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A message to the second year students

2005-08-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

I would like to write a message as we have finished English Teaching Methodologies II and III.

In English Teaching Methodology II, we used a textbook. The context of the book was very difficult to understand. So, if you have a time before class, it is better to do "skimming". Skimming means getting the main point or gist before one reads in detail. So, if you can just input some words by skimming before class, it is OK.
In English Teaching Methdology III, we made our own blogs and wrote our assignments on blogs. So if you have your own computer and if you can use internet with it, it is easy to do your assignments.

As you read this message, you may become serious. But this class will be great help when you become a English teacher. You can learn many methods of English teaching, and what was the best thing in this class was that we could enjoy speaking English with friends. The atmosphere was also good and exciting. I hope you can enjoy this class!!

My reflection on KMKM's lesson

2005-07-04T00:25:00.000-07:00

Åö Some Suggestion For Even Better Lesson Åö
KMKM's lesson was really interesting and I liked their lesson very much ! For even better next lesson, however, I would like to mention about some suggestions.

First, they wrote the number (1 to 9 and 0) on the blackboard and it was really easy to understand, but when teachers made students practice the pronounciation of numbers, the speed might be a little fast for Mr. Naim. So, it might have been better for teachers to te ach the pronounciation 0 to 9 one by one more slowly and more time because Mr. Naim was a very beginner of English.
Second, your group work was a lot of fun ! If we could walk around in the class and ask more pe ople from other group, we could enjoy more, but Iknow there was little time to do so. Anyway, I could enjoy asking game very much !

ÅöGood Points of KMKM's Lesson Åö
I think there were many good points !

First, their introduction included many materials. For example, they introduced their own name and hometown. I think it was effective to reveiw the last lesson. Next, they introduced their favorite character and its age, and its telephone number. I think it was good to emply their goal of the lesson. As they explained these information with pictures, it was easy to understand.
Second, it is the most thing which I wanted to say, your short play was very very interesting and cute !! Iwas really surprised at your acting the character. Especially, I liked Mickey Mouse and Stitch !! They acted their character as changing their voice and using their bodies. If they show junior high school students the same short play, everyone must be attracted their actin !! It was a lot of fun !
Third, the handout was very good because it needed the ability of both writing and listening. There were also a lot of pictures on it, which was very important to attract students, too.

What was the most thing Iwas happy was that Mr.Naim seemed to enjoy the lesson and could have confident about speaking English. He tryed answering many questions and looked happy when he could give the correct answer. Not only he but also we enjoyed KMKM's lesson very much ! They were all good teachers ! Thank you for wonderful lesson !!

My reflection on our lesson(TeamY's lesson)

2005-07-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

★Some Suggestion For Better Lesson★
As a member of teamY, I would like to mention that there are 3 points which we can improve for next lesson.

First, we should have ask students the meaning of sentences after we did the short play. we did the short play twice, but we would not make sure if students could understand the content of it.
Second, we forgot to teach Mr. Naim the difference between "he" and "she" in detail. we should take more time to teach it. For example, we can point one boy and say, "he is~." Next we point one girl and say, "she is ~." If we had done this again and again, students might have understood more clearly.
Third, I think there were too many questions on the handout to do within time. It took more time than I thought for Mr. Naim to fill in the answer. I think the content of the handout was very good, but I realized it needed more time to finish.

★Good points of our lesson★

Altough there were some reflection points, there were also some good points in our lesson. For example, review about the difference between "this" and "that" succseeded because we could make sure that Mr. Naim had understood it. In addition, the way of introduction at the begining of our lesson was effective to imply the content of our lesson.

Though this content"How to introduce people" was difficult and needed much time to teach, we could manage to do the lesson and I am happy to learn a lot from the last lesson. I hope that everyone could enjoy our last lesson ! Tank you.

