Rei the reader!

I want to read!

Adopting Oxford Phonics World as our 'go to' phonics resource/series at Luna International was a no brainer, especially with covid-induced needs for online resources/presentation tools. We love the clarity of the materials, the logical presentation & progression. I am not a fan of the North American drawl that undermines accurate pronunciation in the audio of some units...but, I am very picky.

Unfortunately, we now have little brothers & sisters not even needing to come to Luna because they've grabbed a sibling's classbook and submerged themselves into the learning!

Screen time smasher!

Big brother Yoshi I have known since kindy...and he's been learning with us at Luna as well for a quite while now. He used to hide behind his classmates & not say 'boo' to a goose, but no more - a confident reader, neat writer & speller, and almost glib with answering too easy questions! Loosing games no longer a 'problem' either :)

I've been told his five-year old brother Rei is #OPW fan number one! As you can see, he's an independent learner...and has had to have a home screen time limit for the OPW app imposed to 15 minutes (maximum!) daily. Oh my word - if only we had that 'problem' with our students :)

I blame his parents..

Not fair?

As you can see in the pic above & videos below, Rei is an independent learner already. So, dad will be out of a job soon (as well as me!). 

Just imagine if every five year old in Japan had this kind of leg-up from mum & dad before they even get to elementary school? Game changer! Goodbye 'romaji' crap & katakana cribbing. Well done mum & dad...and thank you dad for choosing Luna International again for your family...like your parents asked me to teach you & your buddies when you were at elementary school.

Turbo-charged learning like this could/should be a game-changer for Japanese children. Tragically, I doubt very many decision makers within MEXT or BoE have the first clue about how vital a grasp of phonics is...especially with the ongoing race to the bottom which is 'providing' language teaching to children in kindergarten & elementary schools (and JHS/HS) from the lowest bidder/freshest face on zoom or YouTube/flashiest app on some administrator's TikTok feed. 

Flipping good work - young learners on Zoom

Two of my students moved away in the spring, but wanted to keep learning together as they've been with Luna/in the same class since they were knee-high. They have adapted to taking classes online really well, because they have confidence in each other, trust me (a bit!) and realise that 'mistakes' are just part & parcel of the learning process...but once upon a time a hair-trigger for tears & red faces. Now, giggles galore and superb collaborative English adventure.

Having adopted/upgraded to online presentation tools for textbooks, & digital copies of graded readers (kids still need physical books in their hands...reading is a tactile sport!) for our teachers to exploit, we've been re-skilling at Luna Towers on the job.

Last night, only one student could join me at the last minute...we've just started a new text book and I didn't want to leave her buddy behind or have to retrace our steps next week. We've just finished a set of readers and the new order is literally in the post. My game plan crashed & burned.

Sherlock Holmes:
The Dying Detective

Imagine MY delight when she bounced off her chair squeeling when I showed her the front covers of the new readers "I love Sherlock Holmes!" ... Let's run with that enthusiasm :)

Ceeding control of my keyboard & mouse, we worked together to build a Quizlet set from the glossary of 'harder' or less familiar words in the story. How? 

I have a fair idea her vocabulary 'store' so:

• challenged her to spell 'known' or previously studied words (memory or a quick book dive) & then checking herself, by choosing an image (auto search is accurate enough) to suit. I liked this approach as her selections were different to mine!
• familiar words I typed and she told me what she thought it meant (some L1 here), then image search to confirm understanding
• obviously unknown & unique words to this story eg contagion or microbe, I added the word & found a suitable image & then checked for understanding ('corona?')

And there you go. Student generated content. Fully engaged both of us, and will be a great help to her buddy next week. Next mission with this set will be to make a copy, and have them both agree on a Japanese translation for the vocabulary. This will be a dictionaries open exercise if necessary, and another way we can flip our online classroom; after that game time in Quizlet and whatever else I can think of eg  wordwall or oodlu

The Quizlet set "Sherlock Holmes - The Dying Detective" OUP Dominoes "Quick Starter" graded reader produced by 'lunateacher' in our "Graded Reader - Young Learners" class. Feel free to join (it's free!) students and teachers!

Can't do my homework: Part 2 of 3 - a different tack

Cuisenair Rods = colour + length 'coding'

I wanted to take the words out of the equation, but leave them in somehow. Replace them?

The Game Plan...and no, I couldn't remember exactly all the words either.

Solution...post-it notes. As a group, I asked them to write one word at a time on to a post-it (books open if needed); my online student did so into the Zoom chat. So no, not a 'spelling test' per se. Fortunately, my post-it notes were not very sticky so they needed weighing down (fan was on for a reason!).

Online? I'd opened a Google Jamboard & drawn colour lines where I wanted my student to enter text. Hard for newbies, but he's been learning on the job for a year now, and could cope with the challenge (enjoys messing about with the mouse/keyboard when I give him control, defacing things!). Problem = few colours available for the pen/type tools on Jamboard than I needed...

Unsticky post-it notes...just the excuse!

So we had the question form on the table, in a straight line, and then the answer below, so's that words 'lined up'. Putting the Cuisenaire Rods on the post-its = words were there but obsured, and could be peeped at if we needed a prompt (ie "I want to read the word")  without referring to the book. We negotiated block lengths to suit the actual words...subliminally giving each part of speech a different colour code into the bargain.

