Journal Entry 4

Activity: Shape Game

Objective: Identifying and naming geometric shapes


Finding a book about shapes is difficult! There was one that the Foster Library had to offer and as the librarian and I searched for it, the final conclusion was that the book had become lost. Nevertheless, I made a series of shape cards and first went over the names of the shapes with the students. We then played the shinkensuigakku and I had to refresh their memory often, especially with pentagon and rhombus. One student (8 year old Mizuki) knew most of the shapes already and was very quick to answer the riddle game we played later when I gave hints like "This shape has four even sides."

Journal Entry 3

Activity: Fruit 123 Objective: Sorting and Grouping

I told the students to group the fruits by their kind and then to

order them from lowest to highest. I then asked them (individually) to give me a pair of cards, "three apples and one cherry" for example. The lesson worked okay but it was a little difficult to explain grouping to them in English. After I gave them an example of what I wanted, they understood and were able to group the fruits in no time. For them to digest the concept of "give me one banana, two strawberries and three watermelons" proved to be more challenging. I could see them trying to figure out what I wanted and think as fast as they could to get the correct cards to me. They enjoyed the challenge and asked to play again.

Journal Entry 2

On the second Saturday of each month I usually also travel to the Ahagon Gakken in Itoman. Because of travel plans to Nagasaki, the owner asked me to teach on the first Saturday of this month (Nov 4). The age group for this class is also 7-11. The size of this class is normally around six students, but this day it was double that amount. So the small banquet table that serves as our classroom was even more crowded than usual. The level of these students (English-wise) is varied and it can be difficult to stay within each student's ZPD. Fortunately they all get along rather well and help each other out when one another is stuck on a word.

I did the same activity with this group of students as with the Wakasa group. However, I decided to go up to twenty with this class. I also added a different twist to the activity by allowing each student to draw his or her written number from a container of chopsticks with a number (1-20) written on it. Then they were to select a monkey card and find a match (telling me in English what numbers they had chosen). Because the chopsticks were always scrambled, this activity soon became monotonous, slow and boring.

I decided to pick up the pace a bit by allowing each student to take a chopstick first, then have each student search for his number (on the chopstick) from the pile of monkeys. The pace improved a little but it came to the point where each was to choose two (and up to four) cards each turn to improve their chances on getting a match.

One student (Misaki) got a match three times in a row and amazed all of us.

The concept of one to one correspondence seemed to work best with numbers above ten, where although the word for the number was written on each monkey card, the students still found it easier to count the monkeys to determine if they had a match.

Journal Entry 1

On the first two Saturdays of each month I try my best to teach English at the Wakasa Gakken in Naha City. On this particular visit (Nov 4) I took the opportunity to try out the lesson plan (activity) from Ms. LaMontagne. The age group of this class is 7-11. Since we had a few new students this day, I decided to practice the one to one relationship with numbers only up to twelve. All the students know of this kind of matching activity and they call it shinkensuijaku. Today, I decided to use monkeys as the counting object (hoping we might have more fun than a barrel of monkeys). Although this activity appeared to be outside their ZPD, in that they could very easily recognize a multitude of monkeys up to twelve, it served as a valuable activity for pronunciation. The new students really did not have that much trouble with the activity other than needing the practice of making new sounds.