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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 5, 2016 13:30:00 GMT 9
Hey shanshan310I teach a Saturday English class for 小1-3. Last year, there were two classes and they were separated by what school they attend. This year, I made sure that it was seperated by age level - so the first class are all 1年生 and the second class are all 2-3年生. It was quite difficult handling just that age difference alone. The older kids would bully the younger kids (in the "I'm older than you") kind of way so the younger kids were more timid and shy (thus no Eikaiwa development). Now that I have all the 1st years in one class, the kids are the best behaved as well as the most engaged in learning. It really comes down to class management and how you arrange your classroom. Kids love routine. So I made it that at the beginning the kids sit with their assigned groups (Team Alligator, Team Bear, etc.) and the focus would be on writing and reviewing concepts (EIKAIWA time) and then the second half would be games where we would all move to the back of the room (where there is more space). This seperation of space helps the kids know what is expected of them and it also allows me to cut out games if the class is a misbehaving mess (which has not happened because I have a BATSU sticker rule). It is of course possible to do it with different ages - but it will be difficult. You don't want it to be too difficult for the first years (who have only just finished learning hiragana) nor too easy and boring for the sixth years. If you have the chance to talk with the center about arranging the classes (this may be their first time doing such a thing), please do so (and try to recommend having it divided by age - or if the place has been doing it for a while, then by difficulty).
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Post by momo black on Sept 5, 2016 13:33:44 GMT 9
Thanks! How did you try to keep it interesting, if I may ask? And Caic, yeah it'll be all of them at once. Not sure how to jungle them because I feel like games / activities for one half will probably be less appropriate / fun for the other half. Oh jeez, if you have to play games with all of them at once then yeah, I definitely recommend like... breaking them into to teams who play separately. I found that What Time is it Mr. Wolf and stuff like that went over well with all elementary school ages though. (It just wouldn't quite be fair to pit a 1st grader against a 6th grader, hue) We (as in the full time juku teachers and myself) tried to keep it interesting by making the actual eikaiwa portions into sort of game-like things as well, and by having them talk about stuff they would enjoy talking about. For instance, we did one activity where we had the 4th through 6th graders write up a paper talking introducing their favorite character. They could pick any (school appropriate) character they wanted, so some people picked stuff like Funasshi while others picked like, Pretty Cure people or whatever. It was an easy way to get them enthusiastic about adjectives and basic introductory information (age, hometown, etc.). Game-like teaching would be stuff like, sitting in a circle and asking a question, then throwing a ball to someone who has to answer, then that person throws the ball to another person who has to answer, and if you messed up or didn't answer there was some sort of in game penalty but I don't recall... Anyway though, that sort of thing.
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Post by shanshan310 on Sept 6, 2016 15:14:26 GMT 9
Thanks again for the great ideas! I really appreciate it. Splitting up the class sounds like a good idea, especially as it looks like it's going to be 20 students. @_@ Just four lessons though.
Re: people wanting eikaiwa without understanding what it means, I think you were right hue. After meeting with them it turns out last year this class was taken by an ALT but apparently parents complained that there were too many games and not enough study, so this year they've asked me instead (although they asked me to ask her to help as a volunteer too). Most of the resources I've found for actual study are basically fun 'game like' ways to learn anyway, but I guess I can probably work that in as eikaiwa and see how we go. Other than that though they've basically said 'do whatever you want'.
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sevgi
Straight outta Narita
Posts: 14
CIR Experience: 2nd year
Location: Gifu
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Post by sevgi on Sept 9, 2016 11:28:48 GMT 9
Today I am visiting an elementary school for the first time and I don't know much about şoogakuseis, so i'm kind of freaking out. Like what can you say about the concentration levels of 6nenseis? I know this is late but 参考に。
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Post by Caic on Sept 9, 2016 11:32:19 GMT 9
Today I am visiting an elementary school for the first time and I don't know much about şoogakuseis, so i'm kind of freaking out. Like what can you say about the concentration levels of 6nenseis? I know this is late but 参考に。 how long is the visit and what are you doing? 6nenseis are alright with concentration (comparatively).
