Who says life is dull for Japanese school kids?

"Yesterday, my friend Toru had a shower, used the internet, did his homework and went to bed late. He didn't get up early, send a text message, catch a bus or eat pizza."

"Yesterday, my friend Takuro had a shower, used the internet, did his homework and went to bed late. He didn't get up early, send a text message, catch a bus or eat pizza."

Takuro and Toru interviewed each other about yesterday. They go to different schools, and were not 'cheating' over this quick written follow up. Nevertheless, the result was worryingly predictable - they go through life as kids in Japan on a very plain trajectory!

I shouldn't complain, because these two lads are really coping well with the number of irregular verbs in the English language and different /ed/ sounds for even the 'regular' ones in the simple past tense. As learners they are excellent canvasses to work with.

Careful - hungry readers at work!

Everything I can chuck at my strong readers class they are catching at the moment. I am really thrilled with the processing they are doing.

A penny dropped in class last week  when we started a new unit in our text book and it was "easy"...we've already done this ie "stupid teacher!"

Nya ha! Different past simple verb /ed/ ending sounds locked and loaded in our heads, thank you very much. Let's move on, nothing to see here!

Irregular past tense verbs? That's not hard either, we bagged a bunch of them playing that 'mining the book' challenge thing two weeks ago! Felt like a zoo keeper throwing chunks of red meat at hungry tigers!

What I particularly enjoy seeing now is students flipping (not the teacher!) but their books - racing into text to find the answers they know are in there somewhere. Not so long ago they would not venture out of their depth; now they are leaping into the literarary deep end :)

My teaching life made very easy with confident, competitive, collaborative readers. Now we can really push the boat out :)