Let's Go My Way with English!

My Strengths and Weaknesses as a English Teacher

2006-07-27T11:46:00.000+09:00

○Strengths
My first strength as a English teacher is that I like English.　Because I like English, I enjoy English class very much. So, I think that the students can enjoy the class, too.
My second strength is that now I have a knowledge about how to construct the lesson. Now I know what is worming-up, activity, or consolidation. And I know how to plan these, too. So, I need more practice from now on.

○Weaknesses
My biggest weakness as a English teacher is that I have no confidence in my pronunciation. So, it is a little fearful for me to speak English to the students. My pronunciation is correct? Can students understand my English? I'm filled with strong anxiety. However, I believe that this anxiety will be solved by practicing pronunciation. By many practices of English pronunciation, I would like to have a confidence in my pronunciation before teaching training.

○After presenting my lesson plan
I think that it is important to know and underatnd the students' ability. What grammar did they learn before? What words do they know? It is very important to understand these things before the lesson. If we do not do that, the lesson level will not match with the students and they can't enjoy it. We should always remember that all the lesson is hold for students.

My experience of group work

2006-07-18T01:33:00.000+09:00

I would like to write about my experience of group work as a teacher.
Last year, I went to an elemenraly school to teach English as a mini teaching practice.
In that practice, I had a class and taught English with my 6 classmates. And we did a group work named shopping game in the class. Every group had five or six students, and did a shopping game. In the shopping game, half of the students in the group played a role of customers, and the other students did a role of clerk.

Students practiced the following lines.
Customers:～(e.g. Three tomates) please. How much?
Clerk:～yen, please.
Customer:Here you are.
Clerk:Thank you.

However, this group work were not so good. It is because students got very excited to save as much as many money which were given to customers and did not try to buy goods. I think we should have made goods on the store more attractive. And especially for elementaly school students, we should show clear instruction for them to easily understand what to do.

English grammar taught in junior high schools

2006-07-08T14:47:00.000+09:00

There are many grammars in English. In the grammars, the most difficult for me was "present perfect tense". It's because Japanese do not have the notion of present perfect tense. When I was a junior high school student, I had great difficuluty in understanding the notion of it.

So, the most impoetant thing in studying the present perfect tense is to understand the notion. What dose the present perfect tense mean? Waht function dose the present perfect tense have?
At first, I think that how it is formed is not so important. First, students should understand what it means or when it is formed.
And how will I teach it now? I would like to show how to teach the present perfect tense of experience.
1. I will write the sentese "I have ever lived in Tokyo."－① , "I lived in Tokyo three years ago."－② , "I live in Tokyo now."－③　
2.I ask the students the meaning of the sentense ②and③.
3.I let the students think the meaning of sentense ① based on the meaning of ②and③.
4.I explain the students of the meaning of sentense①.
5.I explain the present perfect tense of experiense by drawing the tense line.
6.I give the students work sheet. There are quentions like "Have you ever been to Okinawa?",
"Have you ever read "Ginga-tetsudo-no-yoru?"", or "Have you ever seen a policeman?" on the sheet.
7.Students do a pair work by using the work sheet. One student ask the question, and the other student answer.
8.Some pairs demonstrate the exchange in front of all the students.

Above is my plan. The key point is how to make the students understand the notion of the present perfect tense. And the pair work is essential for students to estabish the ability to use the sentenses.

My Advice to the People who will Go to Teaching Practice

2006-06-24T22:46:00.000+09:00

At June 22, in the class of English teaching methodology Ⅲ, I listend to Mr.M's lecture. He is a junior high school English teacher. Through his lecure, I learned what the junior high school teachers' life is like, what is needed to be a good teacher,what is important in class, or what we should do in our campus life now. I would like to write some impressive points from Mr.M's lecture.

First is about teaching practice. Mr.M said that it is OK that teacher trainees can not make a great class, and that he want them not to fear making mistakes. What is important as a teacher trainee is to do efforts to make better class for the students.Even if you think of yourself as a just teacher trainee, the students will call you "teacher!(sensei!)". They will regard you as a grown-up teacher. Responsibility the teaching trainee has is never simple. All the teaching trainees should do their best and appreciate the opportunity of teaching practice.

