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Post by CaptainSeery on Jan 7, 2016 9:30:01 GMT 9
I think a number of us are doing eikaiwa in various forms, so this is a thread to talk about that. As I'm sure some of you have noticed because of my constant whinging, I'm starting an eikaiwa soon. 99% of the reason that I'm doing it is that my bucho heavily implied that he would like to do some eikaiwa. The basic goal is for people to be able to speak with our sister city delegation visiting in April (and other English-speaking visitors in general.) Bucho is particularly freaking out about the welcome reception and keeps talking about how he wants to be able to speak with them there. The eikaiwa is going to be 30 minutes during lunchtime, once a week. The eight participants currently signed up are all city employees. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to approach this. I'm faced with a few problems: - The people who have signed up are all across the board in terms of ability. I haven't met everyone yet, but so far I know that at least one woman is basically fluent. Bucho has good written English and a very thorough understanding of grammar, but sucks at listening and speaking. At least one student said when he signed up that his level is 中学生以下. How do people deal with level gaps this wide? - Although I did eikaiwa as an ALT, it was different. It was smaller groups (3-5 people), I didn't have to plan anything, and the levels were more or less similar. The structure was that everyone wrote a "diary" about whatever before class, and then read it during class. The other students and I would pick out any grammar mistakes and correct them, and we'd ask questions and have a general discussion. If there was time left over we'd practice reading something out loud. I liked that structure since it was very easy for me and very sustainable in the long term. However, given the goal of this class I feel like I couldn't just implement the same thing. That eikaiwa is the only experience I have with teaching adults or small groups, and I'm really stuck on what else I can do. I'm worried that people won't really be willing to speak up, especially with the varying abilities. So! Second question: What do people do in their eikaiwas? I know that snell_mouse also does some sort of lunch eikaiwa thing. Anyone else? - I have never been to a reception like this and have no idea what to expect. Bucho keeps asking me, "what kind of stuff do I need to know for the reception?" and I'm just like "...you tell me." TL;DR: 1. How do I deal with level gaps? 2. What kind of activities do you do? 3. What are formal receptions like? |
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Post by snell_mouse on Jan 7, 2016 9:45:07 GMT 9
Hmm level gaps is difficult because I don't think you can expect the exact same thing to work for everybody, though since the focus is conversation rather than outright English lessons maybe it won't be so bad. I would say that you should consider splitting the groups whenever they actually talk/do things, and perhaps then you can mix and match people based on level.
I did an actual 英会話教室 and some of the activities I did included a lot of icebreaker/conversation games (like Never Have I Ever, Two Truths and a Lie, speed meeting, telephone, tongue twisters); worksheets that I made about things like katakana English vs. native English, word and sentence stress, and minimal pair trees for sounds Japanese people have difficulty with (made it into a kind of game); show and tell; and a debate at the end where I gave everybody an article in advance and had them debate which side they supported.
In my English lunch now, it's not very structured, since the idea is just to make a space where people can speak English with each other. I do make a worksheet every time that includes some ideas/examples for self-introductions (mostly the same every time), as well as a short theme people can talk about with vocabulary and an example conversation (i.e. what you did over winter break, change of seasons, Silver Week, etc.)
As for formal receptions, I think it depends - is it a sit-down dinner or a 立食 one? How many people will there be? From my experience with these things in Japan, hosted/run by Japanese people, you can expect to have an emcee and シナリオ where they announce the beginning/end, introduce people, have people come up and make speeches for 挨拶 and maybe 乾杯, and perhaps some entertainment in the middle.
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Post by CaptainSeery on Jan 7, 2016 10:17:47 GMT 9
Hmm, that's what I was thinking for level gaps. I guess I should just see how it goes the first time and go from there. That's kind of what I was planning on doing overall.
I like those ideas, thanks! I think my own goal for this is just to get them speaking English as much as possible, and those would all be good activities for that. I'm worried that if I have no structure people won't talk or fall into Japanese. I'm thinking maybe we can do an icebreaker sort of activity and then have conversations about a particular theme, like you do with your lunch now.
As for the reception, I really don't know much. There's eight members of the delegation, plus their host families (although only two of them are doing homestays), plus people from the shiyakusho and the international association. I am definitely expecting an MC with シナリオ and 挨拶 and entertainment. No one seems to be doing much planning for this visit which is frustrating...
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Post by snell_mouse on Jan 7, 2016 10:34:52 GMT 9
Well, for the most part it will probably just be people eating and talking (when it isn't speeches/entertainment), perhaps moving around if it's 立食 or after things have been cleared away, so I guess all your 部長 needs to be ready to do is to talk to people he may not know?
