teaching english to lil cuties--esl tips, tricks, and stories

Leaving here for good...

2007-11-10T10:14:00.000+09:00

Well, my new hosting company allows me to blog directly on my site, so I'm moving over there permanently.
Check out the new blog here. I think I've moved most of the important posts over there.
Also, feel free to pop on by the main website too.

ESL Resources for Mothers

2007-07-27T16:01:00.000+09:00

Many mothers have asked me what they can do to help their children learn English at home. I was always full of ideas and would just tell the mother whatever came to me at the moment.
Finally, I have made an entire section devoted to this on my website.
Check out ESL Resources for Mothers.

Teaching Adults?

2007-05-21T15:37:00.001+09:00

Just in case you're a teacher of adults and you came across my site, I'd like to recommend another site that is more geared towards teaching adults.

ESL Tutor

This site also has a lot of teaching ideas and is a good resource, especially for teaching adults.

been moving, trying to get settled in...

2007-05-07T12:13:00.000+09:00

sorry i haven't updated so long. i haven't added any new pages to the main site either.
i've moved from japan, got married in vegas, stayed with my mom for 2 and a half weeks, went on a hawaii cruise for our honeymoon, and now i'm getting settled in hawaii.
the place that we arranged to rent in hawaii is not working out, so we're looking for a new place. that's been pretty time consuming. i hate it. i really wish that this place had worked out...
but i hope to be back on track real soon with lots more ideas and updates for you.
love,
shannon sensei

letting the cat out of the bag...

2007-03-03T12:19:00.000+09:00

i'm leaving japan and moving to america at the end of the month. i've known this for awhile but i hesitated to write about it as i feared that doing so would somehow decrease my credibility. as in, if i'm not teaching full time, then what i have to say may be less important.
the good part about it is that i will still be teaching. my husband and i are starting a homestay program for mothers who want to come to hawaii. i will teach their kids in our home. i also will have a lot of time to work on the official teach esl to kids website. which is a good thing because i still have so many things to add to it, but just haven't had the time.

recently, someone asked a question using the ask shannon sensei feature on that website about how to find a teaching job in japan. i think that my response was pretty good, so if you're looking for info about how to find a teaching job in japan, click here.

how cute...

2007-02-14T15:50:00.000+09:00

yesterday, one of my students' mother showed me pictures of the little girl at home "playing shannon".
she was sitting on a stool (usually japanese people would sit on the floor) and had a book in her hands that she was showing to some "students". especially cute was that her legs were crossed the way i would do. haha.
and then her mother also told me that the pants she's wearing in the picture are her favorite pants because they look like a style of pants that i wear. so cute.
all of the kids in the class have been recently imitating me. they like to play with the puppets and ask each other questions (the older ones will even prompt the younger ones with the right answer if necessary). and then when the other student answers, they'll go "yay!" the same way that i would. makes me so happy.

i wish this was my story...

2007-01-31T17:27:00.000+09:00

one of my coworkers tells the following story about his class:
he had divided the class into three teams and was getting them to pick team names.
the first group shouted "super tigers!"
the second group shouted "super man!"
and a girl on the third team shouted "supermarket!"

:-)

doing a happy dance

2006-12-20T16:05:00.000+09:00

i'm in the middle of a 3 week vacation now. it just started.
i'll be doing lots of work on my teaching website so check things out over there.

i was good today

2006-11-09T20:20:00.000+09:00

i was a pretty good teacher today.
my morning lesson plan was pretty solid and cohesive. the whole lesson plan was about verbs. and the kids liked it.
and my afternoon class went well too. i did the whole thing about upper and lower case ABCs with a bit of a focus on lower case and first letter phonics. the kids seemed to be having fun and were fairly well focused.
i'm proud.

hi!

2006-10-05T23:24:00.000+09:00

i had thought that eventually i would just delete this blog. the new site that i am using has a blogging feature, but i don't want to take the time to learn how to use it to do what i want to do. i'd rather spend that time creating new content for that site.
so for now i think i'm still going to use this blog for stories about my teaching.
the kids have been driving me right up a wall lately. i hate to admit that i'm losing my patience, but i am. basically, 11/12 of my kids are ready to move up to the next class level. they're opening a new class at the school, and i had been hoping that a large majority of them, if not all, would be able to move up. but i just found out today that only 5 will move up. the rough part is that it's probably going to go by age and the ones who are oldest are not quite the ones who's english is the best and/or who are most ready to move up. that's not to say that i don't think that they will do good in the class, cuz i do, it just means that i am going to end up with a class where half of the kids are older, independent (e.g. potty trained), and proficient in english (for 2 year olds), and the other half are literally going to be little babies. i'm going to have to do a lot of research about handling a class with such different levels.
but i'm happy to start getting more younger kids. they're the ones that i really like. they don't fight as much. haha.
i also got a bit of a promotion at work. in addition to teaching my regular classes, i'll also be developing curriculum and generally be in charge of the youngest two levels of classes. that's pretty exciting.
love,
shannon sensei

sorry all!!

2006-09-25T21:20:00.000+09:00

man, color me embarassed. i tried to post an update a long time ago, but my computer is almost dead (need a new power cord and no money to buy one), so i had to use my husband's computer. his is all in japanese and i couldn't for the life of me figure ot how to change blogger to display in english. i thought i had done all the right things, but turns out i selected "save as draft" instead of "publish post" and so nothing happened.

anyway, i am pleased to announce my new website, teach-esl-to-kids.com .

when i first started the blogger site i had hoped to provide a great resource for teachers. i like to think that i've provided some good information, but i know that the format is somewhat lacking and makes it hard to find good information. i came to the conclusion that a more traditional website would be a better way to reach my goals.

go easy on me please. the new site has only been active for a little more than a week. and it's not at all close to being finished. but i think it's a pretty good start so far.

funny punishment

2006-08-31T22:43:00.000+09:00

when i was a child and throwing a temper tantrum, my mom used to give me a great punishment...i had to go to my room "until i could come out with a smile on my face". i remember quite clearly being angry about this and eventually leaving my room with an obviously fake smile.
well, i've got a girl who throws temper tantrums. whenever she didn't get her own way. very spoiled only-child who has never had to share. she would drive me up a wall. i have no tolerance for that type of behavior.
of course, i also didn't have a room i could send her to until she could come out with a smile on her face.
but then one day i decided to ask her if she wanted to go sit in the corner until she could stop crying. she said no. so i said that i wanted to see her happy face.
she gave me that same "fuck you" smile that i used to give my own mother. it made me so happy.
and now it works every time.
Tags: esl preschool, creative punishment

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easy "sea" crafts

2006-08-25T07:44:00.000+09:00

this month, we've got a "sea creature" theme going on at the school and we've done a few crafts to go along with it. i think i've mentioned before that one thing that's easy for the kids but looks a little more polished is to have the kids just paint on something, and then the teacher cuts it out into the desired shape.
anyway, i did that with two things...first i just let them at it with many different colors of paints and when they dried, i cut them into little fish and drew cartoony faces on them. then another day we used dark green paint sponge-stamped onto light green paper and i cut that into seaweed shapes.
but the really great thing we made was squid. the children had to glue a triangle shaped paper onto a square shaped paper. then put a little face (using googly eyes, and foam shapes--circle for the nose and oval for the mouth). then after it dried i hung little ribbons along the bottom for its "legs". this was a great exercise for them because we could review shapes and face parts. we also went through each step one at a time and didn't move on to the next one until everyone was finished. they came out really great and all of the parents were commenting on them. this is the first time that anyone has commented on any of my craft ideas, so i was pretty psyched.
Tags: esl preschool, preschool crafts, crafts for kids

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super simple songs

2006-08-23T18:04:00.000+09:00

devon,over at super simple songs sent me two of their cds to try out in my classes. he's in luck because in addition to my own regular 2 year old preschool class, i've also started teaching the daily music class for 2-4 year olds.
these cds are great. they're a mix of simplified well known songs and originals that are easy as well. i'm currently using 3 of the well known songs--"walking walking", "the wheels on the bus", and "hokey pokey". i like the originals as well, but with the added stress of starting to teach the music class this month, i just didn't have the time to learn the songs well enough.
i think "hokey pokey" is perhaps the best example of how great these cds are. teaching the hokey pokey to kids this young is always fairly difficult. there's the whole "left hand/right hand" thing. kids have a hard time understanding this idea (i'm no expert, but i think at this age level it might even be difficult for native speakers.). but what's great about this version is that instead of using the right hand/left hand terminology, they use "one hand" and "two hands". it makes it really easy for the kids to understand. the music teacher before me would sometimes do the hokey pokey using a more traditional version and it was never a big hit with the kids. but now they are always telling me "i wanna do the hokey pokey". we'll also be using this version at our upcoming picnic.
so check out the website and the cds.
Tags: esl preschool, kids songs, esl songs, simple songs

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sometimes they teach me...