Key Points for teaching grammar

2005-06-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

There are 2 Key Points for teaching grammar.
First key point is that teacher should teach grammar in a casual way. The reason why I think so is that "Grammar" sounds formal and difficult for students.
Second key point is that teacher should make students enjoy when they teach grammar. Most of the students think grammar is boring because there are a lot of things which students must learn about grammar, there is no time to enjoy learning grammar. So, teachers should teach students how fun to study grammar.
There are my idea for teaching new grammar below.

♪Ideas for introducing new grammar
I think "short play" is a good way for introducing grammar. Teacher can teach what the stuation the grammar is used in by showing a short play as a example. Naturally, the short play must be intreresting and attractive.

♪Ideas for practicing new grammar
I think teaching grammar rhythmically is fun and easy for students to understand. For example, "speak-spoke-spoken" or"write-wrote-writtin" is rhythmical. If teacher can teach grammar rhythmically and cheerfully, students might think learning grammar is a lot of fun!!

♪Ideas for communicative activities
To teach grammar cheerfully, doing game or making a conversation with friends is very useful. Students can enjoy learning grammar by it. In addition, practicing the pronounciation with rhythmical movement is also fun. But sometimes this way is not useful for junior high school students because some of them are shy and dislike to move rhythmically.
Anyway, teaching grammar rhythmically is easy for everyone to remember.

About DHC2's Lesson

2005-06-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

Good points♪
I think DHC2's lesson was great!!
They spoke English loudly and slowly so that we could hear them easily.
Short play was fun!!
They used many pictures so it was very easy to understand.

Sugestions for an even Better Lesson★
I think Karuta game was also good to repeat English with everyone, but if there were more time to enjoy the game as a group, it was better to communicate with group members and we could enjoy more.

Anyway, DHC2's lesson was very interesting and enjoyable.I was not bored at all and Mr.Nuim and Ms.Yoshida would think the same thing as me. Thank you very much!!

About TeamA's Lesson

2005-06-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Good points♪
I think teamA's lesson was very courteous because at first they reviewed the last lesson for students. It was very important to review the last class, and it could be easy for students to start the new lesson naturally.
TeamA's lesson also show us many pictures to make students understood the difference between "This is ~." and "That is ~." easily.

Sugestions for an even Better Lesson★
Partner work was also fun but if teamA group could show us a example longer, we could have understood easier. I think it was a little shorter and quikly. So, it might be difficult for Mr.Nuim to do a pair work.
I think it was better that teacher would walk around the classroom and could advise or praise them.

Anyway, I could enjoy your lesson very much and it I could enjoy your lesson very much and it was very easy to understand. Mr.Nuim also looked happy as he could understand the difference between "This is ~." and "That is ~."
Your class was really great! Thank you teamA !!

My Feeling About TeamT's lesson

2005-06-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

What I Particularly Liked about Team T's Lesson

I think teamT's lesson was very easy to understand! Especially, it was good for students to repeat English after teacher, because they could remember new phrase easily and they were not bored. I also think the short play was good point of group teaching, and also good for second-language learner to teach new language. It was fun!

Some Suggestions for making a Better Lesson

I would like to give my some view for the next lesson.
first, I think when you showed a short play, It was better to use the same conversational sentense of handout. As the student did not know English at all, the student might be confused when he noticed what the short play said was different from the conversation on the handout. That is, if the student cannot understand what the short play says, and if he also cannot understand what is written on a handont,he will be confused when there is a little difference bitween the conversation of the short play and the conversation of the handout. So, I think writing all of the conversation is good way to make students understood easily.
Second, we must be careful of making students filled in blanks. In last lesson,when we filled in blanks seeing the picture, there was the sentense like below:
Nice to meet you, ( )

The answer of it was "too", but I think it was difficult for the student to fill in this blank because he heared this word "too" just from the short play. So, it needed to explain more detail, though it was very difficult to explain, I know.

Anyway,I think TeamT's lesson was successful because the student could understand the meaning of what teachers said and he looked satisfied. We also could enjoy the lesson very much!! Thanks so much, TeamT!!

Learning and teaching grammar

2005-05-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

1. As a student, what kind of grammar is the easiest to learn when you study English?

I think the easiest grammar is "Five sentence patterns(SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO,SVOC)". It is basic to learn English and easy to understand once you can remember its order. For example, you can remember "Subjective always comes first." or "Verb always comes after the subjective." etc..

