英語ノート
EigoNoto.com

Gr. 5-1 Hello! Anyohasewo! Bon Jour!
Lesson Focus- Greetings & Saying Your Name
EigoNoto.com Additions: Japanese and World Greetings Culture, and Culture of Names
Conversation Skills: Speaking
Additional/Alternate Activities: Get The Picture (Greetings and Business Card Exchange); Row Races
   
    The targets of Grade 5 Lesson 1 are Greetings from around the world, and exchanging name or business cards. There are listening, chanting and speaking activities in each of the 3 lessons; the last half of the last lesson is given to a speaking activity. Eight greetings from around the world are introduced.


    The Eigo Noto lessons, as stated by the Ministry of Education (or at least as I understand them) are not meant to be conversation lessons. The goals of the curriculum highlight emphasis on home culture and cross-cultural awareness. However, in Book 1 Lesson 1, the Eigo Noto lessons take a very weak lead in discussing the culture of language and body language surrounding Greetings and name card exchange. And with the last half of the final lesson focused on speaking, there is obvious focus in this very first lesson on speaking ability.  The goals of the lesson seem at odds with these goals of the Ministry, but let’s see if we can improve the lesson on both counts.
    The speaking activities in the workbook lessons do little to motivate the students to do the activity.  The EigoNoto.com Get The Picture and Row Races activities add an element of friendly competition, not language-skill based, but Janken-based, that many students find intrinsically fun and motivating. It’s a simple approach, but effective nevertheless. If you use points for motivation (get an Aussie points map here) in your classes, this is another way to motivate some students.
    The Eigonoto.com lessons also begin with this lesson to use a large variety of international greetings at the beginning of every class. Speaking activities have also been included from the first lesson. And generally, a natural context and meaning has been construed with the language use in the EigoNoto.com activities that is typically missing in the workbook lessons. Language use, after all, is not only about the words themselves; language is a social activity, generally found within a context, and used for a purpose.
    The pictures used in the listening activity on page 6 are a great place to start a discussion about greetings in different cultures.  The obvious question to me is, “Which of the 6 greetings shown don’t show touching? And which doesn’t show the pair using eye contact?” Japan is a unique culture on both of these counts.
    In the activities involving a name or business card, there is also no discussion of the etiquette of name card exchange.  The culture surrounding this is also uniquely Japanese. It is very important etiquette in the business world, to be sure, but the almost ritual nature of the exchange is peculiar to Japan.
    There could also be discussion of why in Japan the pattern of family-name before given-name is common.  This, too, is unique to Japan and other Asian countries like China and Korea (North and South). The paternal, group-oriented thinking style is also peculiar to these cultures. Is there a connection? What is the historical basis? In Japan, it is only since the Meiji era, about 1870, that common people even have a family name.  The topics for fascinating discussion here are many.
    The “Hello Chant” used in this lesson is perhaps the best on the whole CD. There is rhythm, rhyme, a 4-beat count, and a naturalness to the use of the language pattern that makes it very effective. The listening activities in the workbook, incorporating listening, pointing, and choosing from the options in the workbook, are also very good. Having the students make their ‘own’ name card is also a very good technique: the sense of mine created in the making of the card provides a sense of realness that gives a deeper meaning to the card exchange activity (see Lesson Development Key #1). The time involved seems excessive, however, and could be better used. I have opted for students to write only their names on the cards.
    This discussion of Lesson 1 contains themes common to my critique of the workbook and the Eigo Noto lessons- there are worthwhile goals in the lessons, and some excellent and useful material. But there are also ways that the lessons can be made more suitable for helping all students feel achievment in the final activity; depth of culture explored; and higher level students challenged without discouraging students of lower ability.

Gr. 6-6 I want to go to Italy!
Lesson Focus- Making a speech
EigoNoto.com Additions: I Want To Go To Italy Chant; Teachers’ speeches; Vocabulary students want to know
Life Long Learning Skill: Listen and Repeat the Pattern
Additional/Alternate Activities: EigoNoto.com Chant; Teachers’ speeches; Speech making in pairs and small groups; volunteers only in front of the whole class.

Book 2 Lesson 6,  I want to go to Italy! finishes in lesson 4 with students making short speeches about what country they want to visit, and why. Speech making was a very important part of my language study. Experience tells me that practice, both listening and speaking, is important in developing this skill.

Based on the goal of the final lesson, this looks like a difficult lesson for lower level students, or students who have no experience speaking English.


In addition, the first 3 listening activities contain a lot of language that is not used in the example speeches given in the final listening activities. In the first 3 lessons, the students also don’t have a chance to speak or practice what they’ll be required to say in the final lesson. And the ‘chant’ has a beat, but none of the other qualities that make a good chant. In fact, this is the Eigo Noto chant I use in training as an example of a bad chant.

Considering these points, I think there are several ways the contents of Eigo Noto Lesson 6 can be improved. I have added Teachers’ Speeches to each of the lessons. This should give students clear guidelines regarding what kind of speech they should be making, and also help HRTs build English speech making confidence. The chant also needs simplification, so I have rewritten it to ‘I want to go to OO/eat OO/see OO/play OO.’ The Janken 4’s activities at the beginning of the 4 classes will also review and practice the patterns used in the students’ speeches: 1-I like OO. 2-I can OO. 3-I want to eat/see/play OO./go to OO. Repitition, practice and review, and a narrowed range of language patterns, are my goals in this revision.