Second is about how to make a good class. Mr.M said that the most important in a class is to make all the students understand the new knowledge or the class's main topic. Teachers have to think what is effective to achieve it. Japanese Junior high school students especialy are shy and do not like to speak in public. I think it should not be blamed. So, teachers should let them group-work, pair-work or line-work instead of asking the students to raise their hand and speak. When some students raise their hand and speak up something, the class will look like very active and many people may think that it is very good class. However, it is not sure if all the students participate in the class or understand the topic. On the other hand, when teacher adopt various group-work or pair-work, all the students can participate in the class.These activities will help the teachers achieve the most important thing, to make all the students understand the new knowledge.

Teaching practice is not just enjoyable. It will be sometimes hard and trying. However, I can not help getting excited about it. I would like to challenge various ways of taeching, make a lot of efforts to improve myself, and spand a priceless time with students.

I would like to thank Mr.M for giving very valuable lecture.

Reflection of My Group Lesson

2006-06-17T00:00:00.000+09:00

The key words which our group taught the students were "Excuse me?", "Pardun?", "Thank you", and "You're welcome."
First, we did a worming up by using the phrases "what's your name?" and "I'm ～." Each group member introduced theirselves by these phrases. After that, students did a mini activity in their lines. In the activity, first student said to the back student "what's your name?", and the back student answerd "I'm ～." And he or she asked to his or her back student "what's your name?" again.
Second, we did a role play and practice. In the role play, two group members showed the scene in which the key phrases were used. After showing the scene few times, we did a practice of the pharases by repetition. We did the repetition in various ways. We first let the left side student in the crassroom do the role of Mike, who is the character in the text book, and the right side student do the role of a lady, who is the character in the text book, too. After thet, we exchanged the role. And next, we did a repetetion by pairs.
At last, we did an activity. First we introduced the new three words, "book", "pen", and "ruler".
And in the activity, students did a role play with at least three people by using the above three words.
Following is the example.
student A: Excuse me.
student B: Yes?
student A: Is this your book?
student B: Pardon?
student A:Your book.
student B: Oh, my book! Thank you.
student A: You're welcome.
After the activity, some pairs presented the role play. Their role plays were very good.

The good point in my group lesson was that we repeated the role play and practice many times for students to understand and use the key phrases. In the last activity, almost all the studrnts could use the phrases.
The not good point in my group lesson was that the scene was restricted to one, which was on the text book. We should have let the students think when you use the key words like "excuse me?", "Pardun?", "thank you", and "you're welcome" except the text's scene. If we had done it in the class, students would have got the opportunity to think about the key phrases by theirselves.

What do I want to do in my future?

2006-06-11T00:51:00.000+09:00

Resentry, I often think about what I would like do in my future or
where I would go after graduating from the university.
However, now I can't find the answer.

In my high school days, I was thinking about being elementary school teacher.
At that time, I had no doubt about my dream of being a teacher.
So I'm in ecucation course now.
However, after entering the university, my thinking is little by little changing.
Through the various experiense like receiving lectures, participating club activity,
and doing part-time job, I realized that I don't know anything.
When I realized that,I was very shocked.
It is impossile to know all things. It is true.
However, what I know is too little, I think.
I have to know more about anything by studying or experiencing.
And I want to find what I would like to do.

I hope that someday I can write my dream on this blog, and that I realize the dream.

Thanks,

Teaching Observation

2006-06-06T22:55:00.000+09:00

I watched the video of two English classes at Diamond Junior High School.
I would like to write the teaching observation of each class.

First class was for second-year students.
1.What was the goal of the class?
I think that the goal was to write English sentenses by onself using the useful
expression taught by teacher.
2.What activities did the students do to accomplish the goal?
First, students checked the theme of reports.
Second, they practiced the pronunciation of the useful words for writing reports.
And then, they learned the meaning of those words.
Third, they actually wrote the reports by theirselves.
After that, each student changed the report with next student, and remarked to
each other.
Fourth, they corrected their reports.
And last, some students read up their reports.
3.What was the role of the teacher?
He showed the students useful expressions and some points for writing report.
4.From watching the teacher and students, did you receive any hints or clues as to
how to have a successful English class?
I think it was very nice idea to let the students pretend to be the reporter.
It was more exciting than just to write the report as a student.