2006-08-10T21:47:00.000+09:00

(sorry i haven't updated in so long. my husband and i have recently discovered the $1.00 video rental store. this has greatly affected my blog writing....)
yesterday i was "horribly mean teacher". recently miona has been goofing off during lessons. she sometimes gets better with "corner" threats, but yesterday she was influencing maya and they were goofing off together. i said, "maya, if you don't stop i'm going to move you to another spot on the carpet." she kept it up and i finally said "maya! elephant!" (meaning that she should go sit on the elephant on the carpet, which was far away from where she was.). she almost cried and i just couldn't force her to do it so i asked if she was going to be a good girl. and she said yes.
then tadashi kept playing with this towel. i said "tadashi, if you don't stop playing with your towel, i'm going to take it away from you." he kept playing and i took it. he immediately started crying and i felt bad cuz maya looked like she wanted to cry too (like she was thinking "why is shannon so mean today?"). so i gave it back fairly quickly.
the problem here was that i wasn't giving them warnings in language that they understood. maya did not understand that i was going to make her move seats. tadashi did not understand that i was going to take his towel away. so this made it all the more shocking when i actually did it.
i realized later in the day that i should have phrased my warnings in more of a question. for example, i should have said "maya, elephant??" and then she would have understood more when i told her to go sit on elephant.
well, lesson learned.

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july's songs

2006-07-17T22:52:00.000+09:00

here's our 4 songs for july:
*mr. sun
*if you're happy and you know it
*5 green and speckled frogs
*wheels on the bus

Tags: esl preschool, children's songs

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thanks to whoever came up with this idea

2006-07-12T17:07:00.000+09:00

we've got this box of index cards at school where we're supposed to fill them out with game ideas and what have you. few people do it regularly and i don't know if anyone actually looks at them. but i do sometimes. and i saw this great idea.
it's a way of teaching first-letter phonics using the song "5 little ducks".
you pick 5 letters and then sing the song like this:

five little letters went out to play
under the bridge and far away
shannon said "sss sss sss sss"
and letter S came running back

it's great because the kids already know the tune to the song so it makes it easy for them to sing along.
i've started doing it this month. the first day, the kids looked at me strangely. but the second day a few of them started to sing along and now they really seem to like the song and get into it.
i'm gonna do it for at least this month and see how it goes.
Tags: esl preschool, teaching phonics

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what's cute???

2006-07-05T17:24:00.000+09:00

usually i'm kind of a baggy t-shirt kind of girl, but it's starting to get hot in japan and today i was wearing a tank top. it's quite skimpy compared to my usual attire and shows off my ample bosom.
today during smile time, maya was standing close to me. suddenly she reached out and started stroking my breast. in perfect english she said "this is cute." then some of the other kids also started doing it saying "this is cute".
i'm still not sure whether she was talking about my shirt or my breasts.
Tags: esl preschool, funny kids

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find your voice

2006-06-28T20:47:00.000+09:00

i think i mentioned before that i have a little puppet that i use to do short conversation with the kids. my puppet is a pink rabbit named yippee skippy. yippee's voice is high pitched and he squeals and jumps around whenever kids speak or especially say the right answer.
awhile ago i was training a new nursery teacher and she liked that idea and wanted to incorporate it into her lessons. problem was, she has a much lower natural voice than i do and so it was really straining her voice to speak all high pitched.
then one day in her classroom i noticed a really cool looking dinosaur. i picked it up and was like "wow! this is a puppet!" her eyes lit up and she said "oh my god. this is the one!"
point here--i'm a pink bunny and she is not. she was trying to go with a character that was against her nature and she was hurting her voice and it wasn't that effective with the kids. so if you're going to use a puppet, try picking a puppet that goes with your personality. it will make things easier on you, and be more realistic to the kids.
Tags: esl preschool, puppets

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making sure everyone gets a turn

2006-06-15T22:04:00.000+09:00

when working with young kids, it's very important that you are making sure that everyone gets a turn. there are few things worse than the look on a child's face when you're finishing up an activity and they still haven't had a turn.
often with many activities during class time, there's enough time to make sure that every child gets a turn. for example, i always make sure that each child gets a chance to count out 10 objects, or to pick a card from the stack and tell me what it is.
but i have a two activities a day where it's impossible for every child to have a turn. when we do weather, i have a little weather board and we put on a sticker that says "today is..." onto the type of weather that we're having that day. and when we sing the ABC song, i have a cute little star pointer that i use to point to the ABCs. since the song repeats, i always pass my pointer on to a child and let them be the teacher for that round of the song.
i've started keeping a little list by my lesson planner. i've got a column for weather and ABCs with a list of all of my students' names under it. as each child gets a turn doing one thing, i cross their name off. i try to plan it so that i cross off each students name in one activity, before i move on to letting them do the other activity.
this ensures that every child gets a turn to do both and i'm not just always calling on the students who are most actively saying that they want to do it. Tags: esl preschool, teaching tips

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surprisingly simple idea

2006-06-12T22:01:00.000+09:00

back before i was teaching the preschool, i was teaching at a kids' eikaiwa, or english conversation school. it was a pretty good gig, but the problem is that i would see each kid once a month for an hour. i'd rotate among 4 schools and the other 3 weeks of the month, the students would have an english speaking japanese instructor. needless to say, the kids were not very good at english. and they often were not very well behaved and i was on my own in the school.
i had this one class that was the class from hell. i think 12 kids ages 3-6. they would come in and just run around the room and climb all over me. never listened to what i was saying. i couldn't get them to do barely anything.
in my training, we were told that if you have a very active class, you should try to play very active games to get their attention. i tried that with this class and failed every time.
imagine my surprise when this happened:
the vocabulary for the month was fruits and the sentence structure was "i like/i don't like..." i took out the main teacher's poster for like/don't like and started teaching the kids "i like apples. i like bananas" immediately they all sat down and started doing this thing with their hand. they would make a circle with their hand during the "i like" part then point to the vocab card when we said the word.
amazing. after all the game prep i had done for this class, it was something as simple as a hand gesture with vocab drilling that actually settled them down.
i'm now teaching some simple sentence structures to my 2 year olds and i always incorporate hand gestures with it.
Tags: esl preschool, esl, teaching vocab

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june's monthly songs

2006-06-07T22:11:00.000+09:00

trying to keep up to date on this. here are the songs that we're doing for the month of june:
*the muffin man--walking around in a circle, then going in and out.
*heads, shoulders, knees and toes
*the freeze--great song that's dance-y and then has parts where the music stops and everyone freezes
*bingo
*you are my sunshine

the you are my sunshine one is pretty funny. i picked it because michi has been acting like it's one of his favorites. but the version that i picked has the second verse to it that goes:
"the other night, dear, while i was sleeping, i dreamt i held you in my arms. when i awoke though i was mistaken, so i hung, my head and cried."
and then of course i put my head down and do a big fake cry.
but turns out that tomo, one of the cutest lil girls who is always happy, is extremely empathetic. when i do this fake crying thing, she busts out into real tears because she can't handle the fact that i'm crying. it's really hard to get around this. especially since i think it's kind of funny.
Tags: esl preschool, kids' songs

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classroom management: what gets their attention?

2006-06-04T20:42:00.000+09:00

there's going to come a time (probably many) in your teaching career where you're faced with a room full of kids who are talking among themselves and have absolutely no desire to pay any attention to you. what do you do?
you need a signal which the kids understand as "you're too noisy and it's time to pay attention to the teacher.". when first trying out a new signal, it's important to have the cooperation of your assistant or other adults in the room, so that the children will begin to learn what the appropriate response to your action is.
however, i've found that it only takes a couple of times for children to learn that <whatever your action is> means quiet time.
here are a few ideas that i've either used or read about:
*sing a part of a song that the kids know which involves being quiet. we used to use a song that had the lyrics "hands in the air. rock-a-bye your bear. bear's now asleep. shh shh shh. bear's now asleep. shh shh shh." (and we'd keep repeating the "bear's now asleep. shh shh shh." getting quieter and quieter until the kids were quiet.
*flip the lights on and off
*count down 5-4-3-2-1 shhhhh.
*do something that involves a call and response. this is my current favorite. i put my hands on my head and say "OH-AY-OH" in a sing-songy voice. kids know that they must copy me. then next time i might say "OO-AY-OO". and repeat as necessary until they become quiet. as they've pretty much gotten quiet, i then try to say something silly that they have to repeat.
Tags: esl preschool, classroom management

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on timing

2006-06-01T21:04:00.000+09:00

timing your lessons just right is an art form. you'd hate to find yourself with 15 minutes left in the lesson and nothing left to do. it's always best to have a few extra things on hand in case your initial ideas flop, but once you get the hang of it, things should come easy.
when you're new, i suggest actually writing down what you're going to do and how long you plan to spend doing it. your lesson plan may look something like this:
*introduction to the class/greetings/short conversation/attendance (10 minutes)
*daily review (e.g. weather, days of the week, ABCs, counting, etc.) (5 min)
*first concept. depending on the level, this could be something as simple as a set of vocabulary or more difficult such as a particular grammar concept. (5 min teaching/10 min game to reinforce/practice the concept)
*second concept. same as above.
*closing--a goodbye song, rewards for good behavior, whatever works for you (3 min)
Tags: esl preschool, esl lesson plan, preschool lesson plan

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may's monthly songs

2006-05-31T22:43:00.000+09:00

i mentioned before that i pick a different set of songs each month that we do every day. i thought i'd record what songs i use each month. i'll try to do this at the beginning of the month, but since i'm just starting it now, i'll post the songs we used for the month of may:
*twinkle twinkle little star
*hot potato (from the wiggles)
*apples and bananas
*itsy bitsy spider
*roll over
Tags: esl preschool, kids' songs, esl songs

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game: charades

2006-05-30T22:32:00.000+09:00

i don't think this one needs a full game write up as it's pretty basic and we all know how to do it. but the kids really love charades.
this works for age groups of 4 and up, but you really need to help the children out sometimes so that they can come out of their shell. if you have a classroom full of shy children, having the teacher act out the words as well helps them to feel more comfortable--after all, they can just copy the movements that you are doing.
it also helps if you pick a theme that you are working with, for example, "animals" or "verbs"; and it's often good if you have little cards that have an idea on them. we have a great board game at the school that is basically charades. it has many cards that the children can choose from. this helps them because they don't have to worry about coming up with their own idea of what to act out.
Tags: esl, games, esl games, charades

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uh....what is that?!?!?!