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Post by CaptainSeery on Jan 7, 2016 11:12:53 GMT 9
Well, for the most part it will probably just be people eating and talking (when it isn't speeches/entertainment), perhaps moving around if it's 立食 or after things have been cleared away, so I guess all your 部長 needs to be ready to do is to talk to people he may not know? That's what I was figuring! Which is why I was planning on the eikaiwa being just as much speaking practice as possible. But he keeps harping on about the reception specfically so I feel like I'm missing something... |
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Post by Caic on Jan 7, 2016 11:16:22 GMT 9
Ok so I am doing YEIGO OMOTENASI KENSYUU for our shoutengai, once every two weeks. American CIR senpai does most of the work and talking and stuff cos she is senpai but what we do is very focused topics each week (i know its not very similar but still) like money/counting, small talk with customers, giving directions etc etc. We are also both shit at teaching and have no experience so i feel like at least as an ALT you might know more than me but anyway, i think the topic focused lessons is a good way to go. It is all about getting them to actually speak english so, going around and practicing with people/having them practice with each other and just actual speak english is the point innit.. I dunno we use model conversations and key phrases and stuff to help them practice.
The levels thing is definitely an issue yeah. We get this too. I guess you could just figure out properly where everyone is and try to get a range of vocab/phrases/model convos in so that there is something for everyone in there and stress that people don't have to understand everything and that use what they like/understand is ok.
For receptions, I have done that exact kind of reception before. We had a group from new orleans who came and had host families and shit. It was mainly american CIRs job but I was there as an extra TUUYAK person. They also got in KENCHO CIR and a random japanese girl who speaks english to have us go around and help facilitate conversations between people. I dunno if you guys were thinking of doing anything like that or even could but thats what we did. In terms of the kind of things that happen at them, like snell said, lots of speeches and aisatsu (are you interpreting all that shit?), some food and drink laid out and prob some entertainment too. Probably will involve lots of mingling and talking. Mostly small talk, how is japan etc etc so the level of english for conversation generally isn't that high. And after haveing done the host family thing for a while, the participants and the host fmaily people will have gotten pretty good at gesturing and communicating so im not sure that the english level should be an issue..
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Post by CaptainSeery on Jan 7, 2016 11:57:17 GMT 9
Ok so I am doing YEIGO OMOTENASI KENSYUU for our shoutengai, once every two weeks. American CIR senpai does most of the work and talking and stuff cos she is senpai but what we do is very focused topics each week (i know its not very similar but still) like money/counting, small talk with customers, giving directions etc etc. We are also both しｔ at teaching and have no experience so i feel like at least as an ALT you might know more than me but anyway, i think the topic focused lessons is a good way to go. It is all about getting them to actually speak english so, going around and practicing with people/having them practice with each other and just actual speak english is the point innit.. I dunno we use model conversations and key phrases and stuff to help them practice. The levels thing is definitely an issue yeah. We get this too. I guess you could just figure out properly where everyone is and try to get a range of vocab/phrases/model convos in so that there is something for everyone in there and stress that people don't have to understand everything and that use what they like/understand is ok. For receptions, I have done that exact kind of reception before. We had a group from new orleans who came and had host families and しｔ. It was mainly american CIRs job but I was there as an extra TUUYAK person. They also got in KENCHO CIR and a random japanese girl who speaks english to have us go around and help facilitate conversations between people. I dunno if you guys were thinking of doing anything like that or even could but thats what we did. In terms of the kind of things that happen at them, like snell said, lots of speeches and aisatsu (are you interpreting all that しｔ?), some food and drink laid out and prob some entertainment too. Probably will involve lots of mingling and talking. Mostly small talk, how is japan etc etc so the level of english for conversation generally isn't that high. And after haveing done the host family thing for a while, the participants and the host fmaily people will have gotten pretty good at gesturing and communicating so im not sure that the english level should be an issue.. We could get a few Japanese people good at English, but... I am the only non-Japanese person in the government besides the ALTs. Like I said, I literally know nothing. I assume I will be interpreting. I'm working with the mayor on being able to give part of his 挨拶s in English but most of it will be in Japanese. My bucho was talking about PRing my city and giving suggestions for where to go, which is all well and good except that that feels like forcing the issue. I feel like it if was me I'd rather be asked questions (how is Japan, tell me about your town) and have normal conversation rather than be preached at about Minamata. It will be a welcome reception so they would have only been with their host families for maybe like an afternoon. Also most of them won't be doing homestays. |
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Post by no yark shark on Jun 23, 2016 13:42:33 GMT 9
Hmm we have a 語学講座 and 英会話 thread so I guess I'll post here...
