Let's talk! Students with after reading projects

We think these two young learners really do speak for themselves! 

 

Smashing phonics on a desktop!

 You got the idea straight away...

You know your letter sounds, and your homework was great...letter writing is spot on and your pronunciation is just right. But the other student in the class is absent today & I really do NOT want to move on until they can also get the input to proceed. So instead of doing this at home (which is tough, because you need a parent to help you on a PC (or use their device & find the link from Google Classroom)...lets have some fun in-class, so you can read/spell/pronounce all the words you know, set a high score & gain confidence with not only your English, but peripheral tech skills too!

Check out this task (and you can choose various ways to play & also use a number of print options too) as a review 'game' for CVC words with central /e/ from Oxford Phonics World 2. Piece of cake to make (but no need, I aleady created stuff for all chapters for the first three levels!) and many ways to implement one-to-one, group work, books open or closed, asynchronous, in class or at home!

Project Platypus - creative Kana

Check out Kana's fantastic artwork! Truly the best artist I think I've ever had in my English classroom...put her mind to Australia's most shy creature and also narrated her description of it, as an after  reading project (using Chatterpix). I love this app, as it is personal yet maintains our students' privacy :)

How would you rate Kana's work (I'm at A++)?

 

 

Chalk man makes a come back - "This is me!"

We returned to old school project work recently, breaking out the chalk to add some reality to the 'our bodies' topic in Everybody Up 1...we 'traced' each other (as well as the Big Boy himself) in our car park and added details to profiles (importantly, eyes, ears, fingers.... AND pants!).

Good PR as mummies got out of cars/off their phones to ask what we were doing - "This is me!"..."This is my head, these are my legs" etc. Lots of laughs and genuine engagement, even for the artistically challenged (like Jim!)

Big Boy + Little Learners!

Where's my neck?

 

 

 

 

I hate it when you leave

Jim, with an absolute
"worldy" of a student
 in 2018

This time of year is heartbreaking for language school owners like myself...

The inevitable scribbled note from a mum that your favourite student, who has made such awesome progress since her first lesson, which started & ended in a flood of tears/hiding behind mummy's leg/crayon throwing tantrum/hands in pockets refusal to enjoy a song & dance etc...now quitting to focus on 'juku' (cram school) or 'club activities' (only Despina Deguchi will ever win an Olympic Gold Medal from around here!) from next month.

Of course, all our departing students are welcome back with open arms - by which time 'romaji damage' has been permanently inflicted (you learnt how to read and spell phonetically accurately with me, but then want to end every word with a 'u' on the end...); you'll rely on an electronic dictionary to translate your every thought into incoherent word salads; you'll use AI to write any creative writing ideas you might have; you'll want to translate everything back & forwards through L1 and not even be able to say big numbers properly. You will have lost any idea of reading for fun; your fun intonation will have been flattened like a rib-eye before a BBQ, and you will be wondering why EIKEN is not recognised in the school you want to go to in Canada or Australia...and not be able to get an IELTS score good enough to get you a visa. Can we catch up for the years in juku/club activities? Methinks not.

I hate this time of year...am I young enough to wait for you to come back & rescue your English language learning any more? I'm afraid I don't think so...nor do I want to start another generation of learners from the floor (I'm old enough to be your mother's grandad - and my knees hurt). "I hate it when you leave" 

I hate it when you leave....

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. 

Teacher says - almost nothing? Let the kids play!

Teacher said 'rip it up'!

It's been a while since I've shared our classroom activities here. My students inspire me, and I love how the simple things work best - we are more or less back face to face & done with blended zoom lessons - where we couldn't use physical resources...

Any teacher of young learners will tell you that the physical interaction of learners with their own resources, and their physical interaction with each other is priceless - and we are more or less mask free too (not a policy, just the mood).

You can see we are continuing to use online resources - really cool presentation tools & 'distracting' audio/video components. And of course you can see our students all have their own text books = physical resources we at Luna think are irreplaceable. 