2006-05-23T22:16:00.000+09:00

first let me describe michitaka. he's a cute cute lil boy, chubby as all hell with a really sever bowl cut. i think he looks like a baby sumo wrestler. and he's got the cutest smile ever.
about two weeks ago, i was teaching lesson when i became distracted by something in michi's hands. it was light pink, small, and slightly bullet shaped. to my horror, i could only think of two things that it might possibly be...a tampon or a vibrator. i didn't want to make a big deal of it and stop the lesson, but i just kept looking at him, thinking "oh god. what am i going to do."
eventually, he opened it up and it turned out to be just a tube of lipstick. phew. but what a funny thing for a two year old boy to be carrying.
he had it again this monday and i mentioned it to one of the other teachers. she said that she had noticed him carrying it a lot so when mom picked him up, she asked his mom about it. turns out, he just likes carrying it whenever he goes to school. it must remind him of mommy or something.
so cute.
Tags: cute kids, esl preschool

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shopping

2006-05-21T18:47:00.000+09:00

i'm actually a pretty staunch anti-capitalist who hates shopping and things shopping related. it's kind of a bummer for me that this technique is so good with the kids. but there you have it.
kids like to practice shopping. this is a really good way to teach food words and have the kids practice short conversation in a situation that they will probably encounter sometime in their life.
it works best if you have toy versions of food. review the names of the food and lay them out on a table. this becomes the store. then give the kids some fake money. one at a time they get to come up to the store, talk to the shopkeeper and make their purchase. some sentence structures that you can use when doing this are:
*i want....
*do you have ...?
*i'd like...
*...please.
if the kids are older, you can play mean lil tricks on them like asking for more money than they have and seeing how they deal with the situation.
Tags: esl, food vocab, shopping game

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stupid song #2

2006-05-18T23:08:00.000+09:00

this one's an english song called 6 Little Ducks:

6 little ducks that i once knew
fat ones, skinny ones, fair ones too
but the one little duck with the feather on his back
he lead the others with his quack quack quack

this one really drives me up a wall for some reason. i mean first, there's the adjectives used to describe the ducks...fair just doesn't seem to be an appropriate adjective to go along with fat and skinny. fat and skinny are opposites while fair is just completely unrelated. it really should either have an opposite to go along with the fair, to make things even. i understand that this wouldn't fit in with the melody of the song, so a better option would be to have three unrelated adjectives, for example, skinny ones, fair ones, short ones too.
then the use of the word "but" makes this an improper and incomplete sentence.
but what really drives me crazy is the whole "one little duck with the feather on his back". don't all ducks have feathers on their backs? what makes this one so darn special?
Tags: stupid songs

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i have to admit....

2006-05-15T23:26:00.000+09:00

sometimes i'm a little sadistic. i love to see the look on a kid's face when they know that i've caught them being naughty and they're being punished. i don't enjoy it so much when i've got a kid that doesn't know why they're being punished, but when the kid knows they're wrong, and their cute little face shows all that remorse, i secretly go away to giggle at how cute it is.
today, i heard a loud noise and some crying from around the corner, so i looked and keisuke was crying and gou was just looking at the ground. i picked up keisuke and saw that he had a small cut on his face. i took him over to the sink to cuddle him and wash the cut. i knew that gou was responsible cuz he was just sitting there staring at the ground still. he hadn't moved.
so, chuckling to myself, i said "gou gou...come here" he wouldn't come, so i went and brought him over. i talked to him in english, then in japanese, playing like i didn't know who did it. he wouldn't answer, so i knew he was guilty. my new assistant, ari, was trying to get him to confess too, but he wouldn't.
when he wouldn't apologize, he had to spend some time in the corner. AND HE WAS SO CUTE. he knew exactly why he was in the corner, and his lil face was so full of shame. i couldn't leave him there for very long.
always when a kid is finished with their corner time, i give them a big hug to let them know that i still like them, i just don't like the bad thing that they did.
Tags: esl, preschool, esl preschool

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counting ideas

2006-05-14T23:57:00.000+09:00

when teaching counting to the kids, i like to be really hands on and let them be touching the things that we are counting. occasionally, i'll read a "counting book" and sit at the front of the class, while i point to the pictures that we are counting. but i really prefer more physical activities for this type of thing.
this tends to be a bit time consuming when you want to make sure that every child has a chance to do the activity. most of these activities work best when counting 1~10, but i'll give some tips for higher numbers at the end.
here are some ideas that i've found very effective:
*build a block tower--kids count the blocks as they are building up to 10. once you have reached 10, then they get to knock the tower over. they really like to knock the tower over. :-) when working with young children, make sure that you are holding the tower as they place the blocks on, so that the tower doesn't fall over prematurely.
*egg counting/shopping--we're really lucky in that we have these little egg toys where you match the shapes to make a full egg and we also have a little toy shopping cart. i have the kids count out 10 eggs to put in the cart and then they can take the cart for a walk around the room.
*lego tower--i also sometimes use legos. they get to count 10 legos and put them together.
*playtime counting--when the kids have playitime they often make something that they are proud of. this is a good opportunity to have them count out how many they have.
*stair counting--count the stairs as you go up them.

for higher numer counting:
*work together as a class--do the same thing as lego counting or block counting, but instead of having each child count out so many, let each child put one into the class' effort.
*circle count to 100--with older children who can count to 100, have everybody sit in a circle. go around the circle and have each child say the next number. to make this more of a challenge, you can turn it into a competition. if a child makes a mistake he or she is "out" and you can see who can count the highest.
Tags: esl, counting, teaching counting

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dave's preschool forum

2006-05-11T00:04:00.000+09:00

the ever popular dave's esl cafe now has a preschool forum. please come and join us.
Tags: esl, esl preschool, dave's esl cafe

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easy craft ideas for 2 year olds

2006-05-07T21:52:00.000+09:00

one of the hardest things about working with very young children is that if you want them to take home a craft that looks really nice, you're going to have to do a lot of the work yourself. but here are 5 quick ideas that you can do almost any time and which require little preparation:
1. painting with an alternative paintbrush. instead of letting them paint with a paintbrush or their fingers, use something a bit more unexpected. cotton balls, sponges, q-tips, and crumpled balls of newspaper are all fun to work with and give a very different look to the finished piece.
2. make a "feelie book". this is a craft that spans a few days. each day, have the kids glue something that has a different type of texture. fuzzy, smooth, crinkly, hard, and soft are all examples, but of course you can come up with your own. after they have made each of the pages, staple the book together.
3. rainbow crayons--take three or four crayons and stick them together with a rubber band. when the kids use them, it makes a rainbow with just one stroke.
4. mixing colors. teach kids about how mixing colors together produces a whole new color. put a small glob of yellow and red paints on their paper (or red and blue; or blue and yellow; you get the idea) and have them paint as usual. ask them if they notice a new color on their paper.
5. coloring. it's always a good idea to have a few different coloring pages lying around that you can always pass out to the kids that want to color a picture. (or draw their own on the back.)
Tags: esl, preschool, crafts for 2 year olds

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tip for teaching vocabulary

2006-05-04T13:53:00.000+09:00

when you're using flash cards or other objects for teaching vocabulary, here's a good way of teaching it.
say the word once, and have them repeat it.
say the word once again, and have them repeat it.
say the word three times fast and have them repeat it three times fast.
this fast repetition of the word allows them to get the proper pronunciation because you don't have time to think about it as much. it would look something like this:
apple (apple)
apple (apple)
appleappleapple (appleappleapple)
plus it gets really fun when you're using a long word and even you have a hard time pronouncing it fast.
Tags: esl, preschool, teaching vocabulary