Second class was for third-year students.
1.What was the goal of the class?
I think that the goal was to understand the present perfect, especially the use for
experience.
2.What activities did the students do to accomplish the goal?
They did the pair-work with work sheet. In the pair-work, students asked some
questions like "Have you ever ～?" each other.
And then, they check the the unit of the text book with some picture cards.
Next, they listened to the CD and did pronunciation practice.
In the pronunciation practice, first they whispered words and sentenses.
And second, they read sentenses without looking at the textbook.
Third, they stood up and read the sentenses loudly.
And last, they did the shadow-reading.
3.What was the role of the teacher?
He taught the students how to pronounce the words.
And helped the students understand the sentenses by showing some picture cards
and flash cards.
4.From watching the teacher and students, did you receive any hints or clues as to
how to have a successful English class?
I think that the ways of pronunciation practice are very various.
Just to repeat the words might be boring. However, it will be more enjoyable
by using various pronunciation practice.

an Analysis of My Language Learning Experience

2006-04-30T14:42:00.000+09:00

My most enjoyable language learning experience has been watching TV. When I was a junior high school student, I watched "The Sound of Music" with a caption. It was very nice movie and I enjoyed it very much. Also, it was useful to check and improve my listening level. Of course, English news programs like CNN are useful,too. However, I think that movies and video dramas which have an interesting story are better especially for beginners.

My least enjoyable language learning activity has been repetition. When I was a junior high scool student, I did repetiton of pronunciation or spelling. I think that repetition is important to acquire basic English knowledge. However, just doing repetetion was very boring and I could not enjoy it very much.

My most valuable language learning activity has been conversation. Last year I joined the "Gakunai-Ryugaku program", in which I study with American students from Earlham college at Iwate university. I made friends with them, and talked about a lot of things. The experience of conversation was very valuable. I could learn some fixed expression, and hear about the American culuture. What is more, by the experience of conversation, I was motivated to improve my English ability for communicating with them.

My least valuable language learning activity has been has been reading aloud. It is sure that reading aloud something written in English is helpful to learn correct pronunciation. However, I did not like doing it very much. It is becaouse I always could not understand the meaning of the sentense when read it aloud. I always concentrated on pronuncing every word rightly, and could not care about the meaning. If you can not understand the meaning, pronuncing it rightly has almost no meanig.

In general my language learning experience has been centerd on memorizing English grammar or translating long English sentense. I liked the way of learning, however it is not enough to improve the ability of communicating wit h native speakers in English. So now, I would like to join a lot of program in which I can talk with native English speakers. I think that a lot of conversation is needed to improve my English level.

What kind of influence do you think your language learning experience will have on your teaching? As I wrote in the second paragraph, I did not like the boring repetetion very much. So, when I try to teach the students how to pronunce the words, I would like to use a music. By using a music, repetetion will be more enjoyable. Like this, I think that I will not adopt the way of teaching which I felt boring or unvaluabe, and I will try to improve the way on the basis of my language learning experiense. Thus, the teacher's language learning experience will have a strong influence on the students' way of learning.

The Story of how I Learned English

2006-04-20T22:58:00.000+09:00

In my high schooldays, I learned English by mainly two ways.

First way is reading Engllish text book and translating it into Japanese. This way was very useful for me to improve my ability of reading something written in English. And by continuance of reading and translating, I came to understand an English sentense as English without translating it into Japanese.

Second way is to answer the workbooks of English grammar. Though this way was useful to get a better grade on the English test, I think that doing only this way is not enough to acquire the ability of writing and speaking English.

About nine years have passed since I started studying English. Now, my way of learning English is listening to NHK radio. I think it's very useful to improve my English listening ability or communicating ability in English. I will keep listening to it.

Self Introduction

2006-04-20T15:33:00.002+09:00

Hello, I'm Eringo! Thank you for coming to my blog!
I'm a student of Iwate university. Iwate prefecture, my hometown, is the source of apples. Apples are "ringo" in Japanese, and my name "Eringo" comes from appeles. I love apples very much.

Now I major pedagogy, the study of education history, education policy, or the ways of education. I don't know whether I will be a teacher or not. However, in the future I would like to engage myself in education. So pedagogy is very interesting and useful for me. Maybe I'm a crazy for pedagogy! Studying it is very exciting and interesting.