Gifu Prefectural Education Center
Yasunao Kito
1997
Hello fellow teachers! Since this is the third year since the enforcement of Monbusho’s new course of study for SHS, many ideas and techniques for the good management of our classes, especially for Oral Communication A,B, and C, have come up and become more and more popular among us. Here, in this small report, I’d like to add some information and new concepts to last year’s edition so that we can share the same ideas to enrich our daily classes towards more communicative and student-centered ones.
Be it louder or more subtlely, there have been some voices from teachers questioning whether the communication-centered way of teaching is truly more effective in many ways than the traditional ones. Openly or secretly they think the old styles are better not only for entrance exams but also for language learning itself. So before going into the main discussion, I think it better to make my standpoint clear. To be honest, I support “communication,” but I’m also still wondering whether the communicative class of today is the best way of teaching English in terms of fostering the real scholastic ability of our students. I suggest that such a new trend may provide ample room for further discussion, or in other words, that there might be something to be respected in the old style which forced students to walk a predetermined rail as the practice part or training part in learning English (which should be one of our traditional assets but seems widely neglected these days either intentionally or unintentionally.) Nobody will deny saying that we can divide the process of language acquisition into two aspects --- the language training aspect and the communication aspect, but once in the class, there are some teachers who consider that the training aspect should come first and the communication much later. There may be some arguments, but I think it a bit dangerous to regard the old style as the most effective way even for the language training aspect. It probably seems very greedy, but all I’d like to suggest here is a positive combination of old styles and new ones. To conclude, ‘total’ English education can be done and should be done by the vehicle named “communication” and within this we can use some of the inherited and renovated traditional methods.
In order to make my points clear, I have prepared five sections. In each section, italicized portions show comments from Mr. Matthew Bailey, an ALT at the Kyouiku Center (1997). I hope you’ll find them interesting!
1. Team Teaching
JTL-JTL (-JTL) or JTL-AET
The history of Team Teaching goes far back, but it may safely be said that modern Team Teaching in English instruction began almost ten years ago (as of 1997) along with the initiation of the JET Program. Nowadays, there seems to be different styles in Team Teaching classes such as JTL-JTL (-JTL) TT and JTL-ALT TT. In a JTL-JTL (-JTL) TT class, the purpose is to shift to a double-tracked teaching system instead of a single-tracked one so that it may help students effectively understand what you teach. ‘Split classes’ according to the students’ different levels of proficiency and mini-sized classes also exist. These classes facilitate the creation of TT classes which specifically fit our objectives. The greatest advantage in doing this is to enable an increase in the students’ communication opportunities, but a hidden advantage seems to be that of making control of the students in a class easier. TT with the ALT is referred to in the next section.
Most ALT’s have at least some teaching
experience, so don’t be afraid to give them more responsibility in the
classroom, in terms of preparation and actual teaching. ALT’s may have effective ideas and teaching
techniques which they regularly use in their own countries which have never
been tried in Japan. Tapping this
knowledge would be beneficial to all.
Furthermore, a relaxed atmosphere between JTL and ALT should always be
aimed for, as the success of team teaching often depends on this.
2. Effective Cooperation with Your ALT
From Planning to Evaluation
TT of JTL-ALT, as is often pointed out, should be done from the planning stage until the evaluation stage. When you make a successful TT plan with the collaboration of your ALT, you will find 80% of your job has been done successfully. You may well say that you are sometimes too busy to find enough time even for a planning meeting, in which case, try formatting specific procedures into the teaching program a the very beginning of each term. Sharing the same patterns and ideas of teaching with your JTL colleagues will make your daily business much easier. Then later you can ask your ALT’s to join the evaluation stage. Even for one term-ending evaluation there is a lot to be done, but you can do it cooperatively with your ALT or you can at least refer to their opinion. Most ALTs are still very young, but I’m very sure that they are not reluctant to accept hard work. As you may have noticed, they are particularly good at positive evaluation. So do such cooperation again and again, and they will feel more professional which will do more good than harm.
- Composition Correction / Interview / Cassette-tape Correspondence
Though there have been a lot of ideas of how to improve the TT situations with ALT’s so far, ALT’s are not actually utilized to the fullest, which makes our TT classes not very communicative on one hand and causes some complaints from ALT’s on the other. In order to improve TT on a daily basis, there are some plus one activities, which makes ALT’s take responsibility for one aspect of the work. Composition Correction, Interview, and Cassette-tape Correspondence are useful for this. I mean, ask ALT’s to help in theme writing or creative writing correction, and to have some occasional interviews with students. Give your students an assignment to prepare a 10-minute cassette tape and make them record messages on it, then ask your ALT to listen to them and record his/her comments on them. Titles available are “Hello Jeni!” or “My Dream” or “Delicious Experience” or “Family trip to Kanazawa” or anything. Then you can give feedback on some of them in daily classes. In repeating such creative activities, you can also foster your students’ motivation a lot.