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game--sumo

2006-05-02T19:35:00.000+09:00

i can't remember where i found this game, but it's one that the kids really like, especially if you've got a very active group of kids.
aim:vocab drilling
things you need: vocab cards, clothespins
age: any (works best with 8-13 year olds)
level: low
game outline:
*pick 2 children to battle.
*attach the vocab card to the back of their shirt, using the clothespin. make sure that the other child cannot see it.
*children face each other. when teacher says "go", they must try to see what is on the back of the other child's shirt. they are not allowed to use hands.
*basically they run around in circles until one of them sees and correctly identifies the card on the back of the shirt. if it starts to go on too long, teacher can count down from 10. then, time's up and you show them what's on the back of the shirts and have them identify it.
Tags: esl, esl games

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glorious golden week

2006-05-01T23:27:00.000+09:00

it's golden week here in japan, which means that i have the week off. woohoo! i should still have some time to make some posts, but don't expect to see any of my cute stories. :-( actually, i know that i haven't really posted any cute stories about my kids lately, because it has just been too stressful and crowded in my classroom.
after golden week, however, things are going to go back to normal. i'll have a normal sized class again and can focus on paying more attention to the students. i'm so excited.
Tags: esl, preschool, golden week

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stupid song #1

2006-04-27T21:44:00.000+09:00

i come across a lot of stupid songs in my teaching and i've been meaning to write them down to share with the world just how stupid some kids songs are.
the following is an english translation of a japanese song:

acorn tumbled down a hill and jumped into a pond.
oh my oh my my oh what shall i do?
mr. mudfish came up to him with a friendly smile.
"hello acorn! would you play with me?!"

acorn loved his swimming friend and mudfish loved him too.
they had so much fun til acorn started to cry.
for acorn missed his home, yes way up on the hill.
and mr. mudfish didn't know what to do.

what a stupid ending for a song. i'm not joking. that's how it actually ends.now, aside from the fact that how much fun can they really be having when we're talking about an acorn, who can't swim and only sits there at the bottom of the pond, the moral of the story is what really gets my goat--don't leave your home. you will regret it. how stupid.
Tags: stupid kids' songs

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clean up time pet peeve

2006-04-26T20:20:00.000+09:00

i hate when i call clean up time and i have at least 3 children who seem to think that simply holding onto the box that the toys are being put into counts as "cleaning up".
Tags: esl, preschool, clean up

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classroom management--switch it up

2006-04-25T20:26:00.000+09:00

sometimes we find that kids just aren't paying attention the way that we want them to do. usually it's because we've gotten stuck in a routine and the kids know what to expect, so they don't feel like they have to pay attention.
what to do? switch it up!
for example, if you usually do craft at the end, do it at the beginning.
when you change the order of things, it keeps the kids on their toes and paying attention.

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helpful sites

2006-04-24T22:46:00.000+09:00

class today was like a dream. there were still a lot of kids, but they've pretty much stopped the all-day crying which makes things a lot less stressful. finally i have enough energy to make a new post.
i've added a "helpful sites" section on my website which will link to other sites that focus on either teaching small children, or teaching esl (or even teaching to both, which is hard to find. haha.). right now i don't have too many sites, so if you know of any good sites that i should be checking out, please let me know...
in the meantime, check out song street and simple songs, both great sites which i'm really enjoying.
Tags: esl

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so tired

2006-04-20T07:40:00.000+09:00

on tuesday we had our annual easter party. it was sooooo stressful. there were just too many kids and not really enough time to do everything so i was rushing kids through the games just so that everyone would have a turn. i didn't get to watch my kids to the easter egg hunt, which i was pretty sad about. and then they turned my classroom into a ball crawl room, so that we couldn't have a real closing to the day. we were just grabbing the kids who go home at 1:30 and pushing them out the door when it was time.
i went to bed at 10pm which is super early for me to do, and the next morning, all the other teachers were telling me how early they went to bed too.
i'm so glad it's over.
i also really can't wait for my class to be a normal size again.
Tags: esl, preschool, easter party

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wiped out

2006-04-17T22:09:00.000+09:00

man, today we had 19 students and 4 teachers in the room. this month we've been working with 16 students max and 3 teachers. admittedly, we often have a few sick children, so we haven't had any more than 14 i don't think. i didn't think it would make that much difference, but it sure did. the room was noisy all day and i felt like i was shouting the whole time. then, because the new foreign teacher started today i spent a lot more time speaking in general than i usually do, telling her all the different things about working and/or living in japan.
i don't think i've ever been this tired after leaving work.
Tags: esl

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presented by the letter....

2006-04-13T00:07:00.000+09:00

awhile ago my friend was talking about this method of teaching the ABCs. she said that it's better to not teach them in ABC order. i can understand because you don't want a kid to have to sing the ABC song while looking at a poster, just to see what the letter T looks like (however, i wonder if you just teach them in a different order, then maybe the same thing would happen....). she had a book that went along with it and each letter had a picture that would go along with it saying something like "many mice munching merrily" (obviously for letter M).
i thought it might be a good idea to teach the letters in a different order than this, but i didn't like the book she had because it was photocopied and some of the pages weren't too pretty and i'm pretty anal about the way things look sometimes. so i made up my own things, featuring pictures from magazines that start with the different letters (i actually haven't quite finished and if anyone has any ideas of easily obtainable magazine images for the letters U,K,N,V,E, J, W, Y, X, Q, Z, or O, please let me know. these ones have been hard to find. the only magazines i really have are 2 fitness magazines, one cosmo and a buttload of wedding magazines).
anyway, i also got to thinking about sesame street and how at the end of each episode, they'd have "brought to you by the letters T and E and the number 5" or something like that. and they never did the letters in order either. so now i'm copying sesame street and having a different letter of the day each day.
the way it works is this...i'll bring out the letter and ask if anyone knows what letter it is. then i'll say the letter a few times. then launch into this song that's from a great video that we have. it's kinda to the tune of "farmer in the dell" (i think) and goes like "the S says SSSS. the S says SSSS. every letter makes a sound. the S says SSSSS." and then i point to each of the pictures that i've put on there and say "SSS SSS Strawberry" etc. and i hang the picture on the wall so that they can look at it whenever they feel like it.
so far the kids are really liking it, but since it's a new thing there's no way to know if it's completely effective yet.
Tags: esl, preschool, teaching ABCs

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quick game

2006-04-11T23:29:00.000+09:00

when i'm finding that the kids are extra hyper that day, this game helps them get the energy out and ready to sit down and learn.
have every kid touch a part of the teacher. i usually hold out my arms and all of them have to be touching it.
then call out a color. the kids have to run and touch something that is that color. if they are not touching that color, then the teacher can tickle them.
when i'm ready to start the real lesson, i'll call out a color like "fuscia"that the kids won't know. it's funny because they all start to run away, then immediately stop because they realize they have no idea what color that is. then i laugh, and point to that color in the room and we all sit down.
Tags: esl, game

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classroom management--praise the good

2006-04-11T07:15:00.000+09:00

whenever you've got a "bad apple" in your classroom, it's always tempting to spend a lot of time, yelling at them, correcting their behavior, sending them to the corner, etc. but a lot of times, these techniques don't seem to do much.
in my experience, a kid who is acting naughty is often doing it simply to get attention. and they don't care if it's good or bad attention. my advice is this. ignore the child who is acting bad, while praising all of the other kids who are doing good. sounds surprising but i find that it works 9 out of 10 times.
if one or two kids is standing up when they should be sitting down, i comment on how nicely some of the other kids are sitting. immediately the standers will sit down because they want to be praised on their nice sitting as well.
one time, riki wasn't cleaning up when everyone else was. it was really frustrating me and i kept yelling at him to clean up. suddenly i remembered the advice that i'm giving you, and i started to tell other kids what a good job they were doing. as soon as i praised the first kid, i saw riki's head snap in my direction. then he started cleaning up too.
try it. it works....
Tags: esl, classroom management

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lesson plan for 2 year olds

2006-04-07T00:39:00.000+09:00

i've been getting some google hits from people who are looking for lesson plans, so i thought i'd give out the lesson plan that i use daily.
kids this age need a lot of repetition. the first part of my lesson is the same every day. but the kids never get tired of it, and it really helps them to gain confidence because they know what is coming and hear the correct answers every day.
here you go:
1. hello song--i change this every few months
2. short conversation--i pick a conversation question/answer each month and ask every kid the same question every day (except one month when i was trying to get them to listen for the difference between "how are you?" and "how OLD are you?"). these are simple questions such as "what's your name?" "how are you?" "what color do you like?"
3. attendance--i have a board on the other side of the classroom. one part is "home" and one is "school". at the beginning of the day, all students start out at the "home" side. during this time, i call them one at a time, to run to the board and move their name to the "school" side. each student's name is written on a colored shape, so if they don't know which is theirs i can say "you are the red circle." students typically learn which shape is theirs after about a week.
4. weather--i have a picture board that has 4 different types of weather--sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy. we review all of the different types and then i ask what the weather is like today. every day, one child gets to stick the "today is..."sticker on the weather.
5. days of the week song
6. ABC song--the CD i have goes through the song twice. the first time, i use my pointer to point to the different letters of the alphabet; the second time, i call up one of the kids to point to the letters (they don't do it right, but thye really like it)
7. simple vocab--colors, shapes, counting, letters
8. harder vocab--animals, food, emotions, household objects, etc.
9. singing and dancing--every month i pick out 4-6 songs that we do every day. we start with standing songs, then move on to sitting songs.
10. smile time--students who were good during lesson receive a smile in their book and a hug from the teacher.
Tags: esl, esl lesson plan, preschool lesson plan, lesson plan

