![[Jeffrey]](../../jeffrey.jpg)
...a la Jeffrey.
English Lesson Plans...
...a la Jeffrey.
Kid tested--JTE approved!
Here is a comprehensive, full-year curriculum of English lesson plans designed for and rigorously tested on 1st-year high school students of the technical school variety. It is adaptable to other environments, though individual mileage may vary.
I am making my lesson plans available here in Microsoft Word (.doc) format so that you can easily download and modify them to suit your needs. These lessons were designed for 1st year Oral Communications classes at a technical high school. Individual lessons span 1-3 class periods each, arranged in thematic units that form the stages of a year-long trajectory that carries my students (fresh out of junior high) from saying "Hello, how are you?" to composing and performing a simple rap verse. These materials should be easily adaptable up or down for use in JHS Elective Courses, SHS Academic English Clubs, or Adult Oral Communications Classes. For each segment, there is a carefully formatted lesson plan to help keep you and your JTEs on the same page. There may also be various handouts, activity worksheets, or game cards. These files are fully compatible with MS Office 2000 for both English and Japanese Windows operating systems. I must warn you that some of these handouts are the result of hours of precise layout and content editing, stretching MS Word's capabilities to the max. So, alter them slowly and carefully as the layout may jump around erratically in unpredictable ways due to MS Word's innate quirkiness.
Before hitting the lesson plans, you must know about the Box & Ball game. This is absolutely the most useful and flexible tool in the ALT toolkit. Materials required: box, ball, prepared question cards, music, and some students. Scrounge around your school or local 100円 shop for a small, sturdy box or tin, and a ball. The ball should be quite soft as it tends to get thrown around pretty hard by the end of a good game. It is also convenient for portability if the ball fits inside the chosen box. You also need music. I burned a CD with 20 of my favorite upbeat songs specifically for this purpose. I guess you could always sing if you found yourself really hard up for music. The only further preparation required is to print out a list of questions or images related to a given lesson. Cut these into individual strips, fold, and put in the box.
The game itself is easy. Give the ball and the box to separate students. Start the music. While the music plays, students pass around the two sacred objects. When you stop the music, the students holding the sacred objects must stand and face each other. The student with the box pulls out a question and reads it. The student with the ball must answer. Start the music again. Keep in mind that you have a certain amount of control over where the items land when you pause the music: quietly manipulate this to your advantage. This game has an attention span limit of about 10-15 minutes.
This game makes a great backup activity. I generally have a Box & Ball game prepared for each lesson just in case. The game is great on multiple levels. It is a good way to introduce students to your favorite music. It forces them to interact with random questions from random partners (a lot like life). It gets your students moving around and energizes the whole room. It is entertaining for the teachers, watching the students contorting themselves or tricking others to avoid holding one of the sacred objects. And it can save your ass from a lesson that falls dead or finishes too early.
Last year, in a moment of extreme need, I invented an ingenious modification, making this game the ultimate ALT secret weapon. Keep a 6-sided die in the box with the ball. Keep it on your person at all times. Whenever you need to infuse a room with energetic conversation practice, write 6 relevant questions on the board and whip out your box. Multiple dice of differing colors offer exponentially expanding fill-in-the-blank potential. If you throw some condoms, a compass, and a bit of fishing line in there, you will be the most prepared person on this entire pre-apocalyptic planet.
For small groups you can also try an educational version of the classic party game, Spin-the-Bottle. This simple Question/Response conversation game works best for small independent groups of about 5-10 students. Remove the label from a clear plastic soda bottle, put a small 6-sided die inside, and close the lid tightly. Each group turns their desks into one large table and sits around it in a circle with a bottle in the center of the circle. A student spins the bottle, and the bottle will point to another student when it stops spinning. The spin-student asks a Question, and the point-student responds with an Answer. You can use the 6-sided die inside the bottle to reference questions or images on the board as prompts. You can keep playing by spin-students taking turns around the circle, or by the point-student taking the next turn as spin-student. This game also makes a great backup activity, but large classes will need a few bottles. So be creative and enjoy recycling!
Yes, there is a method to this madness...