Take
advantage of the fact that you have a native English speaker on your staff, and
be as adventurous with respect to lesson planning as possible. An ALT could quite easily produce audio
cassette material, beneficial and enjoyable for students, as well as lasting
for years, long after he or she has gone.
Attempt to incorporate ‘interview’ time with the ALT into the working
week. Who better to judge and improve
pronunciation?
3. Student-Centered Classes
- Four E’s: Energy and time saving, Easy to do, Enjoyable, Effective
For the student-centered communicative classes, those Four E’s above are considered important, and to attain those Four E’s, we have to come up with some concrete activities based on speaking and listening activities. Pair work, Group work, and Scramble Activities should be prepared so as to guarantee students’ communication time. Alternatively, Brain Storming, Speeches, Role Playing, Discussion, and Debate should also be introduced more frequently. When we set a good atmosphere where students can offer their own ideas and opinions with confidence, the result of those activities will be fruitful and full of variety. When an activity doesn’t go well, we must check the content of it. Were the students under too heavy a pressure for some reason to speak out? Was the topic exciting enough for them? Was the timing appropriate? Was the level too hard or too easy? Did they have any options to form their own ideas? All these are good evaluative criteria. One more thing to be added here is that of an Open-ended Task. It has no limitation as its literal meaning suggests but is a task equal to each student’s ability. It enables a wide range – from working on a question book for the teacher’s correction to the theme writing and cassette tape recording previously mentioned. When it comes to close a class, such an Open-Ended Task should be provided as a part of homework, because it is also thought of as good to promote students’ independent thought, and because it is (correctly so) student-centered.
Communicative
English classes imply that it is the students, and not the teachers, who do the
communicating. Activities should
ideally be interesting to a student’s social background, stimulating, thus
provoking independent thought, whist not being too long from start to
finish. Well-prepared activities will
result in the JTL doing far more listening than speaking, the essence of a
communicative English class!
4. Classroom English
- Communication-oriented or English-oriented: Two models
In some schools or in some classes, “communicative” in-class interaction may be difficult especially at first. In some cases the communication-oriented style has failed from the very beginning. So what should we do to cope with such a situation? A good beginning is always very important, but when we have failed to start well, what should we do to rectify it? Here I’m sure the best way is to go back to Classroom English, which I dare to call the English-oriented class. For the preface of this report, I wrote “total English education by the vehicle named communication,” and if the same way of expression is available, I can emphasize “communication by the vehicle named Classroom English.” In a TT class with an ALT, the ALT’s English is good material for students to listen to and provides a good listening model, while the JTL’s English, can also be a good speaking model, because our English usually lies somewhere between students’ English and native English on the language level scale. The students should feel it easier to imitate our English rather than the naďve’s English. Don’t you think so? If my opinion is right, why don’t we get away from worrying over the previous drawbacks, and re-start with Classroom English? Real Classroom English, which includes not only greetings and commands or directions but also small talk and a lot of interesting comments and jokes, will surely amend the inactive situation.
Whilst
it may be necessary to use Japanese when teaching grammar, spoken English from
both the teacher and the students should always be the primary objective. Awarding small prizes for those that speak
the most would encourage classroom English, and in the course of time students
would come to realize that in an English class, they are only permitted to use
English. Try integrating those students
that tend not to speak with the more confident ones (especially for pair work),
as often fellow students can encourage more successfully than the teacher!
5. Audio-visual Teaching Materials
- NHK BS Channel 7 and the Internet
There is no need for a lengthy explanation of this, but when we think of effective and up-to-date audio-visual materials, NHK BS Channel 7 and the Internet should be mentioned. From NHK BS Channel 7, I strongly recommend “News English from ABC” and “Japan Update.” Both can be amended according to your idea, and such original material will surely help your students. About the Internet, some rewarding sites are as follows:
Asahi Shinbun (http://www.asahi.com)
USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com)
Time Daily (http://www.pathfinder.com)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com)
A Word A Day (http://www.wordsmith.org)
There
is a vast array of teaching material available beyond just the textbook. Investigate new sources, such as the
internet, which contains thousands of homepages on baseball and soccer teams,
fashion and music. All in English!
All those above are just small hints, and there must be many other good ideas. As everybody understands, it is quite natural that our teaching styles all be different from one another’s due to the teacher’s personality, especially in senior high schools. However, when you try one or two from those above, you will find your class more communicative with a good combination of your own former style and a new one.
Please take good care of yourself. I wish you the best of luck with a proverb which goes:
“It’s not a matter of where you stand but in which direction you are headed.”