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new kids

2006-04-05T20:38:00.000+09:00

well, all my new kids started on monday. usually i have 12 kids in the class, but now i've got 17, with only 16 coming on any given day. this is because they're starting a new nursery class but the new teacher doesn't arrive until mid-month.
i've got 7 new ones, a few of them were in my after school class, so i already know them. i'm really pleased with how the class is going so far.
of course, most of them have spent a significant amount of time crying. usually this is really hard on kana, because the kids only want to be comforted by the japanese teacher. i want to snuggle them, but if i come near them, they only scream louder. but this new group of kids is not afraid of me and will come to me for hugs when they are crying, which makes me pretty happy.
i was smart this time around and planned to not have a lesson for the first three days. instead i'd set out educational toys and we would just play with them. i think this is making for a smoother transition. tomorrow i start in with real lessons.
they're pretty good kids and i'm happy. sad that i'll be losing some of them to the new teacher though.
Tags: esl

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pillow train

2006-04-05T00:31:00.000+09:00

i love when the kids come up with their own ideas that i remember being fun when i was a kid but which i had completely forgotten.
the other day, miona took all of the cushions that we use for lesson and she laid them out side-by-side making a long, winding train. she was jumping from pillow to pillow.
right on, i thought, that's a totally fun game!
Tags: kid's games

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let them be teacher

2006-04-03T23:56:00.000+09:00

kids love being teacher. many of my students mothers will tell me that after school, when the kids are at home, they will pretend to be me and teach their mothers. this makes me tear up every time.
i often try to give them an opportunity to be teacher in class. when we do abc song, i have a cute star pointer that i use to point to each letter of the alphabet while we say it. then i give the pointer to one of the kids and let them be the teacher for the next round of the song. they love it.
this technique is also really effective when you've got a student who is acting out in class. when you give them the teacher responsibilities, then they suddenly shape up.
of course, all the kids will want a turn, so make sure that you play fair.
Tags: esl, teacher tips

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sharing

2006-03-30T23:37:00.000+09:00

one of the reasons that i really like my preschool esl teaching job rather than traditional eikaiwa (english lesson-only) is because i get to teach social skills and not just english.
at two years old, many of my students have never been in a situation where they're around so many other kids. many of them have never really had to share. but once they're in preschool, they have to start sharing.
i find it pretty amusing to watch them throw temper tantrums when i make them share. tadashi, for example is having a really rough time of this.
he'll often have 4 trains in his hand, and when another kid wants one, he'll start to throw a fit. kana or i will point out that he has four trains, but the other kid doesn't have any. we will take one trian and give it to the other kid. tadashi will then start screaming and throw himself onto the floor. it only lasts about 30 seconds and it cracks me up.
recently, miona finished lunch first and was sitting on/playing with one of the lesson cushions that they sit on. tadashi finished his lunch and started to try to take the cushion from miona.
"tadashi! what are you doing?" i said, "there's 11 other cushions over there that no one is using. that one is miona's. go get a different one."
i figured he wouldn't have any idea what i said because that's a lot of english for them, but apparently he got the point because he started screaming and threw himself down on the floor.
eventually, miona got tired of that cushion and went to get another toy. i saw that tadashi claimed the cushion which was fair. then miona came back, saw that tadashi had the cushion and reasonably, went and got herself a different one.
well, wouldn't you know it, the second she sat down with that cushion, tadashi was practically sitting on top of her, trying to push her off of it.
frickin hilarious.
apparently he only has interest in something if someone else wants it.
Tags: esl, preschool, sharing

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rice or lice?

2006-03-28T22:55:00.000+09:00

it's well known that japanese speakers of english have a hard time with the pronunciation of "l" and "r". this is because these sounds don't exist in the japanese language. this is one of the reasons why it's so important to start teaching esl to children at a young age. when they are very young, they are still learning how to pronounce words in their own language and so it's easy for them to learn how to pronounce words in another language as well. experts say that after age 6 the language acquisition part of our brain tends to shut off and learning a foreign language becomes much harder.
so even if my kids forget all of the english that i teach them when they move on to japanese elementary school, when they start to study english again in jr. high and high school, their pronunciation will be much better than students who didn't study english at an early age. because even if they forget the english words, their brain will still remember how to form the sounds correctly.
well, i've got this one student in my after school class who drives me crazy with this "joke" of his. every time i say the word "rice", he says "lice?" and makes a motion of picking at his hair.
now, it's pretty obvious to me that some teacher before me did this. probably the kids would incorrectly pronounce the word "rice" as "lice" and so the teacher would emphasize this (and make fun of the kids) by saying "lice?" and picking at his head. the boy's only 7 and has learned that this is a "funny" thing.
so what's so annoying about this is:
a. by doing this, he's making fun of japanese people. he is japanese.
b. as a native speaker, i'm correctly pronouncing the word "rice" and there should be no mistaking it for the word lice, thus making the "joke" incomprehensible.
it's hard to know what to do in this situation. i was hoping that by simply saying "that's not funny." and otherwise ignoring it, it would go away. but so far, it hasn't. i'd like to explain what is wrong about it, but he just doesn't have the english level to understand. i'm at a complete loss and i get really offended every time he says it.
Tags: esl, japanese, pronunciation

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picnic

2006-03-27T23:18:00.000+09:00

saturday was our semi-annual picnic and i think it went pretty good. we started off with a mini lesson that involved some games with the parents. it was fun and went well and the kids spoke some english, which made me happy because sometimes they all speak in class but sometimes they get too shy to speak when they are around their parents.
then we got to watch a bit of the performances by the kids at the other school's location. and then our kids got to perform.
they looked super cute wearing tissue paper flowers on each wrist and each ankle and one on their head. they had a really hard time separating from their parents to go on stage which was pretty rough cuz it mostly meant that the kids just kind of stood there crying instead of doing the dance that they were supposed to be doing. however, they still looked pretty cute and i don't think that any of the parents were disappointed.
i think this whole picnic deal is quite a bit more stressful for all the teachers who teach any grade higher than mine. they are more expected to show off what the kids have learned, but the kids sometimes get stressed out by performing in front of their parents. however, since i teach the baby class, all anyone expects from me is that they look cute. so mission accomplished.
i was also proud of myself because for the picnic lunch i made onigiri...rice balls stuffed with something. it was my first time making them and they came out pretty good. i used a rice mix-in that has a bunch of different types of rice. you mix it with plain white rice. but one of the kinds of rice is a black rice, which, when you mix it with the white rice, turns it into a purple rice. and then i pur some edamame in the middle. came out real pretty and yummy. this is cool because, despite living in japan, i'm not a huge rice eater and so when i do make up some rice, i often have a lot of leftover that goes to waste. now i'll just make up some of these whenever i have some extra.
Tags: esl, picnic

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kouki's confession

2006-03-26T15:31:00.000+09:00

on friday afternoon, there were a bunch of afterschool daycare kids in my classroom. the older kids are in my classroom. on my wall i have a cute pig made out of construction paper. it's been there since september which actually surprises me because it's within reach of the kids. somehow, they've yet to destroy it.
well, i saw kouki touching the pig, around the eye area. and then later i noticed that the pigs eyes were taken off and lying on the floor.
i asked kouki if he had done it, but he kept claiming that he didn't. i was sure that he had, so in front of him i started asking all of the other kids if they had taken the eyes off of my pig.
finally i said to kouki, "look, i'm not upset that you took the eyes off of the pig, i'm upset because i think that you're lying about it."
and i went and glued the eyes back on the pig.when i finished, i saw that kouki was kind of hiding in the corner by the garbage can. kouki has a history of getting really upset after being scolded, so i wanted to make sure that he was ok.
i didn't mention the pig anymore, but we tried to talk about his feelings and i told him that i still liked him and stuff like that. after i was pretty much finished talking to him, i asked "are you feeling ok now?"
he shook his head no and said something that i couldn't understand. i asked him to repeat it.
"i did the eyes" he said.
i was so proud of him for telling the truth and i gave him a big hug.
Tags: esl, kids, confessions

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dave's esl cafe

2006-03-24T20:18:00.000+09:00

i'm sure that most people reading my blog already know what a wonderful resource dave's esl cafe is, but sometimes we can all use a little reminder...
Tags: esl, dave's esl cafe

