Preschool/Kindergarten

Typically the schools have ideas for what they want you to do so ask them? What I do varies heavily based on the 依頼

DISCLAIMER I have only done elementary in general or 6th grade classes so I don't know how helpful this will be

What my coworkers and I do is cover some basic info and then talk about cultural differences or cool things about your home country. try to keep it interesting to kids. aim your content and your formatting to kids. use simple language. no kanji. Talk about things that would interest them.

We usually cover how schools are different (commute, lunches, subjects, etc), FOOD, holidays (and festivals?). I always make it a point to emphasize diversity in all of my topics (america is too big. and i dont like making general statements anyway). 多様性 is actually a word that you might have to teach, depending on the age group.

games are also huge. (there's a whole thread about games too but) kids. love. games. 鬼ごっこ is like their life body-juice. and they just have so much energy, everyone will thank you for tiring them out (if that is in the request from the school. some won't bother with taking you to their gym. others, that may be the only place you go) Games also get them moving versus sitting for a lecture. especially important for the younger ones. teach them games you played as a kid. they dont have to be running around games either.

one thing to always make sure to do if you give presentations... PICTURES. 絵．イラスト．イメージ be it on a PPT or you bring prints. not only does it save you from talking their ears off it helps with explanations and what not.

as for a plan. what we are usually asked to do is take one class period and present in front of the class, then the second period we go to the gym.

Hmm in that case it probably depends on what kind of stuff you would like to do. Do you want to make English a part of it, or just stuff about other countries/cultures?

The thing with preschools/kindergarten is that they probably understand very little about the concept of other countries/cultures/languages, which makes things a bit harder I guess. (That said I have only ever done elementary school so I don't actually know what preschools, etc. are like)

karuru does a lot of preschool visits, I think.

Ah, good point, snell. I do English with a little bit of stuff about other countries, so I don't know how much help I'd be with just other countries/culturs. Like in my first class, I brought a bunch of pictures of Wisconsin and a map. They don't reeeeally understand maps but we pointed out Japan and showed how much bigger the US is, stuff like that. Next week's topic is shapes, so I'm going to bring in some flags from other countries and we'll talk about what shapes are in each flag. So a little of both English and other countries.

I probably visit preschools the most out of any current posters (correct me if I'm wrong) with 8 preschools that I visit every month, and I tend to follow a pretty consistent lesson plan that usually goes something like this:

1. 挨拶--Good morning, hello, How are you? I'm fine, great, sleepy, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, happy, sad etc. (don't have to do them all, add them gradually as they learn over multiple visits)

2. What season/month/day of the week is it? (This usually only goes well if the teacher makes the effort to reinforce them during regular lessons so it's up to you to include it or not; it also depends on the age group--anything below 5 y.o. and I would skip it)

3. Song and dance (Hokey pokey, Head shoulders knees and toes etc.)

4. お話--Each month I have a theme for the lesson--this month, for example, is 食欲の秋／アメリカの感謝祭, so I spend some time talking about that and telling them more or less what we'll be doing (now is a good time to hype them up for the game later, giving them something to look forward to/a reason to pay attention). It helps to use a lot of pictures and involve them in the 話 instead of just talking at them--for example, this month I asked them all what fall foods there are and what their favorites are. Don't let this go on too long or they'll bored or stop paying attention.

5. 単語の紹介 I usually have a set of English vocab. that goes along with the theme, ex. for Christmas I have Santa, Snow, Star, Tree, and Present, and this month I have Pumpkin, Mushroom, Apple, Grapes, and Potato. Go through them enough times that they more or less have them down--they don't need to have a perfect grasp on them, as the goal is more to familiarize them with English than to actually memorize them, but they need to have some understanding to use them in a game, as I will now explain.

6. ゲーム！ This is the main event and the reward for having them listen to all the boring English stuff. I usually pick a game that uses the English vocab of the day, so games that involve repeating words that are easily switched out are invaluable (Duck, Duck, Goose; Fruits Basket: カルタ etc.), but simpler games are fine too if they aren't at the level to memorize words yet. Most can manage counting to ten so What Time is it Mr. Wolf is fun (I make it Mr. Werewolf for Halloween!). There are countless games aimed at ESL and EFL preschoolers online, just google and find some you like, modifying them to your own needs. The game usually takes up about a third of the hour-long preschool visit for me, but sometimes more. If it goes on for too long the kids can get out of control, but if it's too short they don't really get a chance to get used to it and really have fun, so try to find a good balance.

7. Returning to classroom (if you played in the 遊戯室) and お別れの挨拶／御褒美

The visit is coming to a close and it's time to return to the room, sit down and say goodbye. It is also an excellent time to blatantly bribe the children into liking you give them some kind of 御褒美、usually シール。 If you can get a budget to buy stickers for your kids it's a great motivator and the kids ふｃｋing love stickers. If you're cheap like me you can make your own by printing them out on ラベル紙 and cutting them out, though this is kind of 面倒くさい. Note that you don't have to give them something every time, as if you do they get used to it and assume that they'll get something every time which spoils the fun a bit and makes them appreciate it less. That being said, definitely do it the first time to make a good first impression.

