The question is what are you preparing the students for? Ballet schools are preparing their students to do well in ballet competitions and, perhaps eventually, to become professional ballerinas. Music schools have the same goal--but what about 英会話? For adults the training is obvious: they are there to learn how to communicate in English or improve an aspect of their communicative abilities (as in a business English course). But what are children being prepared for in 英会話?
Not much, it seems like. There are a few project-based schools or -themed lessons that I know of that I'll detail below, but the majority of what I've seen or taught to kids in 英会話 or even in public schools has been generalized to the point where something like this can happen:
"Okay, we've got two volumes of Hyper Listening to get through, so let's spend the first 15 or 20 minutes of each class on this book, then we can do the conversation textbook for the rest of class."
"Fifteen minutes of listening quizzes every class? Won't that be a bit demotivating?"
"Well, 60% of their grade is based off a listening test at the end of the term, so we've got to study it."
"60% of their English Conversation grade is based off of a CD listening test? Sorry, I know I'm new here, but what is the goal of this class?"
"... Goal. ..."
(A conversation between me and one of the senior English teachers at school, early April 2013. The teacher responded to my last question with a bit of wide-eyed exasperation. I dropped the subject.)
I'm not a total anarchist, though. I think for very young kids--pre-schoolers and Kindergarteners--spending most of the time learning simple words and spending time around English is probably the best use of the students' time. Certainly elementary school students and above also need time to just be around English, but at that point you really ought to throw something else into the mix. JHS and HS classes are communicative because the students are studying English grammar in Japanese during the day, so they have some basis on which they can build sentences and conversations. With elementary kids it's a different ballgame, though.
Elementary kids don't study English grammar explicitly--and in Japan at least, elementary-level English education in the public school sector is game-based. It's a great idea for building confidence, and the classes are a lot of fun, besides, but I'm not sure of the long-term benefit to their communication skills. The current situation is that, gifted in English or not--fluent in english or not--all kids in the Japanese school system are put through the grammar grinder in junior high and high school. If they don't sit through the lectures, do the homework, and pass the tests, their records indicate that they're not proficient in English--which can affect their chances of getting into a good high school or university when the time comes.
Back to the main point, though--what are we preparing elementary-aged 英会話 students for? Shall we just play games forever with no overarching goal? Shall we never push kids this age to work towards something with their English?
I think there's room to. There's this school based in Tokyo called MLS. Apparently it's the 英会話 that Ken Watanabe goes to, but its main focus is kids lessons that culminate yearly in a play recital. All the kids from all the classes get up on stage and perform a play in English that they've been practicing since about the middle of the school year. I've only ever interviewed for the company so I can't say for certain how focusing on drama affects the kids' English abilities in the long run, but theoretically it sounds like a good idea.
There must be other types of projects to work towards, too. I have a friend teaching in an elementary school north of Tokyo who is probably one of the best in his field in the whole country. He gets his 6th graders to teach an EFL class in English to the first graders once per year. It's a really difficult project--sometimes tear-inducing--but when the kids pull it off their sense of accomplishment goes off the charts. Their teacher has made them prove a point that they can never again honestly deny--they can speak English if they work at it; they can communicate in it and work hard to create something using it (in this case a fun class for their youngest schoolmates).
We're on a textbook break at my high school now while we adapt and perform plays in English. At first most of the kids worked very slowly or not at all on their scripts, and almost no one did their homework. But this week as we're wrapping up our in-class rehearsals I'm noticing that most of the groups are having a good time rehearsing, and they're making creative directorial decisions in order to make their plays better. I've read academic papers supporting independent work and projects over the traditional textbook fare, and even though I already agreed with it in spirit I'm starting to get a feel for the process. Kids, being people, aren't necessarily going to be gung-ho about a project just because it's different from what you normally do in school--but giving them the time and space (and occasionally the gentle shove) to get used to the idea and let their imaginations wander, a lot of them end up enjoying it.
With that in mind I reckon I want to implement some yearly or biannual project for the kids next year...but what to do, what to do. Drama's an option, or some kind of group-communication project... For older kids, from maybe fifth or sixth grade, a penpal project might be a good idea. I tried that last year with mixed results. My friend's teaching project is genius, but it would be difficult to adapt at a private school and, besides, I'm not half the teacher my friend is.
Other ideas:
- musical
- pageant
- speeches (excerpts from famous ones, not self-written)
- Show&Tell
- debate
If anyone out there has any other ideas for projects, I'd love to hear them!
No comments:
Post a Comment