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baby love

2006-03-23T23:52:00.000+09:00

in my thursday afternoon class, i've got a 9 month old baby. when i first saw him (or rather, his mother) talking with the office staff, i assumed that he had an older brother or sister. i was super surprised when they walked into my classroom.
inside, i was livid. what the hell were they thinking putting a 9 month old in this class? the other kids are for the most part 2 year olds, or at least almost 2. this kid can't do anything that they can. he can't speak japanese, let along english, he can't walk (and i sometimes have activities that require movement), it just seemed all wrong.
on some levels of course, i understand that it's great to expose your baby to a second language at such a young age. but it was an inappropriate class, given the age and ability of the other children.
the mothers in these classes come off as very competitive. they all seem supportive of the other kids outwardly, but i can see that they are sometimes jealous when another kid is more outgoing, or can pick the right answer on their own when their kid needs prompting.
that was three weeks ago, and this lil dude is fast becoming a favorite of mine. i'm actually quite amazed at what he can do. i'll sometimes lay all of the shapes, for example, on the ground and ask each kid to touch a specific shape. he can do it! of course, i make it really easy for him and only ask him to touch the shape that is directly in front of him. but today i tried to test him and i put two in front of him and he still touched the right one!
and what's super cute is that he's even starting to "give me 5". it's not quite the proper slap that a "gimme 5" should get you, but he does reach his hand out and put it in mine. it's so cute!
Tags: esl, teaching babies

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puppets

2006-03-22T17:48:00.000+09:00

when i first moved into this classroom, i had a lot of puppets but i didn't really know what to do with them and wasn't sure how effective they'd be. recently i've been trying them out....
i was reading this book, multisensory strategies, and they explained how one classroom was using puppets effectively and i thought i would give it a try.
i came up with three characters.
the first is yippie skippy the bouncy bunny. he's a pink rabbit who gets really excited whenever the kids speak english and try hard.
then there's harold the hippo, who really doesn't like loud noises and comes out whenever things are getting too noisy.
and donnie the dog who is too shy to speak, but whispers in my ear to let me know about things that he doesn't like...such as fighting, not sharing, not cleaning up, etc.
i thought that the last two would be good to use because they would take the discipline baggage off of me...in that, it wasn't *me* who thought that it was time for clean up...but we had to do it cuz donnie said so. but i actually haven't been able to use them. it's just too much of a pain in the butt to run and get a puppet every time i need to discipline.
but....yippie skippy is a *huge* hit. he comes out every morning with us during circle time. he sings the hello song and gets really excited when the kids say "my name is..." he also asks them how they are doing and gets really happy when they answer. the kids really like him. they all sit down when i tell them to and have an excited anticipatory smile on their face. a lot of them even try to sit really close to me so that yippie might even give them a lil snuggle when they get it right.
i'm really pleased with the effects and i'm sure that yippie skippy is going to be a permanent fixture in our classroom.
Tags: esl, teaching, puppets

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oh--are you pregnant??

2006-03-21T21:22:00.000+09:00

my monday afternoon class is sometimes rough and sometimes really great. basically, it started out great, then a few months down the line a new kid joined and he doesn't get along well with the other kids. this has even involved major physical fighting. but i'll write about that later.
yesterday, that boy wasn't there, so there were no problems. i like this group because their english is pretty high and they are really interested in hearing about the cultural differences between americans and japanese so it's often a pretty fun class for me to teach.
halfway through the class this one boy shogo started singing this strange song. it's really catchy and it's been popular in japan since last summer. i don't know the name of it or i'd post a link for you or something. anyway, in part of the song, the singer speaks french.
shogo asked me if i could speak french.
i replied that i had studied french in high school and college, but that i had forgotten most of it. so they wanted to know if i spoke japanese.
i said that i did ok.
and of course they wanted to hear me speak. i'm not really supposed to speak japanese in the classroom, especially when the kids have such a high level of english, but this was a little different. shogo would ask me questions in english, i'd respond in japanese. they were super impressed.
shogo asked why i could speak japanese and i told him that i study and also that my boyfriend's mother and father don't speak any english at all and so i have to speak japanese to them. they get all excited that i'm telling them i have a japanese boyfriend and i tell them that we will get married next week. they didn't know "married" so i told them in japanese.
lots of ooohing and aaaahing. we start to move on when suddenly shogo says "oh....baby?!?!" and gestures to his stomach. haha. not yet, i told him.
Tags: esl, teaching, kids

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cockroaches--edible or not??

2006-03-21T16:49:00.000+09:00

wah! it's been awhile since i wrote. i was away from home longer than i thought this weekend, and tuesday is a national holiday here, so i haven't written. i've got some things planned that require a bit of research, so i'll post those later, but i thought i'd at least leave you with a cute story.
sometimes, with the afternoon classes, i'll say something a bit ridiculous in order to get them to give a desired answer (okok, sometimes just to make them laugh). for example i was teaching them frequncy words such as "always/often/sometimes/never" and was having a hard time getting them to say something that they never do. so finally i asked "do you ever eat poopoo?"
anyway, the other day i was with the 4-6 year olds and we were talking about favorite animals. i taught them the word cockroach. cockroaches in japan are huge and scary. i asked if anyone likes cockroaches. of course they all say no. then i asked "who likes to eat cockroaches?" and of course they all said no. then i asked "who likes to eat chocolate covered cockroaches?"
there was a very long silence while they all considered this. they looked to each other to see if anyone was going to say yes. they couldn't decide if this was a good or bad idea.
i just laughed and moved on.
Tags: kids, esl, cockroaches

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game: snake game

2006-03-17T20:52:00.000+09:00

aim: vocab drilling
things you need: vocab cards
age: any
level: low
game outline:
*lay the vocab cards face up in a snake pattern on the floor.
*divide kids into two teams and have them start at opposite sides of the snake.
*when teacher says go, students must stand next to the vocabulary card and say the word. then they move to the next one.
*when the meet in the middle, they play "rock, paper, scissors". the winner can keep going forward. the loser must go back and the next member in the team starts from the beginning.
*the winner is the team that gets to the end of the snake.
this game is good because a student who is not so good at vocabulary can still go far if they are a good "rock, paper, scissors" player.

Tags: esl, esl games, teaching games

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introducing my assistant

2006-03-17T07:17:00.000+09:00

at first i was thinking that i should hide her name to protect anonymity or something like that.
but now i'm feeling like it just seems plain weird to always be saying "my assistant" this and "my assistant" that. seems kind of haughty and unkind of me, as though she's not important.
which is so not the case.
my assistant is kana. she's totally awesome. we work so well together and have a really good vibe going in the classroom.
unfortunately, soon i will lose her. my boss is opening up a new nursery class soon and thought that it wasn't fair to have an experienced foreign teacher and an experienced japanese assistant in the same class while the new class had a brand new foreign teacher and brand new assistant. major major bummer. i was heartbroken when i found out.
i have met my new assistant and she seems pretty cool. i'm happy cuz i met some of the prospectives and wasn't very impressed. but seems that my boss tried to find someone who's a good match for me. i hope. she starts in april. we'll see how it goes.

Tags: esl, teacher assistants

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rough day

2006-03-16T22:39:00.000+09:00

man, i try to be pretty upbeat all the time, but today it was so hard to keep a smile.
i went into work already in a bad mood for personal reasons. usually if i go in when i'm in a funk, the kids quickly cheer me up. not today.
i'm sitting at the table, writing out some stuff in my planner, when mao walks in. no "hello!" no "good morning!" just "i don't like shannon." (in japanese)
i couldn't believe it. i turned to my assistant and said "did she just say 'i don't like shannon'?" my assistant confirms.
so she starts telling mao in japanese that that's not a very nice thing to say. and at the end she says "you like shannon, don't you?"
but mao shakes her head no.
i have no idea where this is coming from or why she said it. i do know that she always insists that it's the assistant who puts on her jacket or her bib, but i never thought too much of it. today it was really pissing me off.
fortunately, my assistant was taking my side on the whole thing and at lunch, she didn't put on mao's bib, leaving it for me to do. i knew what was going on so i went to put on the bib and mao insisted that the assistant do it. but she said that she was busy and mao was going to have to let me do it. she did, but then cried afterwards.
i'm so sad man. i have no idea what i did to deserve this. there were a few times today when i felt like crying myself. i mean, *everyone* loves shannon. what gives?

Tags: esl, teaching

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smiles

2006-03-15T23:42:00.000+09:00

this is a great reward system that i came up with when i first started in this classroom.

before i started here, i was working for the same school, but in a class of slightly older kids with a co-teacher (two foreign teachers and a japanese assistant). they opened a new school in september and i got my own class, the class that i currently teach for. i had seen my student list and there was one girl on the list who i thought would be a problem. i had seen her in the "baby class" which she took with her mother and she would spend the entire class running around the room. she didn't pay any attention and her mother didn't do anything to stop her.
i wanted to have a really positive environment in my classroom and wanted to come up with a way not to punish her for being bad, but to reward her for being good.
i came up with the smile system.
each child has their own calander and each day is separated into two categories. they can get a smile for being good during lesson time, and a smile for lunch/clean up time. i make a really big deal out of it, especially at the end of lesson. i call each kid's name. if they were good, i draw a little smiley face in the space and they get a hug from me. if they're not good, no smile and no hug.
this actually works really well. there are of course times when the child is not so good, and they don't get a smile. it's kind of sad to watch because as i call their name, the child stands up, anticipating a hug. but then i frown and say "no smile" and they are just crestfallen. but it does inspire them to be good and get a smile next time.
as it turned out, the girl that i thought would be a problem in my class was no problem at all. it's been a while, but i think that her calander was full of smiles at the end of the month.