Finish with lots of Goodbye! and See you! and you're done!

Some other ideas:

Craft activity--If you have a shorter game planned you can finish on a chill note by ending with a craft of some sort--hand turkeys for thanksgiving, paper snowflakes for christmas/winter, valentine's day cards etc.. These tend to take a long time because some kids motor skills aren't really developed at preschool age, but there are kids who will finish in five minutes and be bored, so plan accordingly.

Picture book--if your library has simple English picture books you can do a 読み聞かせ. This works especially well if it fits the theme--Eric Carle's Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? works great with a lesson on animals or colors. You can even combine this with a craft activity--in the past I had each kid draw an animal of their choosing in their favorite color, made the class's own version of brown bear brown bear and then brought them the finished product (easy to make with 画用紙 and craft supplies) which they then get to keep in their classroom. You can also read their own picture book to them to reinforce the colors and animal names at the next visit--they also love seeing all their own drawings and guessing what they're supposed to be.



Anyway that's the gist of my experience with preschool visits. I tend to try to fit a lot in one hour as you can see, but you can make it as simple as you want to start--you're in a good position since they're asking you to call the shots, as you can make it however you want and have the flexibility to change it too. Let me know if you have any questions!

Yeah preschools are weird. Did one yesterday. I guess its nice once they warm up to you but its a xompletely different style to other school visits. Also in the one I did there was at least one kid with special needs I guess so doing games involving moving too much, running around or being too competitive was an issue. So i guess I need to think about that more in the future

Halp!
Has anyone ever done アンケート　for any 訪問 or 出前講座 that they have done? If so, what kind of questions did you ask?

or what kinds of questions will get real answers?

Thanks this is a good start! Mine will specifically be for teachers of preschools and kindergartens but it's nice to hear any questions that people have asked.

Thanks, I wouldn't have thought to ask about communication but it'd would be nice to know what kind of information they would prefer before hand.

i don't think this is a bad idea at all! i would just make sure it's not too long. the most success i've had with 4-6 year olds are games that make them use English while they're also moving their bodies (i.e. we played "What Time is it Mr. Wolf" to learn numbers/how to tell time)

Thanks both of you!

Yeah, my plan at the moment is to do a lot of dancing and physical games, and then introduce it towards the end as some down time maybe.

I'm glad to hear that kids around that age generally aren't too shy. My supervisor told me I'd probably have to be super genki so they'd talk to me >< but he doesn't usually work with kids either.

It's been decided that I will be spending my mornings at the kindergarten. Mon-Tues with 5 yr olds, Wed-Thurs with 4 yr olds and Friday with the 3 yr olds. I'm supposed to do short 10 min lessons/presentations daily with each class. I've been given a basic lesson plan to follow through the year for what kinds of words and such to introduce, but to be honest, I'm still not quite sure how to actually go about it. There's a lot of good info here in the thread though that I can use.
I'm probably jumping the gun since I haven't even had my uchiawase with the teachers yet, but kind of curious as to what kind of materials I should start working on? I know that flash cards are a given, but are there any recommendations as to size? A4 sheet, half sheet, smaller? I'm kind of out of my element here.

Anyone here still visit kindergartens regularly?

I have a question about using Japanese during pre-school visits. I heard that since the children don't really understand or speak much English, we're basically expected to speak to them in Japanese almost all the time except when we're teaching them English words. So how do most people normally do it? Do you usually say one sentence in Japanese first, then repeat　the exact same thing in English? Like for example if I want to introduce myself, I go something like, "皆さんこんいちは！私はfrooperyfroopです！Hello everybody! My name is frooperｙfroop!"　Or do you just speak Japanese all the way and only use English for the specific words you're teaching, like "今日は果物の英語の名前を勉強しましょう！これはりんごです！英語の名前は 'apple'!"?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I've never taught anyone English before, let alone pre-school kids who speak another language (and it doesn't help that my Japanese is shit), so I'm pretty terrified about my upcoming first lesson and am trying to prepare for it as much as possible. D: D: D:

I'm just going to dump this here for now. This is a list of resources that me and our elementary ALT use when planning lessons for the kindergarten and elementary schools. I had a couple of ppl at Mid-Year Chaos ask me about activities for young kids, so here ya go!

stellaelm.net/ (printable flashcards, worksheets, games)
www.themagiccrayons.com/ (teaching ESL in Japan)
mrprintables.com/ (a lot of crafts, activities, etc)
genkienglish.net/teaching/ (lesson plans, games, lots of videos, you name it, you got it)
teaching.wildmushroomland.com/ (has all hi hulemdos things)
supersimpleonline.com/ (has tons of flashcards, song videos, etc)
earlyyearsenglish.wordpress.com/ (found some good lessons here; can choose level of English)
www.eslkidstuff.com/ (a lot of activities)
owlcation.com/academia/Teaching-pre-school-English (Talks about teaching to younger kids)
esl-kids.com/ (lots of games, songs with lyrics)
genkienglish.net/kids/cdMP3page.htm
http://Bear Originjet.com/mw/index.php?title=Games_and_Warm-ups#Elementary_Games_and_Warm-ups
www.education.com/worksheets/ (printables, worksheets, coloring pages, crafts)