Lesson 6-1 The First lesson - "What do you want?"...

I am still finishing a few lessons leftover from Lesson 5, the fourth hour/lesson but I've already started a few lessons in unit 6 so here goes...

The first two pages in the textbook for Lesson 6 have 18 mini cards (pictures) on them.

I was a little confused at first since the title of the unit says "What do you want?" but...

What is a gorilla doing in there? And also a kangaroo, a cabbage, a calendar, and a tomato?

I thought these are supposed to be things that a student may want? Who wants those things?

Then, in a discussion with one of my HRTs, I was told that these items are well known in Japan, and are usually called the same way but the accents are "very different" when said by Japanese people. Especially, because of by the Japanese "katakana accent."

So, I guess MEXT wants us to fix that, huh? That's exactly so, I was told. The teachers were very eager on this part and made this section of the unit an equally important part so we spent quite some time on it and now the kids sound like this...

Example audio: Japanese accents
Example audio: Japanese accents fixed

That sounds a lot better doesn't it? We practiced on these items for quite some time, but we had to finish some presentations that were left over from the last chapter on clothes and "I have..." so we lost about 15 minutes there. The kids were all finished so no worries. Each must have their turn and no exceptions...

So our first lesson of Eigo Book 1 Lesson 6 broke down like this:

1. Greetings
2. Finishing off Presentations from Lesson 5 Clothes and "Have"
3. Page 36 and 37 and fixing the students accents on the Target Language
4. Playing the "Ohajiki Game" without "ohajikis"
5. POP Quiz with the 1-18 items
6. Playing the Keyword Game with the time left over.

The above one and two points you may know of already, so I'll head into point 3 about fixing accents for (ESL/Second Language Learners) students and show you how it was done.

First, I wouldn't or shouldn't have said "fixing accents" because in way, to me. it feels more like I'm just showing the way. In order to really fix an accent, you have got to hear the "word" first from the student when he or she uses it in some context or way. But usually, the ALT is starting things off during a model and repeat session so sometimes the "accent" is already repaired before its broken. The fixing usually comes during the free interview games the kids play at some point in the lesson.

However, if I had let the kids start off first and told them, "No...that's wrong..." or something like that, they would have probably been so disappointed in themselves. So, to make things fun I usually model the"old" way of saying things like "terebi" which is TV, and "donatsu" which is donuts, and tell the kids let's not be old-fashioned and try the "new and improved" way. I usually get a few laughs out of the kids, and it lightens the mood.

The Ohajiki game went very well except we didn't have any "ohajikis" which are just small markers like a stone or something. So, we used pencils instead and had the students circle five items and played it like a bingo game. If their 5 places were called out first they could win the game.

This Ohajiki Game was really meant for the next lesson, but why not try it out here. It was really easy to explain to the kids and a breeze to play.

The POP Quiz with the 18 items was a listening quiz based on the CD. We had not yet prepared all of the flashcards so it came in handy as a listening exercise. The students had to listen very carefully to the CD and write down the cards number in the order that they come out of the CD.

(That's CD 40,41 Book 1 and the order of the words are on page 89 in the pink teacher's book.)

There wasn't much time left over after that, so we played the keyword game for the remainder of the time. We will have to save the chant for the next lesson. A busy lesson with the presentations and all, but the keyword game at the end kept the students' spirits up.

Hope your spirits are up too...

The ENB
And next week we will be teaching "want" so stay tuned for that.

Eigo Note Book 1 Unit 6 Lesson 2 is now ready...