Fun Easter lesson for elementary, an Easter egg hunt!

Nearing the end of my classes now and decided to do an Easter themed lesson as my last lesson for the kids.

So first I had the assistant here talk for 5 minutes (in Japanese) about Easter. Why we celebrate it, the significance of the egg and chick (I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until I googled it), lent and the tradition of Easter egg hunt.

I then taught the prepositions on, under and in using a chocolate Easter egg I found in my local convenience store and a box. Each time I'd ask them "where's the Easter egg?" and pupils would respond "It's in the box" or "It's under the box" etc

I'd then move over to an area of the gym that I have already set up with boxes, bags, balls and books on the floor (about 6 of each) I put the egg in certain places, for example, in the book and ask again "Where's the Easter egg?" Good practice. Once this is done I divide the class into 4 groups so we can start a real Easter Hunt! (only in the gym although with my English Club we played it throughout the school)

So each team has 4 eggs. They take it in turns (in pairs) to hide the egg (well I use paper cut out eggs) for the the other half of their team. Each pair of hiders must give the hunters a clue, i.e "Its in the book" and the hunters from each group must all go and hunt for it. Of course the more books there are on the floor to look in the harder it is. I also make the eggs smaller and smaller so hunting for an egg the size of my little fingernail becomes quite a challenge!

After this, I give out Easter certificates which you can make at http://www.123certificates.com/ or make them bookmarks (which I laminate) If the teachers allow it I'll give each team a chocolate easter egg.

Happy Easter everyone! I'm just thawing out properly......at last.

Livening up a very bored 6th grade elementary class

6th grade elementary kids- the bane of my year! It took me a while (well nearly a year) to figure them out. You see these kids have totally outgrown elementary/primary school They're aged 11 and 12, have lost their genkiness, have developed a bit of attittude, don't want to volunteer for anything in class or be shown up in front of their class buddies or even be seen to be trying hard. The boys have even got stubble (well some) and the girls hairy legs (sorry but its true!). Basically they're growing up...

So faced with a class of 40 x 11 and 12 year olds who are half falling asleep its a pretty difficult challenge trying to get them interested! One of the things I have recently started doing (thanks to my friend Kari for the suggestion) is playing a game called "crossfire" (also known as crisscross or rows & columns game) It's a simple review game and always guarantees they'll enjoy it whilst reviewing past subjects. It can take 5 mins (if you hurry them), no moving of tables or pupils, they just stand up. See below for rules*

It's such a fun game and I always try and spice it up a bit by showing them revolting food (from genki English website- i.e worm ice cream, snake salad) and asking them "Do you like snake salad?"

I have learnt that 6th graders don't really respond well to manic racing games (although sometimes I have played them and they work, ie the soldiers & ninjas game- look at Genki English site) They like to be creative and think for themselves. I try and apply real life to much of the target language they learn. For example, lesson 5 is directions so we had the pupils draw a map of Oyabe City (which is really small so like a town) and then direct me to their favourite places in town such as the video game shop or the park. If your town is too big you could make a map of the school and have pupils direct you to places.

Also for birthdays, we had the pupils interview each other and work out what their star sign is. If you have time you could even have the teacher give them their star sign forecasts for the year (make it positive of course!) Trust me they're interested in this sort of thing at this age.

I also had the 6th graders form a band to practice "Can you play....?" a few lucky pupils were the band managers and had to form a band. They loved naming their band and had a lot of fun.

So if you're a new ALT faced with a class of 6th graders at elementary, I hope this helps a bit!

* Crossfire can be played many ways. Either the whole class stands up or it can be played in rows.
Either use questions (how old are you?, when is your birthday? etc) or flashcards. Flashcards make the game go much quicker, increasing the level of energy.

I play with all students standing up. I either ask a question or flash a card. The first student to raise his hand and say the English word for the picture card or answer the question can choose to either have the pupils standing in his/her horizontal row or vertical column to sit down (technically "saving" their friends). Keep going until one student or a row/column is left standing. I sometimes feel bad having only one student left standing so usually ask the last few people standing a question they can answer together.

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 7 What's this?

My 5th graders already know what "What's this?" means! Yikes 4 x 1 hour lessons to cover "What's this?" and "It's a ....." is a bit too much so I decided to shorten it to just 2 lessons instead.

