Eigo Noto, There's a New Game in Town
Written by Bill Ralens
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 07:26
(Not Yet Rated)
| Beginning in 2009, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed | |
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by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book.
by BillRalens Beginning in 2009, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book. Eigo Noto isn't without its faults thou |
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09, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book. Eigo Noto isn't without its faults though. For ALT's (***istant language teachers), the teacher's guide is entirely in Japanese. And with the listening and interactive CD's, there really isn't too much for the ALT to do besides hit the play button. Love it or hate it, a lot of schools will be using Eigo Noto and so rather than waste time fighting the system, here are some tips to make using Eigo Noto a little easier. Hopefully these tips will allow ALT's to get more involvement in their cl***es too. First lets look at the structure of an Eigo Noto lesson. Most lessons are divided into four different type of activities. Let's Listen, Let's Play, Let's Sing/Chant, and Activities. A lot of the the Let's Listen activities are dialogs. Rather than using the CD, the Home Room Teacher (HRT) and ALT can perform the dialog as a skit. One advantage this has over using the CD is that the students will feel more confident once they see their own HRT speaking English. Playing games or what Eigo Noto calls Let's Play has to be my favorite part of teaching. Lead the games as the Game Master and most importantly, have fun! For the singing and chanting activities, the ALT can lead a quick practice session before singing or chanting. Using the Alphabet song (Eigo Noto Level 2, Lesson 1) as an example, the ALT could say each letter and then have the students repeat. This give the ALT a quick chance to catch any mistakes with pronunciation like the letter "C" versus "Shi." |
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09, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book. Eigo Noto isn't without its faults though. For ALT's (***istant language teachers), the teacher's guide is entirely in Japanese. And with the listening and interactive CD's, there really isn't too much for the ALT to do besides hit the play button. Love it or hate it, a lot of schools will be using Eigo Noto and so ra |
| Beginning in 2009, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book.
by BillRalens Beginning in 2009, Japanese elementary-school children will be required to take an English cl***. Teachers of the grades affected, 5th and 6th grades, will have the option of using a new book designed by the Ministry of Education. The book, called Eigo Noto, comes in two levels, the first, for 5th grade students and the second, for 6th grade students. A multimedia CD also accompanies each book. Eigo Noto isn't without its faults though. For ALT's (***istant language teachers), the teacher's guide is entirely in Japanese. And with the listening and interactive CD's, there really isn't too much for the ALT to do besides hit the play button. Love it or hate it, a lot of schools will be using Eigo Noto and so rather than waste time fighting the system, here are some tips to make using Eigo Noto a little easier. Hopefully these tips will allow ALT's to get more involvement in their cl***es too. First lets look at the structure of an Eigo Noto lesson. Most lessons are divided into four different type of activities. Let's Listen, Let's Play, Let's Sing/Chant, and Activities. A lot of the the Let's Listen activities are dialogs. Rather than using the CD, the Home Room Teacher (HRT) and ALT can perform the dialog as a skit. One advantage this has over using the CD is that the students will feel more confident once they see their own HRT speaking English. Playing games or what Eigo Noto calls Let's Play has to be my favorite part of teaching. Lead the games as the Game Master and most importantly, have fun! For the singing and chanting activities, the ALT can lead a quick practice session before singing or chanting. Using the Alphabet song (Eigo Noto Level 2, Lesson 1) as an example, the ALT could say each letter and then have the students repeat. This give the ALT a quick chance to catch any mistakes with pronunciation like the letter "C" versus "Shi." Many of the activities involve writing and a lot of the writing activities are in Japanese. Before cl***, the ALT can complete their own activity (in English) and then use that to model the instructions for that activity. For example, if the activity is to draw a picture, and describe what they eat for breakfast, then the ALT could draw a picture of his breakfast along with a description. This way the students are getting a very visual introduction to the activity but also hearing about it in English. It's doubtful that any language book could be considered perfect. But rather than look at faults, it's much easier to see Eigo Noto for what it is and that's a tool to be used in the cl***room. And one thing we know about tools is that they're only as effective as the master holding them. About the Author: Bill Ralens writes about Eigo Noto and ESL Cl***room Games at Naruhodo-eigo.com a website about English education in elementary schools in Japan. If you enjoyed this article, you can find more useful hints and tips over at Naruhodo Eigo.com.
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