Tags: esl, teaching, kids, rewards

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surprise poo!!!

2006-03-15T17:37:00.000+09:00

i teach two year olds and this of course involves changing diapers. no big deal. and i don't even mind when it's a poo.
i've gotten used to the fact that at least once a day i'll look at my assistant and say "i smell a poo." and we'll both start grabbing any kids that come close to us and check their diaper for poo. this kind of cracks me up cuz we'll say to the kid, "show me your butt."
well today we were doing our usual after lesson diaper changing. this is mostly just a pee check. i got to the final girl , took off her pants, snapped her diaper apart down the sides and pulled it out between her legs.
"wah! surprise poo!" i shouted. to my complete surprise, her diaper was filled with poo. i looked up at my assistant and said "i didn't even smell it"
i was actually quite lucky that she was there because i might have been caught off guard by myself. she was able to run and get me the necessary poo acoutrements--wipes and a plastic bag--while i kept the lil girls too-long shirt poo free.
crisis averted.

Tags: kids, poo

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sometimes i'm so proud

2006-03-14T21:46:00.000+09:00

on tuesdays and thursdays i teach a short "baby class" in the afternoons. these are kids who range from 9 months (!) to 2 years old and the classes are held with their mothers. when space opens up in my regular daytime class, and the kids are at least two years old, they get to move into the regular class.
right now, i've got two kids who were in the afternoon class who have just started the regular class. they've been in the regular class only since march 1. when i had them in the baby class, they were pretty smart, but they didn't speak very much.
what i mean, is that they could touch the color red if i asked them to, but they wouldn't say the word red.
after being in the regular class for such a short time, they are starting to speak so frequently. it really amazes me.
for example, today i was alone with gou. he had done a poopoo during "outside" play time (we were actually playing inside, in the gym due to yucky weather), so i took him upstairs to change his diaper. i'm talking to him the whole time, just saying the things that i am doing:
"let's take off your jacket."
"and your shoes."
blahblah. but he kept repeating me. saying everything that i was saying. it totally blew my mind.

Tags: esl, teaching, toddlers

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game: ABC/123 volleyball

2006-03-13T19:20:00.000+09:00

aim: practice ABCs or 123s
things you need: electrical tape, balloon
age: under 10
level: beginner
game outline:
*mark a volleyball court using the electrical tape.
*divide the class into two teams.
*teams hit the balloon back and forth. each time a child hits the balloon the must say the next letter or number in the sequnce.

it's really simple, but the kids really like it.

Tags: esl, esl games

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kouta

2006-03-10T21:34:00.000+09:00

kouta is one of my new boys and i think he's super cute. he's just turned two so he's totally tiny. his head is a little big for his body.
he doesn't really speak any language yet, english or japanese. but he's really enthusiastic about speaking. for example, i'll be going around asking all the kids "how are you?" they're supposed to respond with "i'm fine thank you." many of them kind of say it quietly or mumble. kouta however loudly exclaims "oouha aeo wowou". and then flashes a big smile as he waits for my praise.
at times he's annoying because he'll do naughty things, but he doesn't yet understand the meaning of the word "no" (or any sort of japanese equivalent). so he'll be doing the naughty thing, such as standing on the table. and i'll pick him up, make my "angry face" and say "NO KOUTA NO" while waving my finger. then he smiles and says "nonono!" and acts all proud that he spoke. so i'll muster up an even angrier face and say "NO!" and then he sticks his tongue out and makes a funny face and i can't help but laugh.

Tags: cute kids, esl stories

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game: airplane

2006-03-09T23:04:00.000+09:00

kids really like this game and i often get asked to play it again.

aim: vocabulary drilling
things you need: vocabulary cards, paper, crayons (optional)
age: any
level: any
game outline:
*give kids 5 minutes at the beginning of the lesson to create their paper airplanes. if they have time, they can make designs on the with crayons.
*divide into two teams. place them on opposite sides of the room. the object is to get their paper plane to cross the opposite team's members.
*call up one person from each team. show them a vocabulary card. the person to say it first, gets to throw their airplane. if it crosses the other team's line, they get a point.
*repeat with a new set of students.
you can make up a different scoring system if you like...such as one point for getting the english right, one point for getting the airplane across. in my experience, it works well to only score the airplane. that way you can call questionable shots in favor of the team that's losing, thus evening up the score.

Tags: esl, esl games

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ooops

2006-03-09T21:21:00.000+09:00

i realized today that the dance that i mentioned in the last post did not come from toddlerific but rather from diaper gym.

however, toddlerific also has another dance that we're doing. it's a kids version of the can-can dance and it's also super cute. every time we play the song, the kids always beg "one more time!"

Tags: toddler, toddler music, toddler dance

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they couldn't be cuter

2006-03-08T23:17:00.000+09:00

lately we've been practicing a dance for our upcoming picnic. the dance is off the toddlerific cd which my assistant brought in to use. the words go like this:

with my little hands i go clap, clap, clap
with my little feet i go tap, tap, tap
with my little arms i wave bye bye bye
with my little legs i kick high, high, high
with my little eyes i say PEEKABOO
with my little lips i say i love you

and of course as they sing the words we do each action to it. words cannot possibly describe how adorable they are when they do the peekaboo part.

new babies in the family

2006-03-08T18:40:00.000+09:00

we have to be super sensitive to the lil ones who have new babies in their families.
lately, i've been feeling so bad for my cute lil ayu. i mentioned her before. she's the one who i figured out wants to use the toilet. she keeps coming into school with a very angry look on her face. she also has a new baby in the family. yesterday, she came in late and looked so mad. it was music time and i sat her on my lap and was giving her lots of extra love. keep in mind my punkins are only 2 years old and english is not their first language, so i have to go easy when i'm talking to them. i said:
"ayu happy?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu sad?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu angry?"
slow nod. aha.
"ayu angry with mommy?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu angry with baby?"
pause. slow nod.
aaaaahhhhhhh. cutie pie. i've been showering her with attention. but the poor thing is having a really rough time of it. today she was grumpy all day. she's gotten really protective of her space and starts screaming whenever somebody gets into it. she's also just started being really possessive of the toys that she is playing with.
but i know she's just going through a rough time, so i simply do what i can to let her know that i think she's the cutest lil girl in the whole world.
her baby brother is pretty darn cute though.....

so cute

2006-03-06T22:17:00.000+09:00

so i've written about how i've got all these new kids and there's a lot of crying going on.
anyway, i discovered that if kouta is crying, then all i need to do is make a turkey noise and it really gets him to giggling. gou is also fascinated by this. they've tried to do the noise themselves, but they're too young to realize that you need to make a noise with your mouth, not just wiggle your finger in their lips. so i let them make the noise with me...i make the noise with my mouth and i let them wiggle their finger in my lips. it actually grosses me out a little cuz i imagine that their hands are all full of grubby germs. but it makes them so happy i can't stop.
this morning, gou wasn't crying at all, he came running right up to me, jumped on my lap and started wiggling his finger in my mouth. this is especially cool considering it was monday and he had had a whole weekend where he could have forgotten about that.

tip for "cry babies"

2006-03-05T11:02:00.000+09:00

this is a technique that i've found to be effective in stopping the "cry babies"--kids who will cry at the drop of a hat whenever something happens to them.
i used to teach a boy who was very active, yet very clumsy. he was always falling or bumping into things. he'd get that sort of shocked look on his face, look at one of the teachers and start screaming.
well, one time, when he fell it was kind of funny looking. so again, he got the shocked look on his face, looked up at me....but instead of seeing my "worried" face, he saw me laughing. so he started laughing too. no tears at all.
so every time he hurt himself, i started laughing. and it worked!! as long as he wasn't *really* hurt, he'd just start laughing too.
and i've tried it with other kids too with much success.

big steps for a lil girl

2006-03-03T23:18:00.000+09:00

i just have to tell this cute story.
ayu is a darling little girl. she's 2.5 years and has the chubbiest cheeks ever. she has a really expressive face and you can immediately tell if she's upset about something. she babbles all the time, but doesn't make any sense. i'm fairly good at japanese and can usually tell what the kids are saying in japanese, but i could never understand her. one day, i asked one of the japanese teachers if ayu makes any sense in japanese. and they said no. haha.
a few times a day we do diaper changing/toilet time. usually, i stay in the classroom and change diapers and my assistant takes the kids to the toilet. ayu is in the diaper changing group.
well, the past few days she has been really grumpy and sad. her mom was getting worried because she was saying that she didn't want to go to school. yesterday, the first time we changed diapers she was really pouty and told me "no!" but i still made her do it.
later in the day, my assistant also said she didn't want to change her diaper. i was brushing ayu's teeth and trying to give her some extra love because i could tell that she was sad. i was trying to get her to tell me what was wrong. as i was talking to her, my assistant started calling out the kids to go to the toilet. and suddenly ayu got even sadder. i said to her "does ayu want to go toilet?"
her little face just lit up and she looked at me incredulously, as if to say "really?! me?!" it was one of the cutest things i've ever seen. i got her off of my lap and said "gogogo".
the rest of the day she was smiling and she was even saying "ayu happy!"
i told her mom that night, and i think she was relieved that that's all that was bothering ayu.
apparently, she hasn't yet actually peed in the toilet, but she does sit on it. and she's now so happy all the time. always running up to me and giving me a big hug.
and i can never get enough ayu hugs.

