Photo slideshow for June/July inside lovely new Luna

All of us are very happy to have finally moved premises. Although we lost quite a lot of space and had to rationalise materials (throw away a lot of junk, basically!) it is an absolute pleasure to be able to relax - and not have a miserable git of a landlord sneering constantly.

We have been gearing up to turn Bon Bon red, white & blue this Saturday evening, as you can see...but so much more too! Check out all the happy faces and busy bodies from our classrooms in June/July.



More photos shared at https://www.flickr.com/photos/saint_george/sets/72157645650054759/

Postcard from London

Hi Jim,

I have arrived in London.
It is very hot in London.
Is Matsumoto hot?

Tomorrow I am going to my school.

from Rui

A day at Sasabe Kindergarten – a new perspective

Sing-a-long time

I was fortunate enough to be invited along to Sasabe Kindergarten, for their last day before breaking up for the summer holidays, to observe how it’s possible to manage a class of over 20 youngsters effectively (just the thought of it was mind boggling for me), get involved and have some fun.

The teachers at Sasabe run a pretty tight ship to create an ideal learning environment for their students, with very little need for disciplining students directly. Instead of it being the teachers’ duty to pickup on misbehaviour, the majority of responsibility is handed over to the students to make sure nobody is being naughty or disruptive. There is a focus on peer to peer recognition, where students are given the

Better than any school lunch I ever had!

opportunity to praise each other for good behaviour or doing a certain activity particularly well. It’s fantastic to watch students in this sort of environment, it’s completely student focused with the teacher acting as a safety net when they need to. Every student is aware of how they should and shouldn’t behave (not by being told by the teacher but being asked by the teacher whether certain behaviour is appropriate or inappropriate) and are willing to help with the teacher’s job of reinforcing classroom rules.

Ready, get set, paint!

Of course in any classroom there is going to be at least one rebellious figure who will try their best to not conform to the rules, but in these instances the teachers are looking at the bigger picture. There is no need to fret and panic if only a small proportion of the class are doing their own thing, they will eventually integrate with the rest of the class through peer pressure while their fellow classmates encourage them to stop messing around.

Getting their hands dirty

The teachers are also able to control classes through certain cues, such as music, tone of voice and facial expressions. Responding to these cues is similar to a natural reflex, ingrained as part of the daily routine in order to maintain structure and order. Time to sit down and get ready for the next activity? Cue song. Time to be quite and focus on the teacher? Cue short but clear instructions. Time to stop misbehaving? Cue grumpy face.

You missed a spot

After spending the morning going between classrooms, joining in with the end of term assembly and eating lunch with the students it was time for the grand finale. The playground apparatus had been covered in plastic wrap in preparation for what was about to go down. The students were instructed of their afternoon task in their classrooms before being given free reign to paint the plastic covering most of the playground (this also provided as part of the decoration for the Sasabe festival held the following day) with their hands. Even me and Jim jumped in the fun and couldn’t help but laugh and smile as we all lathered up every available space on the plastic wrap. Nerves of steel on the teachers’ behalf for even attempting this but during the whole event there was not a single individual who was doing something they were not supposed to, everybody was following the instructions to a tee and there were no instances of painting each other (only themselves by accident!) or any signs of “kancho” handprints.

Thanks to Jim and all the staff at Sasabe for an enriching experience, I learnt so much and had a wonderful time. Looking forward to dancing our socks off at Matsumoto Bon Bon together!

Drum finale Matsumoto Castle

listen to ‘Drum finale Matsumoto Castle’ on Audioboo

Drums at the Castle

Sunday evening at Matsumoto castle was a knockout event, with the drum festival or taiko matsuri  being held within the gardens once again - usually relegated to the gravel beyond the inner moat with not much view. Last time we enjoyed this setting was seven years ago, to my reckoning.

Fabulous view and some very good entertainment as well - name check for our ex-student Haruna playing with the Matsuoka group. Enjoy a sampler below :)

listen to ‘Drums at the Castle’ on Audioboo

For more audio samplers check out Jim's Fotobabble page at  http://www.fotobabble.com/media/list?username=LunaJim

Your Dead Friend - a vengeful ghost letter

The story in question

Dear Ling Cane,

Do you still remember me? I am Terry Sweet, the man you shot. Did you enjoy shooting your friend? Do you still think of me? The time has come and it is your turn to die..