We played a fun mystery box game suggested by Eigo Note for the first lesson. We also played a Silhouette Quiz which they enjoyed. I showed them some famous optical illusion pictures (like the vase or two faces, see http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/gex_opti.htm) on the projector and they had to tell me what they saw. I would say "What is it?" each time.

Anyway a short post for a short section! Feel free to download my two lesson plans below


Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 7- (5.28) What's this? part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 7- (5.29)- What's this? part 2

Have fun!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 6 What do you want?

Hmmm...this is a difficult one. The target language is "what do you want?" but I tried to explain that a waiter is more likely to ask "What would you like?" as its more polite than "what do you want?". I then thought that people do ask "what do you want" but its generally kept to friends and family members otherwise it comes across as a bit curt.

So for the first lesson we just practiced foreign words and I had the kids work in groups to think of foreign words in a few categories (i.e classroom, games, food/drink etc) Hilarious when I asked one group they came up with "Pocket monster next generation"! Well I guess they are foreign words..I also had Mr Donut..ok fair enough. Second lesson it was Christmas so I had them work in groups asking each other "What do you want for Christmas?" (although I still don't quite agree with them saying "I want an ipod"- not polite! but I let it pass)


Then I decided to do something totally different than Eigo Note since the rest of the lesson seemed to be based on ordering parfaits and I just didn't think it was an effective way of learning "I want...." (Also it seems that in Eigo Note they only really practice the question but not the answer- i.e "What do you want?" and then the response is just "peach, pineapple and melon please")

So I found a fantastic learning English website though a teacher run by NHK, a TV station in Japan. It's basically a robot called Gabby and a family. They produce short video clips that concentrate on a specific language per clip and my kids find them really funny (especially 5th and 6th graders- the 10/11/12 year olds who can be so difficult sometimes) See http://www.nhk.or.jp/gabby/ja/frame.html (wait for Gabby to load and then hit "watch" button at the bottom)


One of the scenes (episode 09-1 is "I want") features a character called Jack who eats loads (I want pizza! I want chicken! I want....I want.....) but he then gets a bit chubby and has to exercise. So I had the kids watch it and then they had to act it out as a drama in groups. They really loved it. I've posted a video above of one of the performances.

Download my lesson plans below for more detail (if you want):

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.24) What do you want? part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.25)- What do you want? part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.26)- What do you want? part 3

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.27)- What do you want? part 4

Hope your 5th graders enjoy making the dramas as much as mine did. Thanks NHK and Gabby the robot!

Jess

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 5 I don't like blue

This part of Eigo Note is called "I don' t like blue" but my poor little blighters had just done 4 back to back lessons learning "I like" and "I don't like". As a consequence I changed the target language for Eigo Note lesson 5 to "Do you have...nani nani?" and the reply would be "Yes I do" and "Here you are" or "No I don't".

We played some really fun games whilst practising the target language. One was so simple and was called "Search and Find" It basically involved a group of pupils coming to the front of the class and facing the board whilst other pupils hid about 10 flashcards amongst each other. They then had 2 minutes to collect as many cards as they could find. So one pupil from the searching group had to ask another pupil "Do you have some brown shorts" to which they would reply "No I don't"

We also played a bargaining/shopping game which I found on Genki English website. I've never seen my 5th graders get so excited haggling away their goods and exchanging money. If you do play the game, it might be best to split into smaller groups to make sure you can listen to the transactions. My pupils would somehow forget to say the "Do you have...." part and go straight into the haggling.

I then finished lesson 5 off with having pupils do a final introduction on themselves and what they liked and don't like. They were pretty confident with the language by then. Anyway download my Eigo Note lesson plans below if you want:

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (5.16) I don't like blue part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (5.17)- I don't like blue part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (5.18)- I don't like blue part 3

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (5.19)- I don't like blue part 4


Signing off......

The English board at school- what do I put on it?

If you've ever been a ESL teacher or ALT in your lifetime you've probably been tasked with keeping the all important English board at school up to date. This is a notice board usually in the corridors at school that has been dedicated for the purpose of educating all those little pupils passing by about English customs and language.

