Another week has past and it’s time to catch up with what my fifth graders at Urawa have been learning this week. I realized looking over my last few reports that I’ve been focusing on the same class and see no reason to deviate from that pattern. I have a fair bit more control in this class, as my JTE speaks very little English and is new to teaching herself, so I feel a greater sense of responsibility for how the class is run and how well the students do. Honestly, though, most other schools are running through the same lessons, so doing this kind of entry for each one would be a bit redundant. However, look forward to a similar entry in the near future featuring the writings of my junior high students.
Oftentimes, my classes are expected to fill the role of an intercultural exchange class, as opposed to a strictly English one. As such, we started yesterday’s class by explaining that the game “janken” is called “rock, paper, scissors” in America. We had been using “American janken” to determine speaking and turn order for the last few weeks, so my kids were already pretty familiar with it. We then introduced two other country’s versions of janken: Korea and China. The differences mostly consist of what words are said before choosing rock, paper, or scissors. The hand shapes, advantages, and disadvantages all stay the same. After we practiced each country’s janken a few times, we had all the kids stand up and walk around the room. They could choose to play any of the four types of janken we had learned. While most stuck with Japanese and English, the ones they were most familiar with, I heard a few try the others as well. The game continued, with the losers sitting down, until there were only two or three students left. We then had those students come to the front, chose a country, and they all had to do that one for the final game. My kids really seemed to enjoy this, asking to play again and again. We played three games total.
The next activity was a bit more difficult. There was a page in their book with six different students, each from a different country. We listened to a CD of each one counting and the students had to guess which number went with which person. My kids all did okay considering they had no context to draw from and were left to guess on a good number of them. It also doesn’t help that I said the wrong country for one of the six. Nor does it help that the CD that accompanies the book has a boy reading the Spanish numbers where the book clearly shows a girl. As I said, most kids did well. I read out the answers then asked for a show of hands for who got the American numbers correct. All my kids had. This segued nicely into the last part of the lesson, teaching the numbers 1-10.
I really enjoy teaching how to count to ten, and I use the same method whether I’m teaching a first grade class or a fifth grade one. I start by writing the song “Ten Steps” on the board. It looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10
8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I drill the numbers once or twice then sing the song to get the kids familiar with the rhythm. I get everyone to stand up, and we practice together a few times. Then I erase one of the numbers, I usually start with six, and replace it with a picture of hands clapping. I explain that sixes are now handclaps and we don’t say six anymore. After a few times singing it that way, I erase another number and replace it with a different action. I always ask my kids which number I should erase for the third one, and usually I don’t get any response, but yesterday I received a very enthusiastic “3!” from Riko. The fourth choice had to go to a vote because so many kids were shouting out numbers. It made me very happy to get such an energetic reaction from the kids, who were also really happy when they finished up the last round of counting, clapping, desk tapping, high-fiving, stomping fun. The reason I like teaching numbers this way is that it’s really active and the song gets stuck in the students’ heads, so it’s also really effective.
Next week, we’ll tackle 11-20, which has always been a bit more difficult for my students to grasp. Stay tuned to find out how it goes.
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