Milking a glossary with Wordwall

Making the most out of even the simplest graded readers!

Familiar vocabulary recycled in any good graded reader series, but the secret is to make sure students can actually read and spell the words, use the vocabulary flexibly (not just recognise a particular picture & blurt it)!

We love using the various applications/games that wordwall offers, with the added twist of PC skils (mouse/keyboard), letter recognition (upper/lower case) & QWERTY layout (not a linear ABC from the poster on the wall). Have a go yourself here, and consider all the ways your learners can recycle, drill, revise (you know, the deadly sins of teacher talk!) both at home, or in the classroom when a buddy is absent.

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!

 

Young Learners - Can Do by themselves!

 

 Yuuna introduces her family...

Meet Shuma and his family...

 This is Mashiro and her family...

Emika inroduces her family...

I'm sure you'll agree these young learners have drawn lovely portraits of their family members, and can talk really confidently about them as well! Well done Emika, Mashiro, Shuma & Yuuna: termendous project

Revised Cambridge English: Young Learners tests – an overview

Important news for all YLE teachers & schools out there - suggest you pay careful attention to the changes & plan accordingly.

Please don't ask me for new sample or practice materials - the ink is still very wet!

Likewise, SEs, I'm trying to find out when the new materials will be available & implications for certification before the 2018 changes take effect. See the section from 22'35 - 25'00 & a comment at 47'

Postcard from....Tokyo

Puppet-master Jim

Hi everyone, and sorry to all our Saturday students (I have not seen you for ages!)

This weekend I have been busy in Tokyo, training teachers in Ikebukuro to become speaking examiners for Young Learners & also First Certificate. As you know, these are exams we have been offering at Luna for many years now - we will be holding YLE again in October, FCE in December.

Only experienced and professional teachers are eligible to undertake the training, and even then are required to re-certify annually.

So we should congratulate our Damian, who completed all the training necessary to become an SE for Starters, Movers and Flyers (to add to FCE, CAE & CPE levels he acquired recently).  We are proud to encourage our staff to develop their professional skills, and grateful of the time & effort this has required. I am sure Damian will be transferring his examiner skills into his classes immediately.

Damian in training - YLE Starters

Of course, I found a nice pub. This time the Tap Room in Takadanobaba, part of the very good Baird Brew group. A healthy variety of craft beers but a daft ordering/billing system; I guess if you drink enough, the inconvenience is overcome. A very pleasant evening cutting with new teacher/examiner colleagues form Australia, the Philippines, UK, USA, and Canada....ironically nearly everyone actually living in Gifu. Must go there soon!

We Can Do - taking Young Learners in Matsumoto

Proud, once again, to be able to provide Young Learners for our students in Matsumoto - as well as continue our open door policy and welcome children from Okaya & Yamanashi as well.

Space not an issue, as we rented the big room at the Fukushi Kinroshya Centre this year. Nobody told us the bell was going to ring at twelve noon, which made us all jump! That apart, everything went very smoothly indeed; well-organised Yukari, thank you. Everyone knew where to sit, which colour pencils to sharpen etc.

Are you ready to start?

This year we had takers for Starters & Movers, so some first timers looking very small on the big chairs and a wee bit nervous - not a bad thing; handling pressure once in a while is an important achievement.

Also some children moving up a level, and coping with a sizable jump in level. Needed to hand out a tissue or two...important we are all smiles at the end of the day, and the promise of an ice cream seems like a decent bribe!

Thrilling to know the children in our care today are measuring themselves against a global benchmark in tests that again let them display what they 'can do' and rewards them for having a go. We do not teach to pass the exams at all - we teach English, with strategies built in which enable learners to operate independently & confidently.

Can you cha-cha-cha in English?!

Great way to start the New Year with our first class showing off tonight!

I haven't taught these guys for a couple of years, and very nice to catch up with them again and see how much progress they are making...why don't you prove it, by the way, and do really well in YLE Starters this year? Think you'd do very well...



What is your favourite song/chant with YLEs? This is from English Time 2 (OUP), by the way...

Luna YLE Certificates - lots of happy faces

I am delighted to report that Luna's Young Learners took Cambridge ESOL Young Learners (YLE) exams at the end of October, and that everyone really enjoyed themselves (bar one - bit of a crayon tantrum...) and even surprised themselves with what they COULD do!

Some students were taking Starters for the very first time, and were understandably nervous/not quite sure what was going to happen. Of course, we had had a run through of various tasks leading up to their big day (without making it a big deal - see no point in exam prep for the exam's sake) but that had always been co-operative & familiar. On the day, no looking around, peeping, surruptitious pencil dropping, reading out loud, putting hands up, gawping at the teacher etc!

Other students had done it before, and were quite aware (from mum, not us!) that they needed to improve on last year's scores...and I think by and large we all achieved that. Phew!!! Some of our older students moved up a level to have a go at Movers or Flyers, and they could see the difference. They had more time, for sure, but needed to be able to eg spell more, read longer passages, match vocabulary, tell a story...a big step up, and quite different to other tests they may take here in Japan (which, in my honest opinion, are basically exercises in translation/death by grammar and not worth the time/money wasted on them - purely intended to trick test-takers and pile on stress...not fair).

