Quote:
Originally Posted by JillinJapan Hello,
My name is Jill and I am an ESL teacher in Yokohama, Japan. I teach 14 adults and 3 children (all separately except the kids). The 3 children I teach are ages 9, 10 and 11. I'm very concerned about their lessons, I feel that they are not learning and my lessons are mostly review for them. They have no conversational skills and cannot form any sentences other than "hello, my name is ___, nice to meet you". When I ask them questions and try to have conversation they just look at me. Their mother comes with them, but she knows far less English than the children, so she isn't much help. I quickly discovered that they love to play games and compete with each other, so in every lesson we play games reviewing words. I just don't know what else to do with them. I have never taught students at this level. In one of my first lessons I tried conversation and it was very confusing for them, I panicked and moved on to another review game. Another challenge for me is that the youngest child is at a lower level than the other two.
I have been teaching them now twice a month for 3 months and I'm starting to wonder if I am the right teacher for them. I've grown very fond of them and I look forward to our lessons, but after each one I feel sad knowing that we just played games and did word review. I see very little progression in their lessons and it makes me feel like a failure as a teacher. I could really use some help and ideas for conversation and sentence forming. I just don't know what to do anymore, I've searched the internet for hours looking for beginner conversation, but everything I find I feel is too advanced for them.
I've asked their mother how she feels about the lessons and if she is happy with my teaching, in her extremely limited English she's enthusiastically told me the lessons are fine and the kids are happy. However, most Japanese people never complain when they are unhappy. They are also very loyal to their teachers and will not give up on someone even if they are displeased. So I only have my feelings to go on... I am very serious about my teaching, so my feelings of discontent drive my crazy!  Any advice and ideas would be very much appreciated.  |
Hello, JillinJapan.


First of all, I'm really glad we have a diligent teacher like you.
I'd like to thank you, as a Japanese citizen, for your sincerity.
Please allow me to introduce myself.

I'm an English teacher at a 'cramming school' called 'juku,' and I've been teaching students (mainly) aged 7 to 16. And...I know how hard it is to teach English to little kids, especially when they are beginners.
It's virtually impossible to expect them(your little kids) to produce grammatical English sentences as they've never learned English grammar, and it would be extremely hard(almost impossible) for you to teach them English grammar as they hardly understand your words.

They are not learning English in the natural environment (where it is spoken/used in everyday lives).
So...all you can do right now is...
1. playing games
2. repeating the same sentence patterns and reviewing them
eg. 'How are you, ....? - I'm fine, thank you. And you?'
'How's the weather today? - It's cloudy(sunny, fine, rainy, stormy..).'
'What time is it now? - It's ten past eight.' etc....
I think...you'll need some assistance from your Japanese colleagues.
I suggest you use some Japanese in your class. (Well...you don't have to actually speak Japanese.)
Let me try to give you an example.
First, you prepare an 'English sheet' like this.
Introduce yourself! ( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
Hello, my name is........................( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
I live in ............................( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
I go to .....................elementary school.( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
My homeroom teacher is Mr./Ms........( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
I love/hate him/her very much.( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
I like tennis/soccer/volleyball/video games...( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
Thank you.( JAPANESE TRANSLATION )
Second, you ask your Japanese colleagues
1.to translate English into Japanese and write it in the brackets.
2.to write 'katakana' below each English word (to show how to pronounce it...Well...'katakana' does not show correct English pronunciation, but...it's helpful. It's your job to correct their pronunciation.)
Third, you photocopy the sheet and give it to your kids for homework.
You could probably say... 'Next week we're going to use this sheet. I'd like each of you to introduce yourself in English with the sheet. Please fill in the blanks and prepare for the self-introduction next week....etc'
Your kids will try to get more involved in your class as there's something they can understand there - Japanese. Naturally their parents will be much happier.(Well, don't worry too much. They ARE happy now. I think they know you've been trying hard.)
Please try this if you're interested.


Good luck!


And I'm really sorry for my poor English.