Well I was lucky enough to only cover 2 elementary schools per week whilst working as an ALT in Japan so I had time to do mine (I know other ALT's cover up to 10 schools at a time and simply don't have the bandwidth to maintain them)

Anyway if you're a new ALT and wondering what to put on your English board at school I've put this post together to help you! (I went through the same) Sometimes I used to have so much time on my hands I'd spend an afternoon putting it all up and then take a step back to admire my masterpiece! Hahaha

OK so here is what I put on my English Board throughout the year:

• For a great self-introduction put up info about you (kids are always intrigued with you as a foreigner) postcards of your town/county, your national flag, your family tree with photos and pets (Japanese rarely have pets due to space)


• Another thing you can do is put together a comparisons chart, I did England vs Japan and had a picture of knife and fork/chopsticks, milk tea with a biscuit being dunked/green tea, Queen Elizabeth/Emperor and Dangermouse/Hello Kitty (Admittedly Dangermouse was huge when I was younger, about 25 years ago, but the kids are never going to know that right?!)


• Schools in England vs schools in Japan display. I had done a presentation about my niece Tegan's school as part of a lesson so decided to use the presentation for the English Board. I had included their timetable, what they eat for lunch, their school uniform and pictures of their school.

• I keep a corner of the English board just for things we've been doing at English Club which includes photos and a write up (in Japanese)
  
  


• If the school is happy for you to take photos during a lesson (or ask a teacher to do this) put up photos of various games you played in lessons so the rest of the school knows what each grade is up to.
  


• Every month I put up a picture of something associated with that month both in Japan and the UK, ie for November I'll put up a picture of Guy Fawkes night bonfire & fireworks and then for Japan I'll put up a picture relating to the Shichi-go-san holiday celebrated in Japan. I'll also include a 1 or 2 paragraph write up (in Japanese translated by a willing teacher) explaining what this custom is and why we celebrate it.
  

Anyway I hope this helps any panicked ALT who has to start an ESL English Board at elementary school!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 4 I like apples

Well for this section I was asked specifically by my teachers to follow the Eigo Note plans for Lesson 4 (eeeek, panic) as they had to provide feedback on them. Well some of the ideas in Eigo Note for this lesson were surprisingly ok. I liked the "guess what your teacher likes/doesn't like" game on page 27. I also don't mind the listening exercises, I think they're good practice.

The self introductions are a good idea but I had already taught them "I don't like...." so instead I had them stand up and say what they liked and what they didn't like. I again thought teaching "I like" was overkill so for the 4th part I decided to teach them "My favourite..." just so they wouldn't get bored.

Anyway, you can download my Eigo Note lesson plans below if you want!

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (5.12) I like apples part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (5.13)- I like apples part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (5.14)- I like apples part 3

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (5.15)- I like apples part 4 *

* This "whats your favourite..?" needs this worksheet.

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 3 How Many?

For "how many" lesson, I had the pupils recap on counting and numbers for the first two lessons, then did a more specific "how many" lesson for the third part and then did a totally random body parts lesson for part 4.

Well I guess the guys at MEXT who produced Eigo Note also realised that having 4 x 45 min lessons to teach "How many?" was a bit of a stretch so stuck the Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song and game in there. Well it suited me fine as I think the kids were over counting by the time we got to part 3 and they loved the doctor doctor game using homemade plasters instead of loo roll. (thanks Richard at Genki English' website)

I must admit I hardly used Eigo Note for this lesson. The Lets Sing 10 steps is a tad too easy for 5th graders, I'm teaching it to my 1st graders and even they find it easy but 20 steps was much better (if a bit fast). I did do the Lets Listen exercise once, counting to 10 in different languages which doesn't have much to do with How Many but they found it interesting and laughed at some of the different pronunciations.

For how many, I decided that it'd be fun to steal a few Where's Wally pictures and have the pupil work in pairs and count how many items were in the picture (like how many towels? how many animals do you see?) It actually worked really well. I mean who doesn't like Wheres Wally?!

I also had them play the timebomb game. They absolutely love this and its a perfect game for counting 1-10 or even 1-20. We also had fun with a lottery game I invented and a secret code game. Anyway, I'll stop gassing, all the games are in the lesson plans below. Have fun!

Download lesson plans for Eigo Note lesson 3 below.

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (5.8) How many? part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (5.9)- How many? part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (5.10)- How many? part 3 *

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (5.11)- How many? part 4

*I copied some Wheres Wally pictures from the internet for this lesson, see worksheet here

Enjoy!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note. Grade 5. Lesson 2- How are you?

Eigo Note suggest 4 lessons to teach the question "How are you?" and only 4 feelings (I'm happy, I'm sleepy, I'm fine and I'm hungry) which would actually drive me insane teaching nevermind learning!