I was very happy that my students remembered 'how to' tips such as ignoring a question if they could not figure it out quickly. Always half a chance a light will go off later; if not, they have still answered all the other questions in time. What I also really like about the assessment of YLE (as in all other ESOL exams) is that the candidates are given the benefit of the doubt eg if their meaning is discernable but spelling a bit off, no real drama (unless spelling in eg listening is actually being tested).

We were very glad this year to welcome some candidates from Magnus' school in Okaya, and Rico's Organic English School in town. Thanks both of you for that, and for your help on the day.

You can see more happy YLE certificate holders on flickr, click here

Now we are busy pusing ahead, full of confidence and thinking about how much better we can do this year!

January review - warm glow of success!

Raising the bar

Nothing like a spot of jealousy to get the students motivated!

In 2009, Takumi took Young Learners (Starters level) and did a really good job. He was the only one in his class brave enough to try...after wards he said it was fun and not scary at all! Of course not - the exams are very child-friendly and invite the children to normal classroom things like match pictures to words, colouring in, answering simple questions about everyday things. Everything very familiar.

Who's a clever Mover, then?

Fast forward to late last year, and Momoko this time took Young Learners - but the Movers level (next one up). On Tuesday evening after class she was presented with her certificate and the very first thing Takumi said was 'Right, I'm doing it next time!' Momo-chan got very good results in listening and speaking, and as good as we expected in Reading/Writing...

Come October 30th 2011, can guarantee the first name on the list of candidates will be Takumi! Question is though, will he match Momoko and do very well in Movers, or up the ante again and go for Flyers? Ideally, they'll both achieve knock out results.

For now, Momoko has the bragging rights - well done you!

Chirpy chappy - YLE Starter star

Takuro is in my favourite 'noisy boys' class on Wednesdays...and Takuro is the noisy one. I like that though. He's got a tongue in his head and a spark of mischief, a good sense of humour and he's brave (well, he's always challenging me!). My job is to try and focus that energy, chip off the rough edges and point him in the right direction

I am delighted he managed to stay quiet for 20 minutes at the end of October when he took YLE Starters. He obviously charmed his way through the speaking test - maximum points there.

Next mission with these lads is making sure they can all spell their long vowel sounds consistently. Already most of the way there, so Movers this autumn boys?! Well done Takuro - proud of you!

House & furniture - speaking practice

In class today my Magic Time 2 team managed to keep talking for the entire class, stimulated into action by a fairly simple game and the need to win. They were practically pelting each other by the end, trying to get each other to hurry up and have their turn!

We have done all the groundwork in previous classes, talking about where we live after drawing sketches of our flats/houses. Somehow, I doubt this group includes a future architect! We labeled the pictures and talked about the things we have in various rooms - cultural tip for Japan is that often there is not a designated bedroom, as futons replace beds and are put away during the day as the space becomes the dining/living room.

Aim of the game = get home with a van full of furniture. Land on a space, take the piece of furniture. Some one else lands on the same spot later, rock/scissors/paper for ownership. However, a lot of language along the way, where the children are asked about the item they are picking up...excellent practice for the last part of the Cambridge YLE Starters speaking test.


Sample item = sofa

"What's this?  What colour is it?

 Have you got a sofa in your house?

 What colour is it?  Is it big or small?

 Where is the sofa in your house? (Is it in the bathroom?)

...Here you are..."
 
Of course the players want to focus on the game & get to the end as quickly as possible, so they want to get the questions done asap. My aim is to get as much 'extension' out of the mini-dialogues as I can, without flogging it. At the end of the day, my students probably think they goofed-off for a lesson! Brilliant - all that revision, recycling and activating took place subliminally :)

YLE - certificate awards ceremony

Last Saturday afternoon we awarded certificates to our students who took their Cambridge ESOL Young Learners (YLE) exams late last year. On that occasion we had candidates taking Starters as well as Movers at Luna, and it was a pleasure to be able to hand out certificates finally.

We have been doing this since 2000, and I do not get tired of seeing our students puff up with pride when they get their marks back. I'd say nearly all of them do better than they expected; regardless of their achievement, they all get a certificate anyway which is great. Parents also get the chance to see that their children are making progress, with this first step or two in their English-learning careers. This, after all, is an international award, which measures English abilities in all FOUR skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) - and is exactly the same test that kids would have taken in Japan, Argentina, Greece, Finland or Thailand. The test results therefore add a lot of weight to our objectives in teaching children to not only communicate effectively but to 'learn to learn'.

What helps our students do well?

• Good, patient teaching with an eye to long-term development
• showing young learners how to build words phonetically
• empowering kids to break down long words into readable 'chunks'
• extensive reading - our students read a lot and are at ease with texts
• a natural understanding of grammar, which is not bashed into them but constantly recycled and refreshed
• encouragement to try - making mistakes along the way is all part of the fun
• small classes with a teacher paying attention to students' particular learning needs & styles
  
• flexible curriculum and wealth of resources to inspire and intrigue learners
  
• develop themes & ideas which come up in class with immediate online access

And so much more - come and see us if you want to hear the whole sales pitch!

Anyway, Saturday was all about applauding our stellar students who had a go. Congratulations from me - proud school owner & teacher. On this occasion I was wearing my hat as an Examiner Trainer too, hence the tie. Well done all of you - next level up in November, yes!

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