Lesson 2-3 The Third lesson - Numbers, Upper and Lower Case Letters of the Alphabet...

Numbers, Upper and Lower Case Letters...

This next Eigo Noto 英語ノート lesson still focuses on numbers and the alphabet:

I wanted to start this lesson with a little excitement since we were going to review the number song again. After reviewing the numbers by ten's on the board, we sang the numbers song once and then did something very different from the 英語ノート Teacher's Book. Here is what I mean.

 

 

Japanese elementary school students and practicing in speaking and singing in English is of course important, but don't overlook the importance in chanting in English with numbers or whatever target language you are working with. They seemed so proficient we proceeded to study and review the English alphabet again so we gave the students a little ESL game time by playing the alphabet pairs game one more time.

The students usually get faster and faster as they do this ESL English Activity. Perhaps, they are getting accustomed to the actual shapes of each alphabet letter. I'm sure pairing large and small alphabet letters and the actual writing may be a little difficult for them right now. But we will be practicing those English writing activities and phonics exercises when we feel they are ready.

As we finished, the homeroom teachers and I had the students sing the Alphabet Song as an introduction acitvity for the alphabet capital and small letters pairing quiz on page 13. The exercise seems straightforward enough although I think you should give the students the advice "to connect the BIG letters to the SMALL letters in pairs only. Don't connect the small -a- to the big -B- and so on... " If they don't take that advice into account, there will be so many lines on the page that by the time those "young English learners in Japan" get to Pp they will have had so many lines that the page will look so frustrating to work with. (I know from one student's experience.) By the way, you may want to keep this activity in the 英語ノート Eigo Noto as clean as possible in preparation for an easter egg supplemental activity. I'll let you work that one out as an I.Q. quiz for you. If and when you discover this egg, small in numbers and letters as it may be, you can quiz your students or provide it as a supplemental activity.

As you can see in the pictures below, the students have all chosen to work with rulers. I think it is actually better to do this activity freehand as practice for alphabet writing since it has more straight strokes than kanji, hiragana, or katakana. But who wants to argue with a Grade 6 Japanese Elementary School student in one of the most delicate English Programs in Japanese History. I don't so I let them all use their rulers only after they asked me in English, "Can I use a ruler?" They've almost acquired the target language of 'use' so I reccommend stress out your answer of 'Yes, you can USE your rulers."

"Photos/Pictures" of Grade 5 and 6 Japanese Elementary School students using their rulers for this Eigo Note alphabet activity on page 13.

Then, after finishing up, we did not check the answers orally but did another mini pairing game of finding your partner with the big and small letters. The students had to finish the pairing activity first so they could check their work in the textbook afterwards. Have a look at the photos to see what I mean.

"Photos/Pictures" below of big and small alphabet letters for Eigo Note supplemental activities/games.

If you need help looking for a really good, excellent set of alphabet cards for the extension game on page 31 of the Eigo Noto 2 Teachers Book,
for Eigonote Book 2 Unit 2 Lesson 2...
there are some really nice free alphabet flashcards at:
http://www.teachchildrenesl.com/flashcards.htm

Look for the "Upper/Lower - B&W" alphabet set on the page. There are some nice colored sets there too. Print them up, laminate them, and cut them in the upper and lower case pairs first. Then, cut those pairs in half with different curves and lines so the students can have a little fun putting them together. It's a nice little fun activity/game for the Eigo Note.

As we had finished, the students could now check the answers for themselves on the board. You can also ask them to have their partners 'tonari doshi' check each others page for any mistakes. After that, its on to page 14 for the transcribing activity. As a supplemental activity, you may want to have the kids look for the big and small letters in the pictures as a little quiz, but I think there may not be enough time for that.

Instead, we focussed on stressing to kids that they should print the letters neatly and cleanly on the page and if they wanted to write more words than the five spaces provided they could fold the page and write ten words! Take a look at the many pictures below.

"Photos/Pictures" of Eigo Note alphabet transribing activity on page 14:

This exercise basically involves looking at an illustrated town picture that has many store signs in English and then transcribing them down in your textbook.

For the finish, we asked the kids a few questions about studying with the Eigo Notebook and finished there. Most of the kids said they enoyed the noto and liked the reviewing since they were still working on memorizing and wanted to practice with more ESL speaking activities.

Stay tuned and be sure to check out my Eigo Note Blog for...
Eigo Note Book 2 Unit 2 Lesson 4...coming soon.

 

 

Hope your lessons went well!

The ENB

Eigo Note Book 2 Unit 2 Lesson 4...