I have to say that some of the Genki English "how are you" games really saved me for this topic. I also ended up adding "I'm cold, sad, great, good, ok, hot, angry and wet" to save the pupils from sheer boredom of learning and the fact that some of the games require a bit more vocab. Gestures are an obvious activity for teaching feelings so I had a laugh watching the pupils come up with their very creative gestures. Warning though. I'm angry was the most popular and in fact I still have pupils stop me in the corridor saying "I'm angry" with full facial expressions and a fist in the air. I'd suggest skipping that one.

Here are my lesson plans:

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 2- (5.4) How are you part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 7- (5.5) How are you part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 7- (5.6) How are you part 3 *

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (5.7) How are you part 4

* Worksheet for the how are you drawing game

The opposites game in part X was fun. Basically if someone had the hungry card they had to walk around and find their opposite solution card, a hot dog. When they find each other they were to come to me and repeat the question and answer. The only issue is that I did have two pupils with these cards and the boy asks the girl "How are you?". She responds "I'm hungry" and he says back "I'm a hot dog". bless! I tried to explain that he wasn't a hot dog and that he needed to say "Here's a hot dog". It's so terrible of me having a giggle at the expense of the poor kids but sometimes it just can't be helped...

My little niece Tegan's show class. I study.....

Today I had to teach a "show class" at my elementary school. The show class itself is a 45 min class where teachers from around the prefecture come and "observe" your class to get ideas as well as give you constructive feedback. (although the feedback is in Japanese so I rarely get to hear it) Show classes tend to involve a string of gratuitous meetings beforehand, a lot of stress (from the homeroom teacher) and last minute panic!

Note: Only one not wearing those awful masks

This lesson was a 5th grade lesson and was team teaching with my favourite teacher Kimura Sensei. The topic was subjects (I study maths, I study English etc), part of the Eigo Note curriculum, so I suggested I talk for 10 minutes at the beginning of the lesson about my niece Tegan's school in England, their timetable, what they study, what they have for lunch etc and they agreed.

I sent my documents to Nori for translation and to put into Powerpoint and then it dawned on me that most teachers (I guess this is global!) are computer illiterate! Nori had spent half a day trying to lay out a slide so I showed him a few shortcuts. Word went around in the office and the next minute I had been hailed as the computer super whizz kid in the staff room! Hilarious, lots of "segoi's" (amazing) Even kyoto sensei (deputy head) came over for the scoop.

Back to the lesson. All went pretty well. The kids in this class are usually so loud and genki but because it was a show lesson they were sat in some kind of petrified silence, shame! They enjoyed hearing about Tegan's day at school although they couldn't believe that Tegan (unlike most Japanese pupils) doesn't have to clean the school after lunch and that in England kids start primary school as young as 4 1/2 years old.

My "Tegan theme" English board at school

Thanks Benji and Tegan for sending all of the information over!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note. Lesson 3- When is your birthday?

OK here are my lesson plans for lesson 3 of 6th grade Eigo Note "When is your birthday?". The target language is "when is your birthday?" and "My birthday is...August 16th" so they will also need to learn months and ordinal numbers (1st to 31st)

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (6.6) Months/When is your birthday part 1

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (6.7)- When is your birthday part 2

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (6.8)- When is your birthday part 3

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 3- (6.9)- When is your birthday part 4

ESL Months flashcards that I made. Sorry for some reason August didn't come out that well. The one side of the flashcard i is something Japanese and the other is something English (i.e Halloween for October, Summer Solstice for June, Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night in November)

Horoscope game worksheets for part 3 of the lesson- will upload as soon as I can convert to PDF

Skyscraper picture for ordinal numbers game - blow this up to poster size, see lesson plan.

I'm afraid I didn't use much of Eigo Note for this section. I thought the activity on page 16 of Eigo Note (matching the picture to the month) was pretty pointless as they're effectively just matching image to a number.

I downloaded a version of Queen's we will rock you song and used this for the chant whilst showing the flashcards. So I would start with Jan-April then the chorus would kick in " we will, we will rock you.." which all the pupils would sing. They seemed to enjoy it and it certainly beats the chant in Eigo Note!

The superhero skyscraper game worked really well and was great practice for learning ordinal numbers. We did one lesson to practice 1st to 15th and the next lesson we learnt 16th-31st.