So the IEA has a weekly 英会話教室 from August to about December or so every year. The past several years one of the ALTs has been doing it but she's leaving so I'm taking over.
I took it on because I'm underutilized and I wanted the challenge....but I have no idea where to start.
It's targeted at beginners (we're not allowed to have an advanced class because there's an eikaiwa school in the area that has those) but in the past I know the levels has been kind of all over the place. Either way it'll probably have to be kept pretty simple.
Anyways I don't have any idea where to start in terms of coming up with topics/structuring the individual lessons...help pls
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Post by King Quailbee on Jun 23, 2016 14:41:02 GMT 9
MAI WAIFU.
I linked to some Eikaiwa/English learning-related stuff.
Overall, the big things to hit are: speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.
You most likely do not have to worry about ABCs (unless if it is someone who has lived under a rock or is an early ES student).
Also, easiest way for me to organize Eikaiwa for beginners was by topic/theme and having a grammar point to practice on. I also had them do written homework where they would review past and current grammar with a certain theme.
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Post by no yark shark on Aug 1, 2016 16:35:29 GMT 9
I'm still feeling very unconfident about this whole eikaiwa thing...
one couple will be participating with their 4 year old daughter. They've been to pretty much every single event that I've held so far and the daughter is really cute/already pretty good at English. But I still need something to keep her occupied during the classes so she's not too much of a nuisance. Any ideas anyone?
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Post by Shimanchu 2024 on Aug 2, 2016 12:35:13 GMT 9
Something electronic with a screen
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Post by no yark shark on Aug 2, 2016 13:06:48 GMT 9
^ hue in my experience with hulemdos' kids, this does work really well but probably not an option for me in this situation (although maybe her parents will bring a tablet or something)
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Post by miscreative on Aug 30, 2016 15:49:03 GMT 9
per karuru's request i have moved it here has anyone studied linguistics (specifically phonetics) in Japanese? I'm trying to find these charts translated into Japanese (then again it might be better for me to translate them in to simple Japanese) I'm digging the wacky font, makes IPA look so much more fun. thank youuu I want to teach this to my eikaiwa a bit but I'm worried it'll be too difficult. But I learned it in college and I really do think it helps you understand the language better :x thank youuu I want to teach this to my eikaiwa a bit but I'm worried it'll be too difficult. But I learned it in college and I really do think it helps you understand the language better :x DO EEEEET a lot of dictionaries use the IPA (or a variation of it) to show pronunciation How old are your eikaiwa students? How old are your eikaiwa students? 40-60s I'd say. Maybe one person who's younger than 40. I made an アンケート for them and they all said things like they wanted to work on pronunciation/learn the difference between L and R etc. In that case, absolutely go for it! I think it would be a bit complicated for younger students but I think adults will find it really helpful. prepare a bunch of charts/イラスト and youtubes. that might make it easier to describe. i personally found visuals helpful prepare a bunch of charts/イラスト and youtubes. that might make it easier to describe. i personally found visuals helpful do you know of any youtubes? the majority of my people also chose videos (like movie and commercial clips) as an activity they're interested so I want to work them in most of my lessons if I can. Also I think it'll be good for them to hear people besides me speak. do you know of any youtubes? the majority of my people also chose videos (like movie and commercial clips) as an activity they're interested so I want to work them in most of my lessons if I can. Also I think it'll be good for them to hear people besides me speak. i can find some MY UNI HAS A REALLY GOOD RESOURCE BRB edit soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu/english/english.html |
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Post by no yark shark on Aug 30, 2016 16:04:50 GMT 9
Wow that website is really cool! I really want to teach them how to pronounce things but I'm worried it'll be too much at once/take too long and get boring, especially for the people who are at a lower level in my class. Any ideas on how to make it engaging?
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Post by miscreative on Aug 30, 2016 16:26:14 GMT 9
it really depends on how you want to do it.
definitely break it up. skip the sounds that japanese has too unless you use them as a means to explain what you are about to do and how stuff works.
then i would probably work with "f/v" then "th" then "l/r" because the former 2 sets are easier to explain as the landmarks in the mouth/placement of articulators is easier to trick people into doing. "l/r" is much harder to pin down
as for making them engaging there are loads of tricks you can do but the way i did it in my pronunciation class was
introduce/explain sounds=> make sounds in isolation=> perception exercises (in various settings aka word initial, word final, etc) => production exercises (in various settings)=> add tongue twisters at the end for fun
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Post by no yark shark on Aug 30, 2016 16:29:42 GMT 9
Hm yeah. So I was thinking about introducing minimal pairs gradually and playing a game where there's like a tree/bracket thing and they have to circle which one you say to get a number at the end. I was thinking about just doing one per week to spread it out. Maybe for this time I will just briefly explain the different parts of the mouth/practice saying the words together, and then start by focusing on R and L or something.