You can see flashcard chaos? 

Let's get organised!

I see students managing their own stuff, sorting and saving - and helping each other. Gentle corrections and lots of unsponsored vocabulary spoken...I mean, no teacher talk time, but students prompting, checking, repeating. Teacher's job = shut up & listen! Sure, a few subtle corrections & non-verbal encouragements, nudges & thumbs up, but hey, the students are doing all the heavy lifting! All the non-involved (but attentive) teacher needs to do is a little bit of fine tuning of pronunciation/word substitution & make sure we all have the same number of cards.

Pro tip? Before you take flashcards out of the books (eg Compass's Sounds Fun or Oxford Phonics World) ask students to 'tag' their own cards with their own unique colour - a pink dot in all the top left corners, for example. Why? Well, any card game you play = they will need to unsort quickly! And give then a zip lock bag to keep their precious cards, and elastic bands if you want to save even more time & bundle sets/units together - I don't...the "sorting hat" scramble is another opportunity for learners to queitly/quickly re-process vocabulary & categorise/sort it. Another little win, sensei!

I think I'd estimate teacher talk time in these lessons at about 2 minutes/hour. As a game player - setting the standard/modelling output & answering "Jim sensei, what's this?" questions, & joking along (H told me to 'Go away!' instead of  'Go Fish!') fully involved - but as a peer & actually trying to loose the game itself. 

I have a cunning plan!

How much Japanese did the teacher need to speak? Nope, none.

How much Japanese did the students come out with? Precious little, apart from 'social'or game play reactions.

How much explanation went into the games? None - we started, and guess what, the students figured the rules/goals out for themselves & stress-tested their ideas - and then refereed when Jim-sensei tried to blatantly cheat!

 

GEOS goes bust - it's personal

Thirty-six hours after being told on the phone not to go to work by GEOS corporate division, I still have not heard a word. I am not surprised. Emails have been unanswered, answer machine picks up the phone. Mobile numbers of staff are 'dead'.

The company I teach at has sensibly decided for themselves that all bets are off until they get some information too. I think GEOS is more likely to respond to them than little old me. After all,they have paid for classes which are not now being taught. They can afford a lawyer or twelve. Teachers like me are unlikely to ever be paid for work done in April. Silly Jimmy!

From what I have pieced together from the chatter online, teachers will be expected to sign new contracts tomorrow (Friday 23rd) with the self-same people who have lied repeatedly about the health of GEOS & their ability to honour wage payments.That sounds like an enticing prospect, doesn't it? What would you do?

What about my students? I have invested five years of my life into teaching some of them; suddenly not being there really angers me. Yes, it is a job & I used to get paid for it, but there is a mutual commitment, connection, collaboration with time & trust that is sacrosanct. We have just mapped out the next six months of study, set deadlines for assignments & agreed a code of behaviour (not being there unannounced is one of the bigger no-nos...I think in five years I have failed to make three classes unreasonably late. Today I missed four.)

My problem with GEOS going out of business (apart from significant monies owed) is that I am personally going to be tarnished by association. On a larger scale, my school is going to be tarnished, again, by Eikaiwa-bashing such as we saw in the fall out from NOVA's demise. This is utterly unfair (but inevitable) as Luna International  is an entirely professional outfit. If GEOS & NOVA were the MacDonald's of the EFL industry, we are the great little local restaurant people keep coming back to. Outbreak of E-Coli scares everyone away. On an industry scale, very good people running very good schools up & down the country are going to be similarly looking at a blizzard of abuse in the media feeding frenzy coming. This is like blaming Iceland for having a septic volcano.

I am no expert in the legalities of bankruptcy, companies merely being 'in administration' etc. If a company resurrects itself tomorrow in all but name, minus the obligations to pay debts etc, then that company & its officers are morally bankrupt. In Monopoly terms, "Go back to go"?  No: "Go to jail - do not go past Go & do not collect £200".

And miss three turns - no "Get out of Jail Free" cards please.