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!

A new job, a new start, a new teacher.

It’s Sunday 26^th of January and I’m up at the crack of dawn to meet Jim at Matsumoto station to catch the first express train to Nagoya for my first ETJ experience: a series of presentations at the Sugiyama Jogakuen University. Or so I thought. After missing our train by the skin of our teeth, we decided to hole up at the nearby Mos Burger for a quick nap and recharge before getting on the next express train to Nagoya.


We arrived fashionably late, so unfortunately we missed the first set of presentations which started at 10:00. We went to get ourselves signed in and were asked to make some name badges for ourselves, I felt like a student arriving for his first day at a brand new school. This feeling was further enforced by every presentation that I observed, learning new and creative materials or teaching tools from many experienced English teachers and publishers working around the country.

Ritsuko Nakata

My first presentation, “Getting forgetful kids to remember” by Ritsuko Nakata, outlined the importance of her “MAT (Model, Action, Talk) method”. It focuses on giving students a meaningful context to the language that they are learning, as well as encouraging the use of gestures within to classroom to aid students when learning vocabulary so they are not dependent on the teacher to practise the language by constantly listening and repeating. This allows the students to practise the language among themselves and also feel accomplished for doing so.

Next up was David Paul’s presentation on “motivating teenagers and adults to communicate”. This was a presentation I did not want to miss as from personal experience a student who is not willing to communicate is the most difficult to teach. Many ideas and techniques were presented with an emphasis on personalization and the importance of recycling language to build confidence in the students (also as a way making sure they aren’t forgetting everything you teach them as soon as they walk out of the classroom!). We looked at using activities which encourage a communicative response rather than using language that is situational and regurgitated from any old classroom textbook.

Mari Nakamura

My next presentation was by Mari Nakamura on her new book “Lily and the Moon” to engage children’s hearts and minds with a picture book. A story inspired from her childhood following the adventures of Lily the ladybird as she meets an array of little critters on her journey to see a ladybird on the moon. The book can be used as an aid for teaching times of day, colours, animals, nature and comes with an array of activities and flashcards to use within the classroom. There was a strong emphasis on the use of gestures and the involvement of the students whilst reading.

David Paul

Next was another presentation by David Paul on his publication “Finding Out”, a step by step child centred course for children. What I found intriguing was his use of “nonsense” words in his book to strengthen the students the ability to read, rather than focusing on their ability to recognise written words from exposure and repetition. In this manner a student can’t learn to read any word regardless of if it is real or not and will never be afraid when faced with an unseen word.

Last of all was Jo Ando’s presentation on the importance of phonics textbooks in the classroom. Albeit more of a sales representative than an experienced teacher with multiple publications, he pressed the importance of incorporating captivating images and the use of colouring in phonic textbooks to maintain the interest of the students.

Having only just started teaching my own classes the Monday before, I have had very little opportunity to try and implement ideas and activities of my own into the classroom. Now having attended the series presentations, I feel armed to the teeth with new techniques and activities that are going to help engage the students in the classroom environment and inspire them to further develop their English language skills. The whole experience has aided me in broadening my mind into the depth and excitement of English language teaching, and I am looking forward to implementing the plethora ideas, techniques and activities that I was able to take away from this event.

Thank you to all the staff involved in organising such a wonderful event, I will be waiting in anticipation for the next event.

Also a very big thank you to Jim for encouraging me to attend, showing me around, introducing me to many new people, as well as convincing me it would be a great idea waking up at 6 a.m on a Sunday!

Damian Gowland

Teaching event, Jan 29th in Ueda; all welcome

ABAX is very happy to be sending four presenters to Nagano for this coming Sunday, January 29th. Among the presenters is Marcos Benevides, co-author of Fiction in Action: Whodunit which won the Duke of Edinburgh ELT Book Award in 2010 and the British Council’s ELTON award in the international category in 2011. Things kick off at 1.00 p.m.

This is the first time we’ve sponsored multiple presentations for a local event; many thanks to the Shinshu JALT Chapter for arranging this. We’re looking forward to our day in Ueda and hope you too can find time to attend. And if you can’t attend but think it looks interesting, please let your friends in Nagano know! We promise to keep the presentations resolutely non-commercial!

Sunday, January 29, 2012
TIME: 1.00 p.m. To 5.30 p.m.
PLACE: Pareo Library, Ueda City, Nagano-ken、〒386-0025 長野県上田市天神１丁目８−１

http://www.city.ueda.nagano.jp/hp/sys/20090911135734758.html

INTRODUCTION: 1.00 - 1.20
• An Introduction to Task-Based Learning – Marcos Benevides 1.20-2.10
• Narrow Reading 2.0 – Michael Stout 2.20-3.10

BREAK: 3.10-3.40

• Teaching Speaking Strategies: the Why and the How – Alastair Graham-Marr 3.40 – 4.30
• Teaching Listening to Low–Level Learners – Hugh Graham-Marr 4.40-5.30

We’ve set up a facebook page for the event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/136929726423999/

Please let your friends know about this too!