The EigoNoto.com lesson plans will also include countries’ flags, country names the students already know, and ask the students for reasons they want to visit these countries. The Life Long Learning Skill Listen and Repeat the Pattern will also be made explicit, and used and practiced throughout the lessons.

The final lesson, when students make their speeches, suggests speech making in this format:

• First in pairs;
• Second, in small groups.

And, while students are speaking or listening in the above 2 activities, students in turn will be asked to come in front of the ALT or HRT and say his or her speech. Students who can will say their speeches. Students who can’t will have the option of Listening and Repeating the Pattern with the teacher. This is an activity that will be modeled and done in class throughout the previous 3 lessons, so students should be familiar with the activity.

Finally, volunteers can make speeches in front of the whole class.

These groupings for speech making allow students to practice their speeches many times, not just once in front of the class (practice and repitition). Doing the speeches in small groups, and in front of a teacher, also lessens the stress for students, who typically don’t like standing in front of the class to make speeches (Eigo Noto lessons are not supposed to make students dislike English, right?!). Lastly, only students with the confidence to volunteer are asked to make speeches in front of the class. In the case that no students volunteer, a free-moving pairs activity can be substituted, so students can continue to practice speech making, but only with partners they choose. Or, volunteers could have the option of doing their speech with the aid of the teacher in the Listen and Repeat the Pattern format.

The goal of Lesson 6 is quite high for many students. With the simple goal that ‘all students feel a sense of accomplishment in the final activity,’ I think these changes will lower the bar (and the stress) for many students, and better prepare them all to succeed.

Lesson Focus- speaking/conversational ability
EigoNoto.com Additions: word families; I don’t know.; What’s this OO?
Conversation Skills: Production & comprehension of meaning using gestures, natural & man-made sounds, drawing and oral description/paraphrasing (describing something without using the unknown/secret word); Word Families.
Additional/Alternate Activities: Interview Bingo, Pictionary (a variation), Dictionary, GTP (Get The Picture) and Black Box pair adaptation.

    Lesson 7 targets a very important question for beginning language learners: “What’s this?”. This very simple question empowers one to learn new words naturally using conversation (ie., not by studying).


It is an obvious fact that the words a new learner doesn’t know far outnumber the words the learner knows; the importance of this question cannot be emphasized enough.  But like too much of English education, this question -really just a language tool- is taught without something very important.  Students also need to be empowered to use it with skills and strategies.  In addition to the ability to ask ‘What’s this?’, the ability to produce AND comprehend answers using a variety of strategies is also very important to language learners at all levels.
    Considering these points, I think there are several ways the contents of Eigo Noto Lesson 7 can be improved. In terms of developing students’ speaking ability, too many of the activities are full-group activities.  Many or most students soon fail to say or repeat ‘What’s this?’ during these kind of whole-class activities. To insure students practice saying ‘What’s this?’ as much as possible, I have included a pair conversation activity in each of the EigoNoto.com lessons.
    In terms of comprehensive ability, the Eigo Noto lesson activities include visual clues (pointing to parts of pictures, looking at silhouettes) and touching/tactile clues (feeling objects hidden inside a box).  As humans, we have 5 senses; these activities don’t include clues via hearing, taste or smell. A hearing-based activity is included in the EigoNoto.com lessons.  If a teacher would bring, or ask students to bring, objects that have characteristic tastes or smells, these could easily be included in the activities as well (blindfold a student, then place something under his nose, or in her mouth. Or for a bigger challenge, try pinching someone’s nose and then placing something in their mouth.).
    Why is it important to focus on learning via the 5 senses?  There are many reasons discussed in pedagogical theory; however, 2 suffice to convince me.  As humans most of us have 5 ways of perceiving the world- sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. It is common, however, that each of us is stronger in some of the senses than the others (which is/are yours?).  So I think is it very important for students to be able to practice perceiving the world around them in as many ways as possible; not only in the ways they may already be strong at, but also to exercise their weaker perceptive abilities in order to strengthen them. (As a direct corollary, you can also think about this in the way that you do demonstrations in the classroom.  Does your style of demonstration allow as many students as possible to be able to understand you? Do your demonstrations target only one or two methods of comprehension?)
    The same simple reasoning can be applied when considering expressive abilities as well.  And in practical terms of conversation, pointing with your finger, or drawing a picture to describe something while talking on the telephone just doesn’t work.  So empowering students to use as many tools as possible to become competent communicators no matter what the situation becomes a very real, practical goal.
    To this end the lessons have also included gestures, sounds, drawing pictures and paraphrasing skills (done in Japanese at this level, but directly transferable to any language) in Lesson 7. From Lesson 6, lessons began introducing the concept of Word Families (red, blue, green = COLOR), and continue to practice this in Lesson 7.
    With a little imagination it should be very easy in these lessons to engage even the most disinterested student.  The Pictionary, Dictionary, and other games are perennial favorites in my classes.  If you haven’t tried them before, you’re in for some great language learning fun!
    The content as I’ve described it for Lesson 7 is really, for me, the essence of communication. As such, this proves to me again that the Eigo Noto lessons can be a great shell within which to develop lessons and lesson plans that allow us to teach not only language but also language- and communication- skills, the keys to Life Long Learning.
    I try to remember what Ben Franklin said: ‘Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.’