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 word lists; young learners & Wordwall

Not a touch screen, but...

 My favourite page of any graded reader is the glossary, which in any good YL book is presented as a picture dictionary. These words are obviously important in a particular book for better comprehension, but might not be as high frequency as to pop up throughout a series regularly. Readers don't have to learn these words of course, but it certainly helps to be familiar with them/know where to look if they get 'stuck'!

Personally, I love to gamify such sets of vocabulary using wordwall, which has the easy option of adding any set to a Google classroom as a link or an assignment. We try to share everything we create at Luna as well...have a look & rate our stuff?!

YL blended class

Wordwall is a great way to flip a class/reader. Frontload all the 'hard learning' with a fun game or two (one set = 5 different ways (or more) to enjoy your creation without having to do any more creating at all (bingo busy teachers!)...if you have a PC screen for a class...collaborate, or take turns - whatever works for a particular class. 

And this can work for you with online learners - give a zoomer control of your mouse, and make the other students their 'helper' - warning, this can get noisy! Or the other way around, if your zoomer is limited by screen (tablet or mum's phone) then have them direct buddies with an open book, and have your in-class gang put books away. Put the team on the leaderboard...really does generate the need to go home & be the champion before next class :)

You'll notice, we haven't even started reading the book yet - but we want to now!

Lazy teacher! Directing traffic :)

Online class #1

As promised, from April 13th, Luna is offering students who want to stay at home the opportunity to nevertheless join in with their class. We totally understand our students' & parents' concerns...and we also really understand that others really do need to get out of the house - which for now, is relatively safe here. We will provide our students with their classes 'live' online, as long as we have 24 hours' notice to do so - we found out today that we need a lot more preparation time & logistical care....a lot of things we cannot do at the last minute.

Cardboard box + Thomas track = cheapo interactive whiteboard!

As long as needs be, we will provide this opt-out/stay-in service, and at no extra cost. We are sharing an audio of these classes via Edmodo, as well as other asynchronous homework tasks/games/projects and add ons.

We know an online class is no replacement for the flexibility & warmth of a a face-to-face class...we are going to find it really hard to replace game play for example...we will instead introduce a favourite free app & give our class members a challenge therein. We are lucky; most of our students have pretty good wi-fi, plenty of memory space on their smart phones/tablets, parental support. Chance to share/learn & extend everything we do and build on all the good ideas we've been having for years! It really strikes me that there is going to be such a conversation to have soon about digital poverty on top of actual financial poverty.

BIG moan I have now = why do publishers only produce large flashcards - back in the day, playing card size was the default & perfect for all manner of games, and cheaper/easier to manage. And now, would fit half a dozen under an iOS device >> be able to gamify.

Little other moan - I have to stop biting my fingernails!

Last moan - at Luna we only ever give students homework AFTER we have taught something, or occasionally in a flipped learning scenario as in "we'll be doing this next week"...what the hell have Japanese school teachers been doing since closure in March?

• Delivered or learned how to deliver a single class online? Been given training/log in/security training in how to do this?
• Mastered or even tried the #EdTech to deliver above?
• Written a single email or message to any student/class via any app/online learning system/LMS?
• Learned how to use/apply an app? Shared that/assignment within?
• Been given a budget to buy/master an app & enroll a class eg Class Dojo?
• Been allowed to take a PC/laptop home & do anything from there? 
• Attended any webinar or used SMS to ++ on professional development?
• Figured out how to use/install a webcam/mic?
• Figured out how to connect their iOS device to an online meeting & share that screen?
• Justified the need to actually go to school when there are no kids there?
• Checked in on their students' mental well-being?
• Provided online homework (boring as all fuck that it is) provision?

I think I could go on...

My point really is, we will not be going back to school as usual. We won't at Luna, and as a parent I will not accept it at my children's schools. Will you?

Speed up your typing

Kill sharks, piranhas (yes, in the same salty waters) and boost your typing speed.
Turn off the volume if your boss is watching?!

Enjoy!