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Eigo Noto classes are not to discourage students from further English study, nor are the lessons meant to be Conversation Lessons. But what about students who CAN and WANT TO speak English?

Do you, or the HRTs you work with, ever insist that the Eigo Noto students interact in English? I sometimes hear Home Room Teachers exhorting kids to speak English together.
There are times when we want a student to speak English in the Eigo Noto lessons, to be sure- when listening and repeating words and phrases, or when checking accuracy in pronunciation, for example. And looking at the workbook itself, you could easily get the idea that the kids are supposed to be speaking English.
But as for student-to-student interaction in English,



there are voices from above, as well as implied expectations in the Mombusho Guidelines, that would not have us, as teachers, insisting that students interact in English in the Eigo Noto lessons.

This seemed obvious to me months ago. But an HRT/elementary school head English teacher recently returned from a Mombusho Eigo Noto training event and was telling me that she was told there that we should not be expecting the students to speak English. From the tone of her voice I got the feeling that not expecting the students to speak English in the Eigo Noto lessons was, for her, a striking and extraordinary idea.
Based on that conversation, I thought it worthwhile to discuss it here.

My thoughts on this points are based on these ideas:

1. ‘All students should feel a sense of success in the final activity.’ See the post here.
2. Not all students will be able to produce correct spoken English after 2-3 classes.
3. Eigo Noto classes are not to discourage students from further English study. (From the Ministry of Education’s Guidelines for Elementary English Education. See the post here.) This is also true for students of ability who CAN speak English.
4. Students don’t need to speak English to be able to communicate together.

If we can accept these points, it becomes easy to make a list of the things we can or should do, and those we shouldn’t, in Eigo Noto classes:

Things NOT to do in Eigo Noto classes

• Don’t choose, or require, a student to stand alone in the class and speak English unsupported by a teacher. This includes any lesson that finishes with a Show-and-Tell activity. (The Listen and Repeat CROSSFIRE activity is meant to test students’ pronunciation, for all to learn from, and demonstrates an exception to this rule. A teacher is there as support.)
• Don’t explicitly tell a student that they are saying something in English incorrectly (“That’s not right!”)
• Don’t insist that all, or individual, students perform tasks in English.
• Don’t expect students to speak English without A LOT of modeling and practice. And while they may be able to say the words and/or structures, meaning is something that will take even more time.

Ways to Structure Communication, and Spoken English, in Your Classes

• If you expect students to perform a speaking task in the last activity of the lesson series, model from the very first lesson the language you want them to produce. And then repeat the language, in both listening and speaking activities, again and again and again.
• Keep English langauge patterns very simple and very repetitive.
• Use vocabulary words that are commonly used in Japanese.  See suggested word groups here.
• Ask for volunteers to demonstrate spoken English to the whole class.
• Allow the whole class to respond in English as a single voice first. Then ask for a volunteer to say it again after the correct form has been identified by the whole class and confirmed by a teacher.
• If a student speaks English incorrectly, say the correct form for them to hear. Using a rising intonation at the end, like a question, can mean, ‘Is this what you meant to say?’ Or, give examples of the pattern, changing a word, to model the language by talking about yourself.
• In the whole class, when someone responds in Japanese, ask if anyone knows how to say it in English. If they don’t know the whole meaning, start breaking it down into smaller and smaller chunks- phrases first (blue shoes), and then single words (blue, shoes). Gesture, and point to examples, to help.
• When speaking to individual students, and they respond in Japanese, repeat back to them what they just said, in English. Or, make it an English question. (‘Onaka suita.’ -> ‘I’m hungry.’ or, ‘Oh, are you hungry?’)
• To support low-English ability students, prepare materials with pictures and written Japanese as much as possible.
• Use written English on the blackboard and in materials.
• Narrow the conversation in activities to simple, repetitive patterns. Some of the Eigo Noto lessons use several language structures in one lesson. The EigoNoto.com lessons have simplified the language in these lessons already.
• Use small group and pair speaking activities to advantage- these groupings lower student anxiety, allow for more direct interaction, and many other things.  See this post. And this one.
• Structure activities so that students can repeat the same language experience several times with different partners. Some partners will offer better modeling than others, assisting lower-skilled students to advance their ability. Repeating the experience allows students to learn from their own, and others, successes and mistakes.
• Make activities as communicative as possible. This is the most difficult to describe, but in simple terms, meaningful responses confirm comprehension. Responses can be verbal (Yes or No is the easiest to understand), active (Here is the FISH card.), gestures, or in Japanese.

With visual and written English support, spoken Japanese, spoken English and gestures, and enough repetitive practice, all students will have the best chance of successful communicative interchange, whether it’s in English or not. And those students who WANT to speak English get a chance to.

Speaking and listening, ie. conversation, are a high-speed interpersonal interaction.  When choosing sequential activities for lesson plans, be mindful to grade activities through the lesson from slower, low/non-affective activities (see LDK #2) to the higher-speed activities of conversational interaction.  And also to Teach or Test- at the right time!

Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

    The common rule that receptive vocabulary and ability is always greater than productive ability gives a simple guidance as to how lesson progression or sequencing of lessons should usually proceed-- from listening introductions in the beginning to free production as a final activity.  Between these two will include:

• vocabulary and pattern practice (listening and repeating, choral repetition, TPR and other movement- and/or physical response-involved activities), 
• Karuta and Listen, Repeat and Point, etc.,
• controlled conversations (pattern practice or substitution activities), like Interview Bingo and Get The Picture,
• some kind of ability checking or testing, like CROSSFIRE/LINEFIRE, Find 3 People and Tell the Teacher, volunteers demonstrating with the teacher before the activity, etc.,
• freer conversation activities, like Janken 4’s or Janken Conversations, Hot Potato, etc..

This sequencing needs to be considered when planning multi-activity lessons as well as over a series of lessons.
Use the following order of kinds of activities in your multi-activity lessons, or series of lessons, to build effective learning experiences.  This is a general order with many kinds of activities; you probably won’t be able to do more than 3 or 5 in a 45 or 50 minute class.  Still, following the order below should insure effective lesson planning.

Listening.  Provide context for understanding.  Use movement as much as possible--O/X games, responding by raising hands, holding up a colored pen, pointing to an image in the textbook or on a flashcard. See How to Introduce New Language for ideas.

Repeating.  Choral repeating is less stressful (feels less like a test) to a student than being the only one repeating in front of the other students.  (This is also a very convenient way to get a group of unfocused students to focus on the teacher and listen! OK you noisy rascals, ‘Listen and Repeat after ME!’)

Accuracy checking (testing in a playful or indirect way).  See the post on Testing options.

Structured, controlled practice (with teacher-chosen structures, examples and vocabulary).  This limits the opportunities for error production.
(More Accuracy Checking if needed).

Free Speaking activities.  This meshes very well with LDK #9- Finish with a BANG!
   
See also the post Lesson Plan Patterns for more ideas on ordering lessons.

Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

When introducing or teaching new knowledge and ideas, give students a foundation upon which to build.
Always having the Japanese translation of anything written in English is one way of doing this.  Other ways to do this are:

• using similar usage (using ‘will’ is very similar in usage to the use of ‘can’) or similar sounds (book -> cook);
• words they already know (especially English words commonly used in Japanese); and
• something they can or have experienced (‘How many pens do you have?’ or, eating in a restaurant).

Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

Why use chants in the language classroom? Chants

• Help students to remember 
• Teach sound, rhythm, accents, and word stress
  
• Are especially good for things in series (months’ & days’ names, for example)

Rhythm is key.  Use clapping, tamborines, or... the Eigo Noto CD by Kairyudo!? But what if there are problems with the chant on the CD?!
Make up your own chants (Keep reading for tips. Are you rhthmically challenged? More help!).
Or check out the original chants here for you to use at EIGONOTO.COM.

If you want to make up your own chants, here are some points on why chants work well:

• REPETITION. 
• Language is clearly broken-up into COMPONENT LANGUAGE PATTERNS. 
• The chant has 4 BEATS (Hel-lo, Hel-lo. My name is Ken). Not always, but this helps.
  

And here are some points on why chants don't work well:

• Too fast
• Too much language
• Too long
• Irregular, non-repeating language patterns 
• Doesn’t target the language structure well.

If singing AND clapping at the same time is challenging for you (it is for me!), here's a trick I learned: instead of clapping while singing, put a clap or 2 or 3 in the middle or end of the line. For example:

• What clap What clap What do you like? clap-clap
  
• I like APPLES. clap-clap-clap

For many teachers, using chants in the English class is something new. But with a little practice, and seeing how well students respond and learn using chants, I think you'll be encouraged to add them to your bag of tricks!

Engage students in the learning process by telling them beforehand what activities or material will be studied. At the beginning of class, simply write on the blackboard the names of the activities you’ll do in that lesson. Then cross them off as you finish them. 
Use activity names (and the communication and life-long learning skill names) often.  Write the target patterns on the blackboard in English and Japanese, especially for elementary school.  Keeping a current English bulletin board in the classroom, with current lesson content, will help students be aware of what they’re currently studying, too.

Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

There are many things going on inside students when they are in your classroom. These are often called Affective Factors.  Even a brief explanation is more than this short post can do justice.  They include, but are not limited to:

• motivation
• risk-taking
• low- or high-anxiety
• feelings of success or failure
• competition
• inadequacy
• self-esteem
• communal support
• boredom vs. challenged engagement

Each of these, and more, are part of students emotional lives. Not to consider them when planning or acting in class is not only disrespectful, but done repeatedly will work to create an emotional barrier to learning.


Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

Relevance
As much as possible, use content that has relevance to the students’ lives in your lessons;  ie., something that is part of their life experience.  Pictures and photos, and realia (real objects) can help with this.  But also consider students’ culture, ages, living area, gender, etc.. Popular examples from my students include:

• vacation experiences;
• sports (both pro and personal);
• foods;
• anime characters;
• seasonal activities;
• school teachers;
• classmates (try writing other classmates’ names, randomly chosen with a pair of dice, onto a print;
• theme parks (Disneyland, Universal Studios, etc.);
• music and movies.

Ownership refers to giving students a feeling of ‘my’ or ‘mine’ when preparing materials for classroom use.  For example, students might: 

• color a line drawing;
• write their name under a picture;
• use their own pen or textbook;
• draw lines on a print connecting 2 objects or ideas; 
• bring a picture or small object from home.

Go to the next post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

This is the introduction to a nine-part series titled Lesson Development Keys. Each of the nine keys, or LDK, is a guideline for creating communicative activities and multi-activity lesson plans.  Being familiar with and using the concepts will help to make your activities and lessons

• more meaningful and engaging for the students,
• help to keep student motivation high, and
• make lessons and activities effective and enjoyable learning experiences.

Go to the first post in the Lesson Development Keys series.

Having a set routine to your English classes helps you prepare the lesson, and also empowers students by giving them a routine to become familiar with.
Here are three patterns for lessons that are tried-and-true:

The Eigo Note text commonly uses this pattern for a lesson:

1. Greetings & Warm-up
2. Introduction
3. Expansion
4. Practice
5. Wrap-up & Farewells

My own pattern for teaching a lesson:

1. Greetings
2. Warm-up/Review and/or Recycle/Conversation Skills Training
3. Teaching/Introduction
4. Practice
5. Accuracy Testing
6. Production
7. Wrap-up/Closing

My friend Michael Sullivan offers the following lesson pattern:

1. Greetings
2. Review (repeat activity from last class for a short time)
3. Introduce new language
4. Main Activity
5. Wrap-up/Good-bye

We all learn language as babies first by listening. This is the natural way to introduce new material to your students, too. Do your best to provide some context to give extra clues to what the language might mean. Some of the activities below do that very well-

• Storyboards/かみしばい- Read a story.
• Model the language with another teacher or student in a skit or dialogue.
• Play a short video.
• Songs- Listen to, then sing a song.
• Listen & Repeat- write these patterns on the blackboard, and play Listen & Repeat CROSSFIRE. Say each pattern in order, then the second time through, change one part: I play tennis. I play tennis, too. I don’t play tennis. Do you play tennis? Yes, I do. No, I don’t.
• Listen and Respond- Students respond by pointing to a picture, touching an object, raising hands or standing, etc., to indicate comprehension.
• Translation- Ask all students to tell the meaning in Japanese, then ask for single volunteers to translate
• Don’t have a teaching partner to do dialogues with? Try using a pair of puppets. Or wear different hats to represent different characters.

The following list is simple, but true for any language. This simple breakdown does a lot to help me choose appropriate activities for my lessons.

• Words/Vocabulary/Alphabet
• Yes/No Question;
• Wh- Question;
• Sentence and/or Negative;
• Commands.

Which do you think is the most important? One writer I read said vocabulary is the most important. It’s difficult for me to disagree. As the daily speaker of a foreign language myself, knowing the right word to say works better than trying to say something another way every time.
Maybe we should remember this the next time a student says something to us with the right words but with grammatical errors, and we still understand. In terms of communicative ability, was the student really mistaken?

I always walk into class with a pair of dice in my pocket. Here are the ways they can be used:

-Roll two dice to choose a student-very effective in choosing a volunteer (for O/X Game, to choose the cross-point student to begin CROSSFIRE, etc.). With a little use, the students become resigned to the fact that their turn to perform was chosen at random by the dice.
With students sitting in rows of 6 across, and 4-7 deep:

• One die counts the rows of students from left-to-right. The second die counts the rows of students from front-to-back. Thus the front row lefthand-most student is number 1-1, the back row righthand-most student is number 6-6, and so on.

-Roll one die to choose a row to stand up for LINEFIRE.

-If you give out points, you can offer a choice of a set reward (6 points, for example) or the total of 2 rolled dice.

-When doing chants with Yes/No answers, roll a die to choose the Yes or No answer- 1, 3 or 5 = Yes, 2, 4 or 6 = No. This does a lot to keep students engaged while doing a chant.

-When doing an activity such as a Quiz Show that awards points to the (usually) higher-skilled team, give them points equal to two rolled dice. BUT, if the dice roll any pair (1-1, 2-2, etc.) take away ALL of the points awarded until that time!

In my classrooms we use dice for choosing students and offering a chance to get bonus points. See the post above for explanations.

The kitchen timer serves the function of a countdown clock- when the time is over, the bell rings and the activity is finished. Using this feature together with a points/reward system, the students are encouraged to think and speak more quickly. Sounds simple, but give the Hot Potato activity a go and you'll see how it works!