For our Last Class

This semester we have practiced teaching in class, studied various methods of teaching English, heard Mr. M's lecture, and observed junior high school English classes. It is time to use what we have learned!
For our last class I would like each of you to design a lesson plan for either page 50 or page 51 of the New Horizon e English textbook. (If you would like you can design a lesson based on another page).

Remember that it will probably not be possible for you to teach one page in one class so you will have to decide what to focus on.
When designing the lesson plan please consider the following:
1. What is the goal of your class and what will you focus on?
2. What will you do for warm-up?
3. How will you introduce the new material?
4. What kind of activities will you do to accomplish your goal?
5. How will you consolidate the class?

You do not have to write the lesson plan in your blog (Although it would be nice). In the last class we will present our lesson plans to each other and comment on them. In your final blogging assignment, I will ask you to write about what you now think your strengths and weaknesses are as English teachers.

Thinking about group work

Please do one of the following by Wednesday, July 20:

Please describe an experience you had either as a student or a teacher where you tried a groupwork or pairwork activitiy and it did not go well. What went wrong with the activity and how could it have been changed to make it work?

or

Do part 6 of your handout: look through the New Horizon textbook and find a page which would be suitable for pairwork or groupwork. Plan the part of the lesson where you will do groupwork.

1. Decide how to divide the class into pairs or groups. What kind of classroom English would you use to give these instructions?
2. Plan an introduction or demonstration to make it clear to the class what they have to do.
3. Plan what you would do after the students finish the activity.

Blogging Task 10: Class Observance, Teaching Grammar, or talking with an ALT

Please do one of the following by Tuesday, July 11 of next week.
Please comment on someone else's post by Wednesday, July 12.

1. If you are going to Mr. M's junior high school to watch a demonstration lesson, please write about your observations. Were the prinicipals for teaching English that Mr. M mentioned apparent in the demonstration lessons? If so, how?

2. Please go here to view all the grammatical items that are taught in Japanese junior high schools. Which grammatical item was most difficult for you to learn as a student? How would you attempt to teach it now? For example, you can talk about what kind of sample sentences you would you use to demonstrate how to use it and its meaning. You can also talk about the kind of mechanical and communicative practice you would conduct to help students understand it.

When writing about the grammar, please be sure to use the grammatical terms in English. For example, instead of writing "助動詞 can" you should write "auxiliary verb can".

Optional:
3. Anne, a very dedicated ALT in Iwate, wrote in this post, that she was having difficulty promoting "internationalization" in the English class. I commented on her post and asked her to elaborate and she did so. Please react to Anne's comment by writing a comment on her post.

Blogging Task 9: Giving Advice Based On Mr. M's Lecture

In your blogs, please write a post for people who do not know Japanese schools but will be working in a Junior High School. The people who you are writing to can either be a teacher trainee (kyouiku jisshuusei), an ALT or another group you can think of!
In your post, based on MNr. M's lecture and your own experience as a student or teacher, give your readers information you think they will need to be a successful teacher in a Japanese Junior High School.
In my own blog, I wrote a message to ALTs based on Mr. M's lecture and my own experience. You can read the post here.

Topics you wrote about last week

I really enjoyed reading what you wrote in your blogs last week. I realized that instead of me giving you a topic, it is best for me to let you blog about what you want to!
The themes of your posts were:

1. My future:
2. Anxieties about teaching practice
3. Good Experiences
4. English

I have written about some of the posts in the Issues in EFL in Japan Blog. Please check it out!

Blogging Task 8: Practice Lesson

Teachers on June 15th:
Please write a post in your blog reflecting on your lesson. Please do this by Tuesday, June 20.

To everyone including the teachers:
Please write a comment on one teacher's blog from each lesson by Wednesday, June 21. If you taught a class, you should comment on the blog of the other teachers' lessons. If you would also like to comment on the blog of a colleague, please do! After you have commented on a blog, please leave a comment on this post telling me whose blog you commented on.

Below is a list of the teachers:
Teachers who taught a class focused on Mrs. Y and Mrs. A
John
Eringo
Cheesecake
74Napotchi
Pinch Hitter

Teachers who taught a class focused on Mr. N
Mame
Lion
On-Chan
Head Banger
Yoshiehb

Blogging Task 7: Free writing

Read my post titled Problems with Teacher Education and ETM3 on the Issues in EFL in Japan blog and then write a post on any topic that you want. It would be great if you could also comment on a classmate's blog.