          I am watching you from beyond the grave. From tonight something mysterious will happen, and I am going to be in your dreams from now on. Do you want to see a flying fork or a flying saucer? With me haunting you, you are going to see both.

          I will turn your dreams into nightmares. In the dream you will be me where I was carrying the painting. Then you will see your self get shot by yourself and feel the pain of the cold blooded bullet. Enjoy the show! It is free.

          I am sending you this letter from beyond the grave, so this means I can send letters to the police giving evidence of you killing me, but before I send the letters, I will continue to haunt you.

Select your destiny.

Your Dead Friend

TERRY

Pass the cake, please!

YLEs use Sockpuppet app on iOS to activate a conversational exchange from English Time (OUP textbook) in English class.

Hotel front desk - checking in

Teens practice for that first overnight?!

Where's the bank?

A nearly successful attempt to get uncommunicative junior high school girl/boy to talk to each other! Trying to role play a basic 'in the street' exchange, asking for directions.

Cambridge English Teacher Scholarship Application

Mug shot of the (rather hopeful) winner

Recently Jim brought to my attention about the Cambridge English Teaching Framework and the Cambridge English Teacher Scholarship, which I can apply for by submitting an outline of where I believe I lie on the framework as well as how I intend to progress in each category. This doubles as a chance to reflect on my progress and future development plans as well as an possibility of winning a free trip to the 49th Annual International IATEFL Conference and Exhibition in Manchester next year. Fingers crossed I can win with my entry! (I may be in trouble with Jim if I don't!) Do you think I have a chance? Feedback and thoughts are, as always, more than welcome. 

As an English teacher who is still in the early stages of my career, I know that there are many aspects of my teaching that can be developed and built upon. In order to achieve this, it’s important to have realistic and challenging goals with a plan to bring these goals to fruition. Teaching ability is not necessarily quantifiable, but using the Cambridge English Teaching Framework as a reference allows you come to terms with your own skill level whilst providing a positive platform for further development.

 Having had a chance to read through the framework and do some well needed reflection, I find myself positioned somewhere between the “foundation” and “developing” categories. I am still at a stage where I am aware of and understand various techniques, methodologies, assessment principles etc when it comes to teaching, but I am not necessarily able to translate these concepts into my lessons effectively nor consistently.

Moreover, I currently have a tendency to concentrate more of my efforts on expanding my repertoire of teaching activities and resources rather than focusing on my weaknesses or adjustments that are required in my approach to teaching. Furthermore, as I gain in teaching experience, and in turn confidence, I appreciate more than ever that I cannot neglect the importance of my own professional development.

Taking a step back from my day to day position as an important member of staff at a small language school, I have realised that with the bigger picture in mind, I really do need to benchmark my progress and motivate myself beyond “developing”. Now, you may be wondering: “How do you intend to progress through the framework whilst achieving your career goals?” Good question!

I have found that a fantastic way of advancing personal development and finding new innovative ideas is by sharing experiences with other teachers. I am rather fortunate in having an enthusiastic and experienced long term English teacher as my mentor, as well as being fortunate enough to have been encouraged to attend a number of EFL seminars, workshops and training courses (such as the IIEEC Teacher Training Program) already. Through continued interactions with as diverse assortment of educators and instructors as possible, I believe that my open-minded and enthusiastic approach, along with my work situation, will grant me to put learning into practice quickly.

In addition, I intend to re-visit and critique past lesson plans in order to identify my strengths and weaknesses so I may adjust my teaching style accordingly. Deliberating over these points will enable me to enhance my development in the “teaching, learning and assessment” category, by identifying the most effective teaching methods and key concepts to apply within the classroom, and at the same time expanding myself in the “professional development and values” category by analyzing my flaws.

All in all I hope that I can start to achieve my full teaching potential through a combination of factors with the Cambridge English Teaching Framework acting as a solid reference point and as a bridge to my future development.

Evaluating apps in class - crowd sourcing problems!

Prepping for Successful Meetings

It's not often you get to a class and the students are already doing exactly what you wanted them to do...but that's exactly what happened for me this afternoon and I really want to give my class a pat on the back. So, Chinasa, Reiko, Yumi & Tomoko - well done!