I didn't want to hide the words for my Zoomer, as he's already operating from the far end of the telescope and he has a lot fewer clues to work with - cannot pick up non-verbals etc. But, as his workspace was on another screen, my in-class gang did not realise he had an "advantage", so he became quasi-sensei & his ego was suitably enhanced.

Did it work? 

(Part 3 will be posted tomorrow)

A fictional newspaper report - after reading "Hijack"

OUP graded reader "Skyjack"

- A large plane was hijacked. The hijacker asked the government to bring their brothers and being free instead of the passengers’ safety. They called themselves the People’s Liberation Army.

- The Prime Minister tried to make time for catching them, although she knew that her husband was in the plane.

- I believe there are many types of affection in this story. One is the hijacker’s. They just wanted to help their comrade. Their way of helping them was just wrong, hijacking and bringing guns. The Prime Minister’s husband was looking forward to meeting her. It is essential truth of affection. The Prime Minister could not figure out at first, whether she protected her husband’s life as a wife or if she put priority on the government issue. This is also an expression of love.

- One of hijackers, a 12 year old girl, shot the passenger who tried to run away for her comrade’s freedom. I guess she just felt hatred toward that passenger because her affection would be brokered by him.

- We have affection towards family, friends and everybody. At same time, we have hatred for keeping our own affection. This hijack story exhibits that hatred gives birth to violence and a sad ending. In addition, I would say that affection lies side-by-side with hatred.

- If they, the PLA , had been given a good education, they could have decided to correct their way of life. I hope that by changing society, that all kids have the opportunity of going to school to make correct choices for a happy future and long life.

Posted for Yumi, a Zoom learner with Luna for B2:First prep

Virtual Matsumoto Bon Bon - Can Do!

The Zoomed-in Team

Thank you everyone who made the effort to join us for an early, socially distanced but joined up Bon Bon!

We are very excited with the video that Emmy has edited together, which we hope will be shown on local TV on Aug 1st (when the festival should have been held). We will be sharing a lot more of our photos & videos then.

Well done Eleanor & her friends leading the charge outside in our car park. They know the dance and did a really genki job with no crowd!

Outdoor distanced Team

Indoor connecting Team

Participating via Zoom, and with a lagging video stream (sorry, we've not done a virtual festival before!) and learning as they went were former Matsumoto natives living in Singapore and Tokyo; ex-teachers joining us from Tokyo with family, Auckland in New Zealand & Cairo in Egypt - we miss you guys! - and even another language school owner & her daughter from Tokyo. Super moves!

Trying to co-ordinate these two groups, who couldn't see each other, our staff in the downstairs classroom + Matsumoto Castle :)
doing our best to demonstrate the dance & keep everything going.

We also had for extra bonus videos arrive from old friends who did Bon Bon once, somewhat inebriated, in 1995. Still got the moves in Cornwall, Brighton & Southport in England, and in North Carolina, USA.

Great that we could all do this and get our super red Bon Bon t-shirts sweaty again. Wish we could have done this 'for real', but in a way this brought us all closer.

Thank you again Luna's truly International family - across five continents you are inspiring! See you here August 7th, 2021.

Love a parade?! Join us for our first GLOBAL Bon Bon!

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18:00 (JST)
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

Zoomミーティングに参加する
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ミーティングID: 867 5969 6384
パスワード: 580897

Dress code - red t-shirt or something "British"

Blended provision for our students - announcement

With the re-closure of schools in Nagano prefecture, and the increasing nervousness of some of our students and parents (as well as us!) we have decided to do two things as of Monday, April 13th:

1. Continue to teach small classes in the school with even more enhanced care over disinfecting surfaces, sanitising visitors'/teachers'/students' hands on entry/departure etc, and making sure students are seated as far apart as we can manage without being 'weird'! We are avoiding activities which require students to share things, and encouraging YLs to wear masks (prevent fingers going in places more than bugs!). We are obviously asking anyone who has a temperature or who is feeling unwell to avoid coming to the school.
2. Offer students who are concerned about using public transport, or who not keen to be here in a group, the opportunity to join their class in real time via Zoom. We are all new at this, but we can all try and learn something new together :) We will also record the lessons and share them within our class members on Edmodo (an LMS we have been using for years but has hitherto been very under exploited). We will continue to do this for as long as needs be.

We will be making an effort to also share with students and parents more than ever, additional resources/ideas/apps/activities withing Edmodo. Any one can join that 'class ' but you do need to join. It's free :)  Join here >> https://edmo.do/j/fgcrjx

Matsumoto Castle - not recent!

As ever we will do our best to keep you up to date - check your Edmodo class regularly please?

We will continue to share via our Facebook page - click here

Of course we will also be answering the phone! 0263-34-4481 & talk to Rinka, Emi, Yukari, Yuka or Eri.

We can also look after students who want to 'observe' a lesson (but don't want to physically come!), or even students not in our neighbourhood. Tell us which level/age, and we'll put you with a suitable group as a guest.

We are looking forward to making sure our students can continue to get the best English language education we can provide...just going to have to do it a bit differently for a while. Don't panic!

Jim