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sevgi
Straight outta Narita
Posts: 14
CIR Experience: 2nd year
Location: Gifu
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Post by sevgi on Sept 9, 2016 12:45:35 GMT 9
Oh that's a relief! I will only do a 20mins of presentation about my 母国. The time is so limited i decided i will only talk about Turkey, show interesting photos and explain them. Then they will have 10 minutes to ask me questions
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Post by Caic on Sept 9, 2016 13:38:15 GMT 9
Oh that's a relief! I will only do a 20mins of presentation about my 母国. The time is so limited i decided i will only talk about Turkey, show interesting photos and explain them. Then they will have 10 minutes to ask me questions 20 minutes should be fine. make sure to ask them questions too and try get them to participate a little bit so its not just 20 minutes of talking at them. 10 minutes of questions from them might be ambitious too haha. depending on the group i guess tho. I'm sure it'll be fine. 20 minutes is a good amount of time and 6nensei can defnitely deal with that
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sevgi
Straight outta Narita
Posts: 14
CIR Experience: 2nd year
Location: Gifu
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Post by sevgi on Sept 12, 2016 15:24:08 GMT 9
Oh that's a relief! I will only do a 20mins of presentation about my 母国. The time is so limited i decided i will only talk about Turkey, show interesting photos and explain them. Then they will have 10 minutes to ask me questions 20 minutes should be fine. make sure to ask them questions too and try get them to participate a little bit so its not just 20 minutes of talking at them. 10 minutes of questions from them might be ambitious too haha. depending on the group i guess tho. I'm sure it'll be fine. 20 minutes is a good amount of time and 6nensei can defnitely deal with that Thanks for the ideas. It went well in general but there were too many things i wanted to talk about so i couldn't make it as interactive as you suggested. One thing i was sad about is that the second of the two groups came in late, so there wasn't any question time left. I thought 20 minutes was too short for anything. They asked us (there were other 講師s) to talk about 自国の衣食住言葉 detailed as below: 衣・・・・日常の服装、祭りや儀式の際の服装 日本との違い(気候の違いによる特徴など) 食・・・・独特な食べ物、家庭料理、食べ方など 住・・・・学校の制度、家、建物、生活様式、生活道具など 言葉・・・挨拶(こんにちは、はじめまして、さようなら、ありがとう ごめんなさい、うれしい、おいしい、よかった など) 子どもの遊びや歌・・ じゃんけんの言い方ややり方 その場で親子で楽しめる簡単な遊びや歌など その他・・その国らしい実物の物 写真 楽器、お金など (具体的な物があると、子ども達によくわかると思います。) 日本に対する思いなどお話しください。 自国に関するクイズなどを用意していただけると時間に余裕が ある時に楽しめます。 To be honest, each of 衣 食 住 言葉 would easily take 20 minutes if i had been given the time. I guess i need to narrow down what to talk about better.
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Post by King Quailbee on Sept 12, 2016 15:32:05 GMT 9
I've gotten school requests before where it lists out that much of stuff and I thought they wanted exactly all of that - turns out that they just send the same description everytime they request me. Like seriously, I have gotten 12 requests from this school the past year and the request is exactly the same. They don't know what to put in the descriptor...
So don't worry about it...as long as you covered one part of the request, it should be fine.
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sevgi
Straight outta Narita
Posts: 14
CIR Experience: 2nd year
Location: Gifu
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Post by sevgi on Sept 15, 2016 10:48:06 GMT 9
I guess they also want to give us some topic ideas rather than want us to cover all of them.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2016 10:06:43 GMT 9
Not sure where else to put this, but I came across a really easy to understand, basic explanation of slavery (especially in US history) designed for Japanese elementary school level. It's even written without kanji that the younger kids might not be able to read! Thought it might be useful 参考 for anyone else like me who wants to acknowledge the contributions of Black culture to American society in their lessons, but isn't sure how to explain to young Japanese children some of the foundations of that process. Not sure about other countries' history/relationship with slavery so I apologize if this only benefits American CIRs. And there's a link towards the bottom for more in-depth Japanese explanations for older age groups. www.cscd.osaka-u.ac.jp/user/rosaldo/040225slave.html#%91%E5%90l%82%CC%95%FB%82%D6
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Post by Caic on Oct 12, 2016 15:05:41 GMT 9
I'm really not sure slavery is the best topic for 小学生。。。
I feel like with such young kids, especially Japanese kids, they need to know basic stuff about multiculturalism first. The history behind slavery is quite complex and i can't imagine such young kids understanding or enjoying that kind of thing quite yet. Especially if it is a one time school visit or a short period of time, i feel like they are still confused about why this foreigner is standing in front of them, let alone such deeper/darker/historical topics.
For sure though, for 中学生 and 高校生 especially, I can see it being an interesting and important thing to learn about however.
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Post by momo black on Oct 12, 2016 15:20:35 GMT 9
I think it's useful even if you just take a few sentences from it, because slavery was an enourmous part of US history, and it could easily come up (even if you don't bring it up, someone could ask something which requires bringing it up), so I think having an idea of what sort of language/explanation is appropriate is really good.
