The New School Year
The school year starts in April in Japan, and my university classes start next week.
In the first semester I’ll be continuing with the extensive reading classes according to the ER@TU system, as well as trialing the latest version of Dan E’s discussion curriculum. We’re hoping to write a discussion manual later in the year, similar to the extensive reading one. I think the content for this next manual will be even more ground-breaking and useful for teachers.
My focus for the first semester will be to get to know my students better and provide them with more personalized support. Right now I feel my systems are good, so the classes are decent, but the next step is to try to make personal connections with students.
With over 400 students this won’t be easy, but I think it’s worth trying.
What is your goal for the new school year?
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by sendaiben
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Kaizen, the art of gradual improvement
An essential part of program development
I mentioned kaizen (continuous improvement) at the end of my talk on ER program design.
Kaizen is making things better, continuously. Basically finding and solving problems over and over again. Over time, this results in huge improvements and the evolution of programs.
I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work with my colleague Dan E at Tohoku University, who is a master of kaizen. Thanks to this, our extensive reading program is several orders of magnitude better than it was when we started collaborating.
At Cambridge English as well, thinking back to when we started over ten years ago the school and the classes are unrecognizable. Almost everything we do, we do better now.
But kaizen does not happen automatically. It requires teachers to have the desire and the ability to make changes. It also requires a culture of development, where problems lead to solutions that are implemented across the board. Communication is essential and talking about problems with colleagues leads to better solutions.
Some examples of kaizen at Tohoku University:
- improving worksheets so that students understand them better
- developing bilingual explanations
- sharing effective class activities
- developing protocols to deal with cheating
- having students write book reports in class instead of for homework
Examples of kaizen at Cambridge English:
- developing electronic and paper record keeping
- writing student names in romaji on everything (books, notebooks, attendance cards)
- developing lesson plans
- choosing materials
- organizing the classroom
As you can see, nothing groundbreaking. The main point is that improvements are continuous, problems are dealt with as they come up, solutions are reached through communicating with colleagues and are implemented by everyone.
Kaizen is barely noticeable in the short term, but over a longer period the improvements are staggering.
Do you have any positive or negative experiences with kaizen?
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by sendaiben
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Video: Extensive Reading Workshop for University Staff (Japanese)
ER for Staff -a training workshop at Tohoku University
This 90-minute workshop on using extensive reading for self-study in English was conducted in Japanese at the Tohoku University Library on December 26th, 2013. I really don’t like listening to myself speak Japanese (it sounds very different to what I hear in my head) but I guess this is something I will get used to eventually (after all, I went through the same process watching my presentations in English and am now fairly comfortable with that).
Review: Question Quest The Language Card Game
We’ve been trying out Question Quest for the last few weeks at Cambridge English.
We love AGO, the UNO-like simple English question game, and David Lisgo’s Switchit card games.
When I saw Question Quest’s website I was extremely interested. It seemed like it would appeal to our teenage learners and complement our existing card games so I ordered a copy immediately.
Once it arrived I was impressed with the production values. The game is very attractive, with incredible artwork, quality materials, and a sturdy box.
The good
- The artwork is beautiful and very appealing to Japanese teenagers
- The game includes English and Japanese instructions
- The materials are high-quality and pretty sturdy
- The language covered is very appropriate for our students
- Cards include example sentences to help students
- The gameplay is interesting and more skilled players are more likely to win
- Students practice strategies such as asking for more information, asking a third party, and expressing their lack of understanding
- Reasonably priced (1575 yen for over 100 cards)
The bad
- The game as written takes a long time to play (probably 20-40 minutes), which was a bit long for us
- It took a while for us to understand the rules, both teachers and students
- Some of the example questions on the cards are a bit unintuitive
Overall
This is a very promising resource. We normally do some kind of game or activity in the last 5-10 minutes of class, so found that Question Quest did not quite fit in that time. However, we were able to adapt the game (teacher asks the questions to students, playing without the conversation strategy cards, etc.) to fit the shorter time.
We also took some time and played some full games. Lots of fun and the students are practicing useful conversational gambits.
Overall I recommend Question Quest to teachers of teenage or young adult students (although it would certainly work with the right group of adults too). It’s an attractive and versatile resource. A single pack is a very reasonable investment for a small classroom: teachers with larger classes would need one set for each group of up to 4-6 players.
Has anyone else tried this game?
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by sendaiben
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Japanese Students Studying Abroad
Here is an interesting article about Japanese students and the demand for study abroad programs (thanks Glenski).
*image stolen from the MOFA website
This seems to be a perennial topic of discussion, and there is much hand-wringing about how few students actually plan to study overseas.
To me this seems quite simple: I believe students are on the whole rational actors. Facing them are a range of issues:
- there are significant financial costs associated with studying overseas
- there is limited support for students to study overseas from universities and schools (generally students have to take time off from their studies)
- companies pay lip service to internationalization, but study abroad does not seem to help with job hunting and in fact hinders it greatly if students are away in their third and fourth years
- students don’t have the necessary language skills to study abroad after going through the normal English educational system in Japan
If these factors were flipped, particularly the third one, I am sure we would see interest rise.
What do you think? Is the system at fault or are Japanese students really the passive, docile, unadventurous generation that some media tries to make them out to be?