I was going to give them a telling off, truth be told, because I could not see any evidence of them having done the homework I'd asked them to last time - to create & then share, do, vocabulary quizzes. But here's the thing, between us we figured out that the app we were using on our iPhones & Android was not up to scratch and was letting us down. While we thought our work in-app would show up online, it was not doing so. Likewise, material we wanted to share we were unable to (except in one case where the creator had gone to her PC and worked around the short-coming).

I was delighted, because we'd all byod (brought our own devices) - which these in-company students are otherwise told to leave in their lockers - and were finally using them instinctively (and not falling at the first hurdle failing to remember passwords etc!). Will they take their text books on a business trip? Nope. Dictionary? Nope. Phone? You bet - and there's so many different things we can make available for ourselves to make the job & the learning easier!

Negotiating pronunciation (an app for that too!)

So, now they kind of generated their own need to do an extra homework, which is to write to the app developer and point out their disappointment/frustrations with the tool, and to ask for improvements. Nothing like realia!

I look forward to hearing what kind of replies they get (I was going to write myself, but figured four end users sound louder than one intermediary!)

After reading "The Secret in the Farmhouse"...

Write about an act of bravery that you have personally witnessed or experienced.

I have three dogs. The accident happened to one of them nine years ago. It had past several months since I had her. I had taken her for a walk every morning.

One day, I changed the lead to new one for her as the previous one was a little bit complicating. It, however, was too loose to hold her. When she stopped to sniff a tuft of grass, I pull the lead and moved forward. Then, she came out from the lead. When I tried to catch her, she was surprised and ran away! I chased her, but she continued to escape from me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have mobile phone. In addition, there were no any other people around there. Therefore, I could not ask anyone to help and I had no way but to keep chase her not to lose her. I had been struggling with the situation for twenty minutes.

After that, I found a dog in the backyard of a house. I suddenly recalled that my dog liked other dogs. I thought that she came close to the dog if she saw the dog and I could catch her.

I didn’t know the owner of the house, but I knocked the window from the backyard to call the owner. The owner was surprised, but when I talked about the accident, she took her dog to me. When my dog saw the dog, she was pleased to come close and I finally caught her. I was very relieved and appreciated the owner and the dog.

Posted for Chinasa

After reading "The Man Next Door"

Describe some one you have lived with & how they influenced your lifestyle.

When I was going to abroad and study Chinese in Tianjin, China, I have lived with two girls. We have own rooms and share the kitchen, bathroom and living room. One of the girl is Korean-American. She speaks English and Korean a little. Another girl is Korean. They can talk with Korean each other. As I couldn't speak Korean, I had to use Chinese to communicate with them. It gives me many chance to speak Chinese.

The Korean girl was good at cooking. She often took care of me for breakfast and ask me whether I had a break fast or not. She often cooked some steamed rices and Korean pickle. I ate breakfast together with her. After that I need to have a breakfast before going to school or company. Sometimes I couldn't eat something which wanted to eat or couldn't speak Chinese well but these experience influenced my lifestyle.

Posted for Reiko

Workshop No. 5: Class Management & Lesson planning

          My third instalment in a series of reports on the IIEEC Teacher Training Program. I do apologise for such a big wall of text in advance, if any of you are able to go through the ordeal of reading my ramblings I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions. Class Management & Lesson planning was presented by Naoko Saitio and it's an area of my teaching that I currently wish to develop the most 

         Classroom management is crucial to creating the most optimal learning environment for your students, whilst a solid lesson plan is something every teacher should be equipped with in order to transition between activities smoothly and to avoid spiralling into a state of panic when things don’t quite go how you imagined. This workshop covered how to manage our classes in the most effective manner as well as how to build lessons plans that give the students the motivation and incentive to improve their English. A good lesson does not solely depend on the teaching ability of a teacher, having a successful lesson means that you must be able to plan accordingly and have the ability to stay composed and encourage your students no matter the circumstances. I must confess that classroom management is probably the aspect of my teaching that needs to be improved the most so I listened very intently and was very busy scribbling notes throughout this session.