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Post by Caic on Oct 12, 2016 15:36:55 GMT 9
I think it's useful even if you just take a few sentences from it, because slavery was an enourmous part of US history, and it could easily come up (even if you don't bring it up, someone could ask something which requires bringing it up), so I think having an idea of what sort of language/explanation is appropriate is really good. of course i agree its good to know how to explain it. but like for a comparative example I just ignore the majority of irish history when talking to SYOGAKSEI cos i know it will go over their heads. Like I ignore the whole northern ireland thing and 800 years of war and oppression, unless I am specifically asked cos they are just generally too young/disinterested/don't have the knowledge base to get the importance of it. maybe i am underestimating SYOGAKSEI but like generally the students (and teachers) are all about it being FUN and less "hm, I see" interesting and more "WOW SUGOI" interesting.
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Post by momo black on Oct 12, 2016 15:51:23 GMT 9
maybe i am underestimating SYOGAKSEI but like generally the students (and teachers) are all about it being FUN and less "hm, I see" interesting and more "WOW SUGOI" interesting. I feel you on this one /: One time I made (what I thought was) a really fun and interesting presentation about the history of Halloween (it wasn't even dark or anything, just ~interesting cultural history~) for a Halloween visit, and then I was told that they actually just wanted me to wear a costume and play games. like ok that works too i guess
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Post by Caic on Oct 12, 2016 15:54:20 GMT 9
this is what I'm saying. for shougakkou fun and games and WOW interesting is best.
Middle and High school you can touch off more actually interesting things, in my experience anyway.
If you are visiting the same place multiple times then deeper stuff is probably possible maybe innit tho. I don't do that kind of thing tho
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Post by miscreative on Oct 12, 2016 16:00:59 GMT 9
i usually dont bother? but, if it comes up because of how i structured my presentation i will cover it in 1 sentence that is like "white people owned black people. it was really really awful"
my presentations usually have like 5 parts to them so we get back to the fun really quickly
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2016 16:11:43 GMT 9
i usually dont bother? but, if it comes up because of how i structured my presentation i will cover it in 1 sentence that is like "white people owned black people. it was really really awful" my presentations usually have like 5 parts to them so we get back to the fun really quickly
This school specifically requested food culture as an example of domestic diversity (kids already learned about different kinds of Italian pastas and Indian curries), especially because they have several students who are non-wajin/lived abroad, so in order to explain the cultural mixing in barbecue's origins I am of course going to be honest about where the influences came from. But obviously the presentation has to match the audience so it's a few simple sentences about slavery (based on the link I posted earlier) next to a world map so I can point to Africa, and the rest is mostly pictures of food with some simple quiz questions (Where is America~?) scattered throughout. And question time at the end, which probably won't have anything to do with my presentation anyway because little kids are little kids.
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Post by miscreative on Oct 12, 2016 16:17:10 GMT 9
interesting. it will be a difficult thing to balance and word but good luck!
let us know how it goes~
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Post by Caic on Oct 12, 2016 16:18:28 GMT 9
~sigh~
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Post by miscreative on Oct 12, 2016 16:21:51 GMT 9
i mean. like Caic is sighing, you could leave out the history? (tho i understand why you wouldnt want to) and just say it is a mix of all of these different cultures? or pick something that isnt rooted in slavery?
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Post by Caic on Oct 12, 2016 16:27:59 GMT 9
i just feel like it opens a can of worms.
for example when talking about ireland, why we don't have very interesting/fancy looking food, it's basically because we were poor as shit for hundreds of years and being completely oppressed and starved by the english (i am even being very light in my description here). But it is way easier to just say "we were poor hence potato".
i can understand wanting to credit a culture for its contributions but cans and worms and things....
also the sigh was just cos being ignored innit
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Post by miscreative on Oct 12, 2016 16:33:09 GMT 9
i just feel like it opens a can of worms. for example when talking about ireland, why we don't have very interesting/fancy looking food, it's basically because we were poor as しt for hundreds of years and being completely oppressed and starved by the english (i am even being very light in my description here). But it is way easier to just say " we were poor hence potato". i can understand wanting to credit a culture for its contributions but cans and worms and things.... also the sigh was just cos being ignored innit ah. right. i forgot. also, the bolded is pretty much how i try to wrap up slavery. like, i am pretty sure when i was in elementary, that is how it was explained to me at first "in its most basic sense it is ~~. it was awful." also. what do you mean "i just feel like it opens a can of worms."? i feel like it is easily enough glossed over and the kids will be more interested in EVERYTHING else?
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