They really struggled with pronouncing "th" (i.e 15th, 16th, 17th...) so slow it down and have them all just try sticking their tongue between their teeth and then try prouncing it.

Enjoy and post any questions to the comments section.

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note. Lesson 5- Turn right

Hi folks
OK here are my lesson plans for Lesson 5 of Eigo Note which covers giving directions and learning places vocab (i.e bookstore, department store, barber shop etc).

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (6.14) Turn right part 1 Orks and Hobbits "Where are you going?"
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (6.15) Turn right part 2 Mr Bump Game
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (6.16) Turn right part 3 Local town guide game
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 5- (6.17) Turn right part 4 Star Wars game with some changes

Not sure how useful it is to be teaching 12 yr old Japanese pupils how to direct in English when the majority have never left the country BUT I guess you just never know!

Some of the Eigo Note translations are a bit iffy. Police box isn't really the correct translation of "koban", at least we wouldn't use it in the UK, USA or Australia. We also wouldn't use "barber shop" but I used it anyway for the sake of the listening exercises. Flower shop? We would say florist but again I used the former for the sake of listening exercises.

The chant is pretty dismal. I used it once or twice and the pupils weren't exactly singing from the rooftops. The target English for this section is pretty small when considering you have 4 lessons to cover it. It was however a lot of fun! The Mr Bump game and the Star Wars game were a great success, the pupils forgot they were even using English and I swear were screaming out "Turn left, go straight etc" I used photos from the lesson for my English board (I cut speech bubbles saying "Turn right" on the photos) to let the other pupils know what we get up to.

Also, if you can, try and get hold of a map of the local area where you teach. Enlarge it to A1 size and put onto the blackboard. Then have different groups of pupils direct you (just use a little picture of a car stuck to a magnet) to either their homes or their favourite places in their town. This makes it really personal and the pupils can relate to it, very important when teaching 6th grade elementary pupils! I did this with one class and just used Eigo Note for another class but I've posted both ideas in the lesson plan. Let me know how it goes!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note. Lesson 4- I can swim

OK here are my 4 parts to Eigo Note lesson number 4 "I can swim". Target language is "Can you....?" and the response "Yes I can" or "No I can't". Quite a lot to learn here including some really random vocab like "Lets make rice balls and miso soup" and "Lets make them together" which is a bit off topic.

Anyhow, I'll stop babbling. Here are my lesson plans for Eigo Note lesson 4:

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (6.10) Can you part 1 Can you play....sports*
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (6.11) Can you part 2 Can you play...music
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (6.12) Can you part 3 Genki English superheros
Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 4- (6.13) Can you part 4 Presentations

Also the listening exercise which they suggest on page 24 of Eigo Note for the first lesson is fairly difficult for beginners so I decided on the following lesson flow:

i) Start with sports since pupils are already familiar with most sports.

ii) Move onto music and you can play the band game which had my 6th graders go crazy and have fun (often it's like talking to a brick wall)

iii) Introduce other concepts around "I can...." such as I can fly, I can jump etc and great opportunity to introduce the Genki English superhero theme (I can jump, I can hide, I can cook etc) which they enjoyed and also making sure they can tackle the listening exercise on page 24 of Eigo Note

iv) Do presentations of what you can/can't do. I do like the fact that the 4th part of Eigo Note lesson is always the "show what we have learnt" & finale.

* For the interview sheet, I just photocopied the sports pictures on page 26 & 27 of Eigo Note and stuck them horizontally onto the grid of an A4 sheet. I just left spaces for them to write their friends' names going vertically. I then made copies from this sheet.

Good luck, feel free to post any questions.

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note. Lesson 6- I want to go to Italy

In Lesson 6 pupils learn how to talk about where they want to go and the reasons why.


This is a huge jump in learning compared to the lesson no 6 where they only learnt a handful of vocab. I found this exhausting to teach as well. There is so much new target language, a difficult question (where do you want to go?- believe me, I heard so many variations such as "where you do want to go?" and "Where want you to go?") followed by a difficult answer "I want to go to...." and THEN reasons why which could vary from "I want to eat...", "I want to see" and "I want to play..." My pupils found this lesson so hard even when split into 4 parts.