            We covered several key topics when considering classroom management such as; discipline, praise and motivation, the use of classroom language and also the use of the mother tongue. Let’s start with discipline. It’s usually quite straight forward to spot the “problem” pupils; maybe they prefer to roll around on the floor instead of take part in the lesson or would rather continually blabber on in their native tongue. A good way of avoiding these situations in the first place is to make sure the students are always engaged and focused on the task at hand by having active student centred lessons (a good lesson plan comes in handy here!). However times will arise when you will have to discipline your students, and we were instructed to consider the “good” and “bad” ways of disciplining our students. We should avoid comparing the student’s behaviour to each other’s whilst not continuously scolding a repeat offender as your words will fall on death ears.

            Instead of resorting to scolding students, we can establish a set of classroom rules that outline the teacher’s expectations and what constitutes as acceptable or inappropriate behaviour. The students, as well as their parents, should be made aware of these rules and it is important to remain consistent when enforcing them. Additionally we can have the rules written and clearly displayed in the classroom to serve as a friendly reminder to the students, it is much easier to remind the students, or let them remind each other, what is expected of them rather than having to resort to disciplining them continuously. Telling students off should be kept as a last resort and avoided as much as possible. I always find changing your tone of voice when addressing misbehaving students works wonders, it also doesn’t hurt to arm yourself with a mean glare either.

            As for giving praise, we have to be very careful. If we give too much praise, especially undeservingly, students will begin to ignore praise as it becomes something that is expected and not earned. We were taught the importance of praise to promote motivation, as praise serves as encouragement, whilst being aware of “praise junkies” who become dependent on praise and recognition. By praising each student conditionally and subjectively based on their individual progress we can instil confidence and the desire to challenge themselves. By giving specific praise to individual accomplishments, we can show our students that the praise is genuine and that we are investing a real interest in them and what they are doing. This will lead to intrinsic motivation that comes from within, the students will become more willing to complete tasks and take genuine joy in doing so rather than doing them out of necessity.

            The point I found most interesting about classroom management from this workshop was the use of L1 within the classroom. Japanese parents typically prefer to send their children to classes taught by native speakers and this is reflected in many English schools in Japan primarily hiring native English speakers, with little to no focus on their Japanese speaking ability, due to the demand on behalf of the parents. However if we consider classroom management objectively, most of us will come to the conclusion that economical use of key words in L1 will in fact benefit the students as well as avoiding confusion when understanding the meanings of certain words or phrases. I always make a note to confirm the homework task with my students in L1 to avoid instances with uncompleted homework with the excuse “I didn’t know what to do”.

I am in complete agreement with this stance of teaching young learners, even though I sometimes have a bad tendency in overusing L1 when it comes to introducing a new game or activity. Let’s consider a situation I experienced where the use of L1 helped clear confusion: in one of my classes we were learning the phrase “I like” with items of food, the students came to a reasonable conclusion that the phrase was only associated when talking about things we like to eat as those were the only examples we covered during the lesson. When I asked them whether they like cats or dogs they all responded with looks of distaste and called out in unison “No I don’t!”, even though they regularly comment on how “kawaii” the illustrations from the textbook are. In this instance a quick clarification of “like” = “suki” resolves any confusion whilst minimising interaction in the native tongue. All it takes is picking out the key word from a sentence, not translation everything word for word, for the students to come to a better understanding of the English language.

Following in from the use of the mother tongue we considered the importance of classroom English. There are two types of classroom English that we must be aware of: a teacher’s classroom English and the students’ classroom English. Now hopefully the teacher’s classroom English the students are exposed to are along the lines of “Take out your homework please” and “Close your books”, rather than “Shut up!” or “Stop punching each other!” Classroom language is the most natural form of speaking that can occur within the classroom and should be used at every available opportunity, even if they are not taught as a part of the usual curriculum. Once the students become familiarized with the common expressions it deters the use of L1, there is nothing more infuriating to me than hearing “Nann pergi?” (What page?) for the umpteenth time having repeated “Open you books to page X” several times.  However, through responding to and using classroom language on a regular basis, these expressions will eventually become second nature to young learners allowing them to react automatically to instructions (or as the case may be being told off).

The final point to be covered was creating the ideal lesson plan, no easy feat as there is much to consider. Firstly we must look at the different kinds of lesson plans: long term plan, year plan, unit plan and daily plan. Considering all four of these lesson plans allow us to set realistic short long term goals for our classes and whether or not you and your students are able to reach these goals can also be used for self evaluation. If you were able to hit your target, what were you doing well and how were the students responding to your teaching. In contrast if you were unable to reach your targets you may be able to identify which areas of your teaching need improving or changing.

I was rather encouraged by the fact that my current lesson plans coincided with the suggested daily plan presented in the workshop, although the time I usually spend on the main part of a lesson (i.e new material) exceeded the recommended time allowance by two-fold. I’m unsure whether I am not using class activities efficiently and effectively or my teaching ability is not up to par but I find myself spending 20 minutes or so teaching and practising the main language focus of the lesson. Personally I believe that spending 8-10 minutes on the main part of a lesson is too brief to be able to sufficiently cover the topic and practise for fluency. So as on open question to put forward to those of you reading: How much time do you believe should be spent covering the main language focus of the lesson? Can it really be done in 8-10 minutes or is that an idealistic dream that most teachers may be chasing after for their entire career?

Getting back to the lesson plan as a whole, take careful consideration on how you will approach each lesson. How do you intend to teach the class: drills, group work, pair work, and extra resources such as games or worksheets? What extra resources/material will you need? There’s nothing more panic inducing than realizing halfway through your lesson you don’t have the right. How will transition smoothly between activities? What are your students going to be doing while you prepare for the next activity? Will your lesson be student centred with over 80% speaking time for the students? Or will they be jabbering away about how cool the latest episode of “Yo-kai Watch” was. This is just a brief list of seemingly endless things to consider for each lesson. And let’s not forget an after lesson checklist. How did your students respond? What needs adjusting?  What did your students learn? Mulling over your lesson plans afterwards grants you an opportunity to reflect on how well you managed the class and how you can make improvements to update your lesson plans for the future.

On some occasions however no amount of planning can prepare or save you from unforeseen circumstances that may suddenly spring up. Perhaps over half of your class falls ill, a student slips, falls and bursts into tears or having a busy day at school just takes its toll. Sometimes you have to accept that you cannot be prepared for everything and hope you can act on your feet confidently and automatically when the situation arises.  When I was put in these circumstances early on in my career I wish I had the understanding and hindsight I do now, but it’s the mistakes and bad experiences in which we can learn the most from.

 I feel that I have hugely benefitted from attending this workshop and by consolidating my thoughts onto paper by writing this report. Although my approach to lesson planning may not alter too much, I have gained a better understanding of how to manage my classes more effectively and highlighted my areas of weakness. Hopefully I can take all these and past experiences in my stride to improve myself as a teacher and a human being.

The Bride Wore Black - letter from beyond the grave (after reading)

 Imagine Steve could write a 'ghost' letter to Kate...

My dear Kate,

I am sorry to leave you feeling lonely. But when you fell onto the ground next to the grave, I was very glad that I felt your real love for me.

Certainly I am a criminal. I was in prison at the age of eighteen. But my life was changed after I met you! I love you, Kate. You were always singing and laughing. I was always happy to be with you. I never feel you are noisy. If I will be able to be reborn, I want to get marry with you again.

I have a lot of enemies. But I did not notice that Bea deadly hated on me… It was my fault. She was a secretary of my dad, but I should not have invited her for our wedding. I needed to care about her feelings. Don’t blame Bea on my death.

And I was sorry about my mam. As you know, she was not hate on you. She just wanted me to marry her friend, Bea.

I love to see your smile. I want to see your nice smile again. So do not cry any more. You have nice mam and clever young sister. Smile again, Kate!

With real love from heaven,

Steve

Ghost written by Mio

Pass the cake, please!

YLEs use Sockpuppet app on iOS to activate a conversational exchange from English Time (OUP textbook) in English class.

Hotel front desk - checking in

Teens practice for that first overnight?!

Where's the bank?

A nearly successful attempt to get uncommunicative junior high school girl/boy to talk to each other! Trying to role play a basic 'in the street' exchange, asking for directions.

Pre-schoolers sing with Sockpuppet!

Want to get the shy ones trying? Use this app & tweak the voice pitch - and use one 'sock' for the group. Guarantee hilarity!

My classroom "What is it" on Sockpuppet

Great way to get kids to sing the song again from their English textbooks! My Wednesday afternoon pre-schoolers took the Sockpuppet bait!