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Post by no yark shark on Sept 5, 2016 15:21:18 GMT 9
double post but for my eikaiwa I decided that I want to share a short video clip with the class each week. The idea being that I would play the clip, then pass out a script with vocab words and a few comprehension questions before playing it again, and then discuss briefly. The lesson part of my class is talking about pronunciation and phonetics so I thought it'd be fun to have a clip that centers on that. I'm between this scene from Harry Potter where they're learning the spell for Wingardium LeviOsa (not levioSA) or A scene from My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins is using various techniques to teach Eliza how to pronounce things "properly" I think the My Fair Lady scene is more relevant but the Harry Potter scene is probably easier/more fun. Anyways I can't decide so pls help. |
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karuru
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Post by karuru on Sept 6, 2016 13:32:28 GMT 9
double post but for my eikaiwa I decided that I want to share a short video clip with the class each week. The idea being that I would play the clip, then pass out a script with vocab words and a few comprehension questions before playing it again, and then discuss briefly. The lesson part of my class is talking about pronunciation and phonetics so I thought it'd be fun to have a clip that centers on that. I'm between this scene from Harry Potter where they're learning the spell for Wingardium LeviOsa (not levioSA) or A scene from My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins is using various techniques to teach Eliza how to pronounce things "properly" I think the My Fair Lady scene is more relevant but the Harry Potter scene is probably easier/more fun. Anyways I can't decide so pls help. omg thank you this is perfect for my class, I was just thinking about what I was going to use I'm going with the My Fair Lady one because my lesson is about Bad English |
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 14, 2016 8:54:06 GMT 9
Hey everyone,
I'm going to have to start planning for Eikaiwa Season Two: The Neverending Story (told-by-an-ojisan-about-coal-making) and I thought, heck, why not we pool our previous syllabi and lesson order (i.e. topics or grammar points discussed) here?
Last year, I started out with an idea of my plan of action, but it kind of fizzled off near the end (due to being busy and some of my students stopped attending due to work/holidays).
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Post by no yark shark on Sept 14, 2016 10:24:54 GMT 9
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 14, 2016 11:08:24 GMT 9
When I'm not working on this school visit presentation anymore, I'll add some of my last year stuff (even though I didn't know what I was doing either) |
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Post by むちゃRABU❤ on Sept 14, 2016 14:18:55 GMT 9
My Eikaiwa starts this Friday (and will be for every Thursday for about two months)
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO START.
okay I do but OMG I AM SO NERVOUS UGH UGH UGH.
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Post by no yark shark on Sept 20, 2016 9:25:59 GMT 9
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 20, 2016 9:54:21 GMT 9
no yark shark Ah..Hahahahah. I have figured out an overall timeline of themes for my two Eikaiwas for this year. I still haven't figured out the overall class structure, but themes help me out.
初級
1. Nice to meet you
Countries & Nationalities
2. Possessive Adjectives
Describing People
3. Telling the Time
Jobs and Routine
4. Family
5.Free time
6. What’s the weather like?
7. I like it! I can~
8. Who was he?
At the coffee shop
9. On holiday
Hotel Room
10. Location
Asking for Directions
Transport
11. The body
12. Something to eat
At a restaurant
13. Question words
14. Free Talk/Interview Day
15. At a clothing store
Clothes and colors
16. Next week, Next month, Next year
True or False
17. Extreme Places
I have been to~
18. Cultural Differences
19. Free
Because my end goal with the 初級 is for them to be able to freely speak, the more free discussions will happen near the end of the course (unlike 中級)
中級
1. Getting to Know Someone
Character and Feelings
2. People’s Appearance
HoNY
3. Describing Jobs
4. Free – Talk about your job, describe a hulemdo, etc.
5. Attending a Job Interview
6. For and Against
7. Free – Debate about what is considered good/bad in a job interview in the U.S. (use reddit)
8. Sightseeing
Tourism Historical European/American Town
9. Free – Christmas Party
10. Road and Transport
11. Suggesting Ideas
12. Free – How to travel to certain places depending on certain situations (money, time, etc.)
13. Making Plans
14. e-hookup and Relationship
15. Free – Valentines Party
16. Apologies, Excuses, and Promises
17. Free – Times Where You Had to Say Sorry
18. Predictions
19. Free
The Free Day is to allow for free discussion, but I found that you have to have some theme for discussion to go well. If you let them choose whatever they want to talk about, then you will suddenly have to listen to some guy talk about how they make charcoal and no one will understand (because the vocab is lacking). Having a theme based on what you have been working on is best for free discussion. Because the students I have are not really at the level of free-talking, especially for 初級, I treat my 英会話 as a mixture of English conversation and English learning classes. If I was more in the city, I would not do much teaching except for certain grammar points or vocabulary used...but I'm not. HA. |
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Post by no yark shark on Sept 20, 2016 10:19:17 GMT 9
hm okay, so basically the lessons from the linguahouse website. I was looking at that a bit but it's ovewhelming for me given that I only have 9 classes left at this point.