Here are my lesson plans:

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (6.18) I want to go to Italy part 1 *

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (6.19) I want to go to Italy part 2

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (6.20) I want to go to Italy part 3 **

Grade 6 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (6.21) I want to go to Italy part 4


* Japanese local places flashcards download here
** Travel agent worksheets download here

I decided to focus part 1 on local places in Japan. I'm not sure 6th grade Japanese pupils have huge desires to go abroad but I can't be so sure. They certainly were all familiar with Tokyo Disneyland and Mount Fuji so I started them on this practicing "where do you want to go?" and "I want to go to...Tokyo Disneyland"

Then we moved onto countries in part 2, just learning names and what pupils associate with the country (without wanting to reinforce stereotypes but I really couldn't think of any other major things other than soccer and pizza famous in Italy. They wouldn't know the leaning tower)

Part 3 we played the travel agent game with fake English money. This has to be the first time I've seen my 6th grade class get excited about anything. They simply LOVED the role playing and I had them bargaining (in English) for a good travel deal which they really enjoyed and of course the fake money went down a storm.

Part 4 I had them do an interview game (although I didn't originally plan this, another teacher's idea) but it worked well to practice the language. For other classes I reverted to Eigo Note's idea of making presentations which also worked well (esp for the pupils who really couldn't get to grips with asking the question "where do you want to go?"

Let me know how your lessons on this go!

ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 1 Hello.Bounjour

Hi
OK it has been a while since I taught this first section (Lesson 1) of Eigo Note. This section covers greetings in different languages (not just English) The pupils did enjoy learning how different cultures greet each other and couldn't believe that it's totally normal in France to kiss each other on the cheek when you greet.
I remember using the first lesson to do my self-introduction. See that lesson plan here.

I'm afraid I've lost the last lesson plan for this section. I'm sure I was probably covering page 4 & 5 of Eigo Note and more of greetings. Anyway here are my lesson plans for Lesson 1 that I do have!

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 1- (5.2) Alphabet practice (in prep for lesson 5.3)
Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 1- (5.3) Hello/Bonjour, Greetings (making bookmarks)

ALT Teaching: My first lesson

OK here I am in my first lesson to my cute little 2nd graders at Isurugi Elementary. I'd done this lesson so many times that I asked my assistant to film it. The other adult in the room is the homeroom teacher.
I start off with a drill of Hello/Goodbye, Yes/No and High/Low. I split the class up, one half had to stand up and say hello, the other half had to say goodbye with gestures. We then did it to the Beatles song “Hello” (with a lot of help from me!) The kids seemed to enjoy it. Good bit of exercise for Jessie too!



After passing a beach ball about the class asking “what’s your name” and the catcher responding “My name is”… I put the class into teams. The first person in each line had to run up to me and say their name, run back to their line and the next person did the same thing until everyone in the line had introduced themselves. You can see some of the game in the video below. Tip: you might want to wash your hands after shaking 40 very sweaty, snotty fingered ones...



They are really genki (upbeat, fun) at this age and seem to soak up the language better than my 6th graders!
I have done this class to 1st-6th graders making small adjustments (i.e making it easier for the younger ones) In one 4th grade class, I was demonstrating the game with one of the lines. One little girl comes up to me and I say “Hello, what’s your name?” She didn’t really answer back so I said again (and a bit louder) to her and gesturing to the class “What’s your name?” Again she didn’t respond. I then said “I can’t hear you” with a hand to my ear gesture. At this point the teacher runs over and says no shaking her head, she’s deaf, she can’t speak. As you can imagine I was mortified!!

ALT Lesson Plans: Lesson 4, Human Alphabet

For anyone who is following the EIGO note curriculum you will, like me, have realised that 8 hours spent on upper and lowercase alphabet is overkill for the little mites so one of the lessons I decided to have a bit of fun in the gym with the pupils.

We kicked off the game playing the Harry Potter game suggested on Genki English for practicing our “How are you’s” which the kids absolutely loved. (of course they all wanted to be Voldemorts) My co-ordinator at school is keen for me to drill them practice dates, weather and how are yous as well as Eigo Note so sometimes a lot to cram into a 45 min lesson!
I then put them into groups with both upper and lowercase alphabet cards mixed up. The first group to finish putting them in order won. They seemed to do this with ease.


I then had them in groups of 4 to do the Human Alphabet. Ahh so much fun! And easy for me, I just shouted out a letter and they had to get into the shape of that letter. I actually had them spell out HELLO so I can print the pictures and stick them on our English board.


Here's our first attempt at a HELLO message: