* micchan's room *

How to be a succesful English Teacher at junior High School

2007-06-25T23:08:00.000+09:00

Last Thursday, in English Teaching Methodologies class a teacher from a junior high school in Morioka, Mr. Maruhashi, came and talked to us about working at a junior high school.

At first, he asked us, "What is the first job as a teacher?"
I thought it was 'character building' because students lived in society.
He said it was changing students. That's so deep!!
In the class, that makes no sense if students can't change and understand.
In school life, students need to change everyday.

Moreover, he did a mock lesson. He took up an interrogative sentence of ' DO. '
It was so difficult for us, beginner, to think how to do lesson.
But he taught us thinking order.
At first, we wrote down what teacher wanted to teach.
After that, we sat these in order.
The way was so simple that we could use while practice teaching.

Vocabulary Teaching Lesson

2007-06-01T22:40:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, I tried to do a vocabulary lesson.
So, I want to write about it.

First of all, I really felt that teaching and the job as teachers was so hard!!
So, it was very valuable experience for me to do the lesson, and I am deeply grateful to Mr.Hall.
Moreover, everyone acted the role of an individual student well, I could do in a real situation.
Thank you for helping my lessonヽ(・∀・)人(・∀・)ﾉ☆★

1. What we did for our lesson.
I made a guidance plan, work sheets, word cards, an aim card, and so on.
I would do my best, I think.

2. What our students did during our lesson.
Students spent a lot of time in practicing and playing a game.
The reason was that I wanted to give student much time to practice new words.
So, I tried to have student took part in my class as I could possible.
And, some students took an active part in my lesson ( Haruka, Hiroyuki, Keiko, and so on ), but others were so negative ( Mika, Shiki-san, Mayuko, Emiko, and so on).

3. The strangth and weakness of our lesson

◇The strength
・ I supported ALT and spoke Japanese effectively as Japanese English Teacher, in order that student could understand what they had to do next.
・ In word practice, as teachers hardly tought the answer, students who could answer helped other students.
・ I could see students states, expressions, and an atmosphere, I think.
・ I talked with many students in the game, and helped them.
・ As Shiki-san was a student who had a poor attitude in class, I scolded him and made him sat up straight as a teacher.

◇The weakness
・ Time of our lesson was too long.
・ I should have changed questions of new words.
・ I took a mistake for distribution of work sheets.
・ I should have had students practiced by the line.
・ I had to do more consistent lesson.

Thank you so much for reading my post to the end.
Please give me your real thinking and good advice (*￫㉨￩)ﾉ!!

Two Approaches for Teaching Vocabulary

2007-05-23T12:11:00.000+09:00

Today we learned about two approaches for teaching vocabulary: the present and learn and the Learning through Input Approach. You can see a PowerPoint presentation of the approaches here. I would like to tell you about the strengths and weaknesses of each approach as well as the approach I would use as a Junior High School English teacher.

First, I will talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the Teaching and Learn Approach.

◇the strengths
・ It is little time that teachers explain and a lot of time that students practice and talk.
・ Students can understand with Japanese.
・ If teachers use flash cards, they can use many times .
・ Students can repeatedly see the new words.

◇the weaknesses
・ Students are immidiately bored by memorizing and studying.
・ There is no variety things , so the classes are unchanging if teachers take up various teaching materials.

Second, I will talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the Learning through Input Approach.

◇the strengths
・ Students can understand easily because of using cards or charts.
・ If teachers use simple things or contents, they can guess and translate new words.
・ They can repeatedly listen to new words.

◇the weaknesses
・ Teachers talk too much in the foreign language and the class is like a lecture in university. So, some students who aren't interested in it may be passive.
・ It is a lot of time that teachers explain and little time that students practice and talk.

Lastly as a junior high school English teacher I would fovor the Learning through Input Approach a hybird.

Improving Activities

2007-05-12T19:49:00.000+09:00

I am going to review two of the "typical Japanese junior high school"communicative activities presented in ETM 3.
The activities I am going to improve are the matching game and the questionnarie.

First, we had better use the macching game with any clear sense of perpose.
For example, when children have to decide a camping schedule which is a school event, they look for a person who has same ideas using the game.
But, we have to change easily if children use and do like this.

Second, the questionaarrie is too simple.
So, we must add more activities to it.
For instance, after this activity, a teacher asks, " Which baseball team does Ken like?" (Ken is a class mate.)
If Hirosi answers the question, he asks, " What color does Kumi like?"
Then, a person who answers a question makes questions.
Students have to talk and conversation with a lot of classmates to answer.
In this way, they can ask and answer well.

My Important Things

2007-05-08T15:17:00.000+09:00

I am so sorry to be late the HW, because my computer was not working well.

I have three things which are important.

First is family.
My family members are powerful and have each hobbies.
Father's is recreation for children and old people, mother's is running after my younger brother to watch his baseball games, and brother's is playing baseball. He is a captain of the club.
They live freely, but they think each other so much.
Basically, one person thinks, decides and does by oneself.
But, we help when mother is busy with making dinner, we consider when brother doesn't speak.
We give indirect aid each other. I love them.

Second is a friend.
Because I like to communicate with a lot of people, I have many friends.
They have various personality, especially clear own ideas.
If I was puzzled or worried, they listened to my talk and told me some advices.
They are like my teacher in my life.

Third is experiences.
This is essential to my life, too.
When I was JHS student, I underwent great pain for me.
Those days, it was too painful.
But it is a good experience now.
So, if it happened bad occurrences, these will become good in the future, I think.

Learning English

2007-04-21T23:28:00.000+09:00

My most enjoyable language learning experience is 'Pronoun'.
When I was fiest-year student in junior high school, my class teacher was an English teacher.
He was very interesting person, and his teaching was so interesting for me.
Especially, I remember teaching of pronoun.

First, make a list.
Vertical lines were sorts of the subjects ( 私, あなた, 彼, etc) , horizontal lines were sorts of changing of pronoun (I, my, me, mine, etc).

Second, complete the list.
Then, he let us realize changing of possessive pronoun resemble each other closely ( his, hers, theirs, nami's etc).

Third, sing a song of pronoun to the rhythm.
It was like an incantation.
And we announced in front of the class room after we practiced the song over and over.
We had to recite, but we enjoyed it very much and we can say it quickly still now.

When we teach new things, we should use rhythm or do interesting activities like my teacher.
So, students come to take a positive attitude in the class and can learn easily.

Hello**

2007-04-19T15:17:00.000+09:00

I start this blog with my classmates.

I live in Morioka, Japan.
I am third-year-student of university and major in education of junior high school.
I'm a maniger of american football club. It's a very fan!!
My hobbies are cooking, chatting, taking a bath.
Especially, I take a bath three times a day.

Nice to meet you!!