2. As a student, what kind of grammar is the most difficult to learn when you study English?

I think the most difficult grammar is "Prepositions". There are a lot of preposition in English. Some of them are easy to understand of the meaning, but others are difficult to understand which to use and sometimes I am still confused why it comes on that position.

3. As a teacher, wha t kind o f grammar is the easiest when you teach English?

I think the easiest grammar to teach is "Auxiliary verbs". There are two reasons why I think so.
First, auxiliary verb is decided its position. It always comes between subjective and verb.
Second, e ach auxiliary verb has the quite different meaning. though there are many kind of auxiliary verbs(will, shal l, may, must, can,etc..), each meaning is quite differrent. So, once students can understand each meaning, it would be easy to u nd erstand.

4. A s a teacher, what kind of grammar is the most difficult to teach?

I think the most difficult grammar is "Perfect tences". There are also two reasons why I think so.
First, as the perfect tence is the expression peculiar to E ng lish, it is hard to mak e Japanese students understood how to distinguish from the present tence.
Second, perfect tences are divided into four types. Each type means accomplishment, result, experience,and continuation. It may be interesting if y ou can make proper use of each o ne, but it would be difficult and takes much time to teach the differenc e to English leaners.s

About the Spanish class

2005-05-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

Part I
1) How much of the presentation in Spansh did you understand? What made the input comprehensible and what could have been done to make the languege easier to understand?

I could understand almost all the word about family. At the beginning of the class, I could not understand the Spanish at all because I have never heard the Spanish. However, I began to understand the Spanish gradually as Mr. Hall wrote the word on the blackboard.
I think the input comprehensible was made by seeing the picture ab out the word or by connecting the unkown word with the L2 word.
For example, I could understand the word "hijo" by seeing blackboard and by connecting with the name "Masato".
Anyway, I understood it is difficult to understand the new word without pictu res or some examples.

2)Did you learn any new words or new grammar in Spanish?

Maybe, I could learn how to say "Yes" or "I understood" in Spanish in that class. Moreover, I also understood how to present a person. That is, I could learn how to say "This is Å`."
However, after the Golden Weeks, I forgot it...Sorry!

3)How did you feel about being a beginning foreign language student?

I realized how hard to listen to the unkown language for a long time! My head was so tired to try to understand the new la nguage. But it was also exciting for me because I am really interested in new languages. So, I think I could enjoy the very new class!
I felt that it is important how to make the students enjoy when I try to teach the new language. I know th e teacher will be more tired than the students who try to learn new language.
So, I think it will need much power to attract the students in new class!e

Ask to English teacher

2005-04-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

Q1. Which do you think is more important to teach, English grammar or communication in English?

Q2. Is there anything to be careful when you teach English?

Q3. If students take mistakes when they speak English, do you think it is better you correct the answer rapidly?

About my ideal teacher

2005-04-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

My favorite English teacher is Mr.Sato. He was my English teacher when I was a high school student. Why I like him because his class was very funny and exciting. He told us about his experience in many foreign countries. For example, he said,"When you cross the road in America, you must not stop even if the lights changed to red. If you stop in front of pedestrian crossing, you must be taken as visitor from Japan. It's dengerous! So, if a car run to you, you must glare at the driver."
His talk was so funny, but on the other hand, his English class was on a very high level and I knew he studied English in teacher's room until any other teacher went back to home every day. So, he was my favorite teacher and I was so glad to learn English from him.
As a teacher, my greatest strength will be my strong interest in English. I like English very much and I am interested in other people and cultures.
As a teacher, my greatest weakness will be my poor speaking English. I am poor at speaking English because I am not used to speaking English. In my junior and senior high school, I always wrote down what my teacher wrote on the blackboad. So, speaking was not so important in our class because we have no discussion. It is very sad thing for me, but if I could be a teacher, I would like to have many discussion with student and enjoy teaching English!!
o