But this is a helpful start.
The issue I'm having is that I was thinking too much about grammar at first, but I realized that's a mistake and that I should just switch to more general conversation/scenario type things, but at the same time I'm not even really sure what angle to take with that, because the purposes of everyone in the class so varied (some people are going abroad or go abroad regularly for travel, while others want to know for work or just want to expose their young child to English).
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 20, 2016 11:48:44 GMT 9
hm okay, so basically the lessons from the linguahouse website. I was looking at that a bit but it's ovewhelming for me given that I only have 9 classes left at this point. But this is a helpful start. The issue I'm having is that I was thinking too much about grammar at first, but I realized that's a mistake and that I should just switch to more general conversation/scenario type things, but at the same time I'm not even really sure what angle to take with that, because the purposes of everyone in the class so varied (some people are going abroad or go abroad regularly for travel, while others want to know for work or just want to expose their young child to English). The lingua franca website was just helpful in giving some organization or ideas for themes. I mean, I could always talk about taiko forever - but I know not many others are interested, haha - so I need a general idea of themes that 一般人 can relate to.
Yeah, I did the same last year and eventually ran into the problem of people not being able to attend due to work or whatever and they couldn't understand the new grammar point that was tied into the previous grammar point - so making it more themed with grammar and vocab points thrown in that are related will help out in that case.
And I had varied classes as well - ages ranging from 12 to 80s...but no one is really needing it for work.
You could do script teaching, where you have a script with whatever theme/grammar point you are trying to make. Leave certain key words blank and you read out the dialogue. They fill it in with what they heard. After that, have them practice saying the dialogue with a partner. Have the blank spaces also be areas where they could put in something new. Example: I'm sorry for interrupting, but could you ______? I learned a lot of business Japanese through script dialogue and inserting in the blanks for different situations, excuses, whatever.
Last year, I also had a textbook with grammar points, but I'm debating on getting rid of it since it is an extra expense and over time I barely used it...Or maybe I'll just have the same textbook, but only have new people get it (since it does have grammar points and vocab and whatever)...
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Nurkiras
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Post by Nurkiras on Sept 21, 2016 13:06:23 GMT 9
Eikaiwa season is approaching, and I was curious: do you use people's first names or last names when you teach? Generally I would just go with first but my boss is taking the class and calling her by her first name will be weird as shit haha. Thoughts?
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 21, 2016 13:47:25 GMT 9
Eikaiwa season is approaching, and I was curious: do you use people's first names or last names when you teach? Generally I would just go with first but my boss is taking the class and calling her by her first name will be weird as しｔ haha. Thoughts? Go by first name. 1. It teaches about your culture (at least for the states, people generally call each other by name - my brother's school even had the kids call the teachers by their first name) 2. Certainly would be awkward for your students (and may create an unintended hierarchy) - I mean, this boss is not your students' boss.
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Nurkiras
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Post by Nurkiras on Sept 21, 2016 13:57:42 GMT 9
Eikaiwa season is approaching, and I was curious: do you use people's first names or last names when you teach? Generally I would just go with first but my boss is taking the class and calling her by her first name will be weird as しｔ haha. Thoughts? Go by first name. 1. It teaches about your culture (at least for the states, people generally call each other by name - my brother's school even had the kids call the teachers by their first name) 2. Certainly would be awkward for your students (and may create an unintended hierarchy) - I mean, this boss is not your students' boss.
True thank you! I definitely wasn't planning on calling her "boss" or something hahaha I'll just have to swallow my awkward |
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Post by no yark shark on Sept 23, 2016 10:29:50 GMT 9
Eikaiwa season is approaching, and I was curious: do you use people's first names or last names when you teach? Generally I would just go with first but my boss is taking the class and calling her by her first name will be weird as しｔ haha. Thoughts? I asked them what they'd like to be called, which ended up being first name for everyone except for my coworker and an IEA board member who I knew before starting the class (it would be so weird to switch now). |
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