Lesson 3-1 The First lesson - Numbers in languages from around the world:...

Eigo Noto 英語ノート lesson blog: playing with numbers around the world and the new 'How Many' Song

We still started out this lesson again with another go at the "Hello song" by request of the kids actually. I guess the robot thing picked them up a bit because there were a lot of requests for that in this lesson.

 

In this lesson, as in the previous greeting the kids had still greeted with checking my feeling. It was quite nice actually and started to sound a little more like natural English. Just to check in reverse, we picked up students #4-10, to check their responses of 'yes' when checked upon. So, if one student said 'I'm sleepy' I would check with saying '(You're) sleepy?' and that student should say 'Yes, (I am)' as a proper response. If the response was 'OK' I would repond to that with a gesture of puzzlement since that would not be the most natural response from a native speaker of English.

Picking up again in order of their assigned student numbers we had gone thru 5 or 6 students per class. Everyone was doing very well and the students seemed to understand our practice point.

 

Although this third lesson in the "English Notebook" (let's use the real English name for Eigo Noto this time) starts with a "whole class activity" of "janken" we still decided to review the "Hello Song" by request from the kids and also the previous taget language from Lesson (Unit) 2. All in all, we had practiced 7 feelings in total; 4 from the Eigo Note and 3 of our own choosing as follows: fine, happy, hungry, sleepy, tired, sad, and 'ok'.

After that, we started our intro into the Janken Game excercise and reviewed how to play Janken in English. I'm not sure about all you other teacher's out there but the way we do it here goes like this: "Rock, Scissors, Paper, ... 1 2 3." I have an other version which goes "Rock, Paper, Scissors... 1 2 3" but in my experience the kids seem to remember it better our way. As for an official rule on Janken, I guess that is better left for the professionals to decide. There is an Official Janken Tournament Assiociation and if you want to know more about and how to play Janken American style.

So, the kids played altogether for about three minutes. I don't reccommend to play any longer since their excitement might grow too strong and almost uncontrollable. But they enjoyed it and most of my classes had to start with a "Good morning," as a TL before playing the game. And as a surprise TL of saying "I win!" if you win or "You win!" if you lose. It all worked out very well and only took a couple of minutes to introduce 'I win' and 'You win.'

Next, as we settled down the students into their seats, we all tallied our wins and finally picked up some 'brave' students to answer the question of "How many did you win?" (Introducing 'How many' may not be so difficult since I'm sure all of kids know how to count don't they?) In most classes 10-15 students would answer in English of 8, 10 , 14, and even as many as 24! I was a bit surprised to see some kids even standing to give their answer in Japanese because they had not yet memorized the number yet. But I do give praise to anyone who is brave enough to stand and talk in front of 39 peers (The Japanese Elementary School maximum number of students per class is 40!) with a big clear voice whether it is in English or not. I feel it's good for their personal development as a young learner. If the kids can do it well in Japanese for now they can eventually do it just as well in English later on in life, like by Grade 6 hopefully.

Here is a picture of "How many times did you win?" on the blackboard.

Well then, we continued on to the demo of gesturing in numbers and the differences of gesturing Japanese and I guess American style. Now I have to advise all you HRT's out to always remember your part since a few of mine had forgotten theirs and it is a little hard to act as a drama coach in the middle of a skit. Plus it breaks the lesson flow and the kids attention if you pause in the middle of a skit. So it is very important to pay attention to your role in each Eigo Noto skit. Onegaishimasu, ne!

Next, we were supposed to introduce the topic "Janken in other languages" but we skipped that for later since we felt the kids needed a calming ESL activity. So we proceeded with the Let's Listen portion of "Numbers in other languages." I thought this was an interesting activity and well put together as an audio quiz. We breezed thru that and then prepared for the Number Song.

Now the dance can be a little difficult to master but if you practice hard enough you will get by. The better you do it the more the kids will enjoy it. The teachers tried very hard as well.

Lastly, we did the "Janken in other languages" audio quiz as a closing activity and finished the lesson off there.

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Eigo Note Book 1 (Unit) Lesson 3 Lesson 2 (second) is now ready...