselves and being right in the thick of it in an English speaking environment. We do put an emphasis on what our learners can do, and strive for our students to build their confidence and feel comfortable taking on challenging tasks. I'm sure returning mums and dads can vouch for us when I say there has been progresss in their children's linguistical ability, self-confidence and social skills.

Lovely

We do have a few ideas on the backburner to further improve our Open Weeks in the future. The parking congestion we suffer definitely needs sorting, especially since many over our classes overlap so we have 2 sets of parents in a rather tight space. We're also looking at spreading out the Open Week into an observation period. It can be extremely draining for teachers when they have to be on their A-game class after class after
consecutive class for an entire week. Extending our Open Week to 2 weeks would take the pressure off a bit and allow us to take a breath and collect ourselves in between our observed classes.

Janken race in full flow

A huge thank you for each and every one of you who came to view your children, nieces/ nephews etc. We appreciate all of your feedback, which allows us to change and adapt to provide a better education for our learners. Also don't forget to thank Yukari for all of her hard work she was involved in leading up to and during the observations. See you all next September, but hopefully sooner!

Open week - happy mums everywhere!

A big thank you to all our parents who made the effort to get involved during Open Week. It means a lot to us, that the job we are doing with your children means a lot to you. It is great to see so many of you wanting to see inside the classroom & get a first-hand glimpse of the classroom dynamic.

Importantly, we do not ask our teachers to prepare a finely crafted demonstration that has been rehearsed and drilled down to the last minute; this used to happen when I was an assistant language teacher at Fuzoku junior high school. Every last detail of the class was choreographed (even down to which students would be asked which questions...). Our teachers' brief is to "get on with it", teach a class as usual and highlight how/what the kids can do as well as how you 'do it' along the way - don't play to the gallery.

Obviously the children behave differently with mums hovering, but they quickly forget the audience once engaged with class tasks and it's business as usual. Some issues of course with distractions (little brothers & sisters, mostly) but time flies and a high quality lesson delivered smoothly means no one was watching the clock/surprise that it's already time to wrap things up & set homework.

We will be taking note of your feedback and look forward to fine-tuning things with your comments in mind. 

Anyone is welcome to observe a class at Luna - please do contact Yukari to ask/give us the chance to find you an extra chair etc.

Mummy appreciation week ~ open week!

Love our open week, but I am always disappointed when mums/dads can't find the time to come along to class. Did you know, you are welcome to come & observe anytime you like? We do have an open door policy (we just need a phone call so we know who to expect & can find a chair for you).

My philosophy for the school is that we do not spend weeks prepping false impressions. When I worked at Shindai Fuzoku (for 5 years) the teachers there "practiced" the same lesson two or three times through with the students, identifying exactly who would do what & be asked which questions (and how). The entire demo lesson would be fine tuned to the second, with the teacher sleeping in the teacher's room for a week stressed to breaking point & beyond. (Meanwhile none of their other classes got any consideration/planning...)

Students practiced standing up, standing behind chair, pushing it in & standing up straight, saying "Excuse me, I'm not sure, but... (all in Japanese) & then mutter their scripted & well-rehearsed utterance (usually a 'translation' of a 'key' word...) Utter farce. That the observers were all in battle-dress black suits, toted cameras/videos & clipboards each, observed very invasively (in the 'special class observation room') and outnumbered the students (yeah, more than 30) "unobtrusively" taking a peek at " cutting edge" EFL practice ... Total bollocks.

Business as usual with us, our intent that parents (or grandparents) can see work in progress. Yes, of course we want to showcase key achievements but we do this every week; we are always trying new stuff and & have our learned striving.

If our YLEs are operating beyond their parents' comfort zone, so much the better! With my Friday class we've been working together for 'a while'...all new stuff with mums watching today blitzing time telling, every day activities, numbers 0 ~ 60, and murdering "long /a/" spellings for dessert...I know they can do this & the 'hallelujah' moment when "stuff goes in" (technical term!)  is blissful...and you can't fake it :)

Thanks mums for coming & watching; hope you like what we are doing week in, week out...I love their hard work!

And you can come watch any other class at Luna anytime you like; an older group to see the line of travel? A younger one for little brother or sister? No sweat!

Open week at Luna

Classroom questionnaire - involve mums!

 I love Open Week!

This is the chance we get to show mums and dads how well our students are doing, and how they are doing it. In the last year we have made big efforts to share our work with Edmodo, but there's nothing like an actual peek around the classroom door. (Of course, parents are welcome to come and see what's going on anytime...we wish even more parents could come, because there's so much cool stuff we want to show them!)

On Tuesday afternoon, nearly all the mums came to see Jim's busy class, which uses the Primary Colours coursebook. As we had a decent roomful, it was a great opportunity to move around more than usual and get unexpected answers. It also meant mums were as engaged in the activity as their children were, and got a feel for the language/interaction instead of merely looking over shoulders. Frees the teacher up nicely too, to soft pedal any classroom management issues.

Mums on the spot

This class has covered topics like numbers, colours, and school bag/household items lately, and can handle questions from the teacher if they are in context. I wanted to put them in charge of the questions today, and deal with answers they had not heard before. eg Japanese children (maybe all?) want to tell you every single colour that might be on their t-shirt/pencil case/socks...funnily, today mums did the same. Thank you. There was only one 'space' for the answer to go in, so they had to rationalise the answer! (And everyone realised a simple answer works best).

Each child had a slightly different questionnaire to complete, asking everyone else "What colour is your...toothbrush/bike/bag etc?". They then wrote the name of the respondent (all up on the board to copy) in the right row/column (itself something this class needed to be taught to do, which astonished me at the time). Once finished (only just in time) we coloured our charts as a nice bar graph. Mums got a first hand experience of their children speaking English in action (not the odd word or out of context) and were able to assess for themselves pronunciation, memory, letter formation, interaction and behaviour.

We are looking forward to seeing more parents through the week, and are really keen to give face to face updates on progress, problems and praise. Come on and see what's going on!