sometimes ya just gotta roll with it

2006-03-03T21:34:00.000+09:00

i got 4 new kids in my class on wednesday. i was pretty excited because these new students (in addition to the 3 that i got the week previously and others that i've gotten since the beginning of the year) were bringing the age level of my class down significantly...from "about to turn 3" to "just turned 2". this is a huge difference in kids at this age.
so i was trying to be super prepared and had worked out this whole new teaching technique involving a lot of puppet use (more on that later). i even went in early on wednesday to get super prepared for the day.
well, wednesday came 3 out of the 4 were crying (screaming). i was trying to do lesson, introducing the new puppet, over all the crying. a student came in late which broke up the vibe. and some of the students wanted to run over to the latecomer to say hello. blahblah. so i turned to my assistant and said, "let's just do some songs, and then play with toys."
thursday came and again they were crying. this time, the one who wasn't crying at first on wednesday was throwing a complete fit and banging her head on the floor, presumably thinking that if she hurts herself, mom will come get her (mom later told us that she's done this before). so i decided that we needed to play with playdough instead of having a formal lesson time.
and then i thought it wasn't a bright idea to try to start them on the lesson routine on a friday so today we did puzzles and counted blocks while making towers and seeing how high before they'd fall down.
i think it's important when teaching kids so young that you learn to be flexible in these ways. i had been excited to do the things that *i* wanted to do, but i knew that it wasn't what the kids needed right then. they needed to learn to feel comfortable in the classroom. to feel comfortable with all these new people who were going to be taking care of them.
and it's just as fun for me to spend this time playing with them.

game: tickle monster

2006-03-02T20:21:00.000+09:00

thought that it's about time that i post a game you can use in your lessons. i completely made it up myself and i call it "tickle monster".
aim: practice any vocabulary and/or sentence structure
things you need: tickle monster cards; bag; vocab cards (optional)
age: under 10
level: adaptable to all levels

***to make the tickle monster cards***
i'm not a very good artist and you can design your "tickle monster" in any way you want. my tickle monster is a daisy with a smiley face in the circle part. then it has a stick figure body. you want to cut up about 20 cards all the same size. draw the tickle monster on some of them. blank cards are "safe". i find that the kids really like getting the tickle monster, so it's best to make several tickle monster cards and only a few safe cards. then put all of the cards into the bag.

game outline:
*designate an area of the classroom to be "safe". this can be a wall, or a table, or whatever you want.
*student does the english that you want them to do. for example, maybe you show them a "food" flashcard and they have to say whether they like that particular food or not.
*student then gets to pick a card out of the bag. if they pick a tickle monster card, then you try to tickle them. they all try to run to safe without being tickled.
*return to your lesson area and let the next student have a go.

who farted?

2006-03-01T06:58:00.000+09:00

in the afternoons i teach slightly older kids. around 4-8 years old. the kids in the mornings spend at least 5 hours in an english-speaking-only environment so their english level tends to be a bit higher.
most of the time when i'm talking to the afternoon kids, they have no idea what i'm saying.
well one day i'm teaching them computers. it's in a really small, enclosed space and someone cracked one. the smell was pretty bad.
"who farted?" i asked, not expecting to get an answer.
"i did!" piped up a cute little 4 year old girl. she hasn't been studying english for very long and often gives incorrect responses to questions because she thinks that's the way you're supposed to answer. so i ignored her, thinking that this was the case.
"who farted?" i asked again.
"*i* did." she insisted.
so i decided to humor her.
"you farted?" i asked.
"i farted." she said with a definite nod of the head.
even though i'm not supposed to use japanese, i leaned in and asked her if she farted in japanese. she nodded her head.
very well. carry on then.

cards

2006-02-28T20:06:00.000+09:00

whenever important things happen to the kids (birthdays, graduating, etc.), we always make them little cards. sometimes i gripe about this because i often spend quite a lot of time that i don't really have on these cards (one time i actually spent about 4 hours at home after work working on them), and then the kids crumple them up and throw them into their bags.
so today we had 4 kids graduating, and i had made 4 cards. they were actually pretty simple. construction paper in their favorite color with their name written in glitter on the front. a short message inside. cute punch-outs glued on for decoration.
i gave each of the kids their card and for each one i sang this little "hooray" song.
this was at the end of the day and so some of the kids go on to take a nap and i went into the nap room to watch over them.
i was surprised cuz all of them took their cards with them.
little yuno was lying on her cot on her stomach. her blanket was over her head like a tent. she would get up on her elbows, look at the card for a few seconds, then try to go back to sleep. but soon she'd look at the card again. i was so touched. of all the kids, she was the least affectionate towards me, but you could tell how much she like the card and how happy she was to get it. (however, i kinda think that she thought it was her birthday....)
and even after naps, i saw that the kids were still holding on to their cards as treasured posessions.
i think i'll never gripe about making cards again...

graduating

2006-02-27T21:57:00.000+09:00

i've only got 12 kids in my class. last week, 4 of my original ones graduated and i got 3 new ones.
tomorrow is the last day for 4 more of my kids. i know that they are ready to move up, and i love getting the new ones (who are *babies*. literally. one of them doesn't even speak japanese yet.), but it's still sad to see them go.
of course, they're just in the next classroom over and i'll still get to see them every day. but it's not the same.
good luck little ones!

you snooze, you lose

2006-02-26T20:34:00.000+09:00

my boss is a little strange and about a month ago some of the teachers and i were joking about how he came into the classrooms to count the chairs. not to make sure that we had enough chairs for all the students, but to make sure that we each had an even number of red, yellow, and blue chairs.
when i started teaching in this classroom, way back last september, i had requested that i have little cushions for my kids to sit on. he just gave them to me last week.
despite his anal retentiveness regarding the chairs, he gave me 2 pink cushions, 1 blue cushions, and 9 yellow/green cushions (some are yellow, some a green but you can hardly tell the difference between the two colors). i was appriciative of the cushions, but anticipated some fights over cushion colors.
sure enough, the first time i told them to go get their cushions, yoshi starts throwing a fit cuz he wants the blue one. now, my students are all 2 years old and they don't get the concept of sharing and taking turns all the time. yoshi is pretty territorial over where he sits. before the cushions, we would just sit on the carpet, which has animals all over it. yoshi has decided that his animal is the chicken and if anyone else would sit on it, he'd start screaming "yoshi chicken! yoshi chicken!!" me and my assistant teacher were always pretty tolerant of this and we would encourage the other children to sit on a different animal, all the while snickering at yoshi, because let's face it....chicken is about the least cool animal there is on the carpet.
but i wasn't going to give in with the cushions. i looked at yoshi and told him "you snooze, you lose." this prompted laughter from my assistant, who is japanese and had never heard that phrase before. i continued to tell yoshi that tomorrow he has to try to be faster and get the blue cushion first.
fortunately, every day since then he has been super fast and has always gotten the blue cushion. and also luckily, none of the other kids seem to care what color cushion they get.

here i am!

2006-02-26T20:14:00.000+09:00

i decided to start this blog to help others who teach kids, specifically esl teachers. i'll offer tips and games. and also tell all the funny stories about my lil cuties.

teaching english to lil cuties--esl tips, tricks, and stories

Leaving here for good...

ESL Resources for Mothers

Teaching Adults?

been moving, trying to get settled in...

more questions...

letting the cat out of the bag...

how cute...

i wish this was my story...

doing a happy dance

i was good today

hi!

sorry all!!

funny punishment

easy "sea" crafts

super simple songs

sometimes they teach me...

july's songs

thanks to whoever came up with this idea

what's cute???

find *your* voice

making sure everyone gets a turn

surprisingly simple idea

june's monthly songs

classroom management: what gets their attention?

on timing

may's monthly songs

game: charades

uh....what is that?!?!?!

shopping

stupid song #2

i have to admit....

counting ideas

dave's preschool forum

easy craft ideas for 2 year olds

tip for teaching vocabulary

game--sumo

glorious golden week

stupid song #1

clean up time pet peeve

classroom management--switch it up

helpful sites

so tired

wiped out

presented by the letter....

quick game

classroom management--praise the good

lesson plan for 2 year olds

new kids

pillow train

let them be teacher

sharing

rice or lice?

picnic

kouki's confession

dave's esl cafe

baby love

puppets

oh--are you pregnant??

cockroaches--edible or not??

game: snake game

introducing my assistant

rough day

smiles

surprise poo!!!

sometimes i'm so proud

game: ABC/123 volleyball

kouta

game: airplane

ooops

they couldn't be cuter

new babies in the family

so cute

tip for "cry babies"

big steps for a lil girl

sometimes ya just gotta roll with it

game: tickle monster

who farted?

cards

graduating

find your voice