Having an overall plan for the year is vital for consistency, cognitive resonance, and morale. Without such a plan every lesson is a shot in the dark, with misses wasted and hits forgotten. But creating and following a carefully structured master plan gives both teachers and students a sense of purpose, a sense of building something, a sense of anticipation, a sense of achievement. Here is my recommended itinerary for a year-long adventure through English Oral Communications:
This series takes students from a basic self-introduction (with you leading the way by introducing yourself and country) to making fully developed chit-chat with a conversational partner. The series builds on itself in 5 carefully laid out steps intended to give students familiarity with vocabulary first, phrases second, and finally, interactive performance: all without overwhelming them. This series is deliberately slow-paced in distinct steps. Remember, these may be your first lessons with a given class, so it pays to take some time to feel out your students and let them get accustomed to your methods. Of course the pace will be faster or slower according to your students' ability and your own classroom methods, but this series takes me a full 8 class periods.
I developed and implemented this series when I first came as an August arrival, with the idea to harness the interest and momentum generated by my self-introduction lesson to carry my students on to the point where we could carry on some small talk, exchanging information about our hobbies, etc. Now I begin each new school year in April with this series. It is even better in April, because the new 1st year students don't even know each other yet, giving them plenty of chances to really use the material.
For August arrivals in low-academic or vocational schools, don't worry too much about repeating a topic that may have already been covered by a predecessor (of course, don't give them the exact same lesson and handouts...). You are picking up with your students at the end of a long, hot summer vacation. If they remember anything from your predecessor's lessons so long ago, it will only serve to help them engage your repeated material more quickly. It is unlikely that they remember the material well enough to find the resemblance boring. Besides, you are totally new, and should be bringing them a fresh approach to the material and the classroom dynamic anyway.
Self-Intro
My first year, I handed out some pictures and gave some information about myself and my country. It was a hot and humid August. The students were interested, but...
My second year, I made two jazzy PowerPoint presentations and reserved the Audio/Visual room. I blew them away for two full class periods with a well-orchestrated multi-media adventure into my life and my California world. If you can swing it even only once a year, please consider a multi-media presentation for your self-introduction. It really helps set the stage for your students and gets them believing that you are a cool, interesting, energetic, and amazing person whether or not that reflects reality. And as Former President Bush knows better than anyone, leadership is not about what is reflected by reality; it's about what you can get people believing from the start.
While you are basking in your wonderfulness, don't forget that a good lesson is not only all about you. It is about student participation. This lesson plan keeps up a good balance by immediately throwing the work of self-introduction back onto the students with a clever Self-Intro BINGO game. Check it out!
Greetings
Personally, I hate set greetings. So why would I want to teach them to my students? Well, the truth is, I don't. Or maybe I make a bit of a compromise. Anyway, this is a pair of lessons, mirror images of each other, designed to teach students how to construct Formal and Casual greetings out of some common constituent parts. It might seem a bit complicated at first, and, well, it is a bit complicated. But that's the point. This method gets them actually using and thinking about the greeting phrases they are using and reacting to. And if you take your time with it and explain the constructions well, students of any level can do it. The reward for your patience will be some authentic greetings in the hallways during the rest of your days here.
Katakana English
Have you learned to read katakana yet? If not, put it at the top of your Japanese study list. Why? I would estimate that at least 90% of katakana words are English or English-derived (plus a handful of Portuguese, German, French, and Chinese). Any katakana you know will be immediately useful to you without having to know any Japanese vocabulary.
Well, this Katakana English connection can benefit your students too. Japanese students have a huge, untapped English-like vocabulary at their immediate disposal. But you have to alert them to it. Most of them will not realize that, a bit like italics in English, katakana is the Japanese way of representing foreign loan words. Once you clue them in to this fact, and exercise the concept with this activity, you will see the light-bulbs bursting over their heads. I can recommend some stylish safety goggles...
This activity occurs here to tap into students' Katakana English vocabulary as early as possible. Here the activity is focused on generating vocabulary related to hobbies, favorites, and other topics for small talk, by giving 5 bonus points for any such relevant word. The activity can be used in like manner to generate vocabulary before launching into other lessons as well, and ALTs at high-academic schools may find this a useful warm-up activity.
Katakana English does have the disadvantage of coming with all the pronunciation baggage intrinsic to the katakana syllabary. You can mention this at the end of the lesson and pick out a few examples, but don't belabour the point here. Use this lesson to generate ideas. Tackle the quirks of pronunciation at a later date (I do so in great detail in my later RAP lesson).
My Life & Classroom English
We are almost ready for some small talk. But if you want small talk to go smoothly, you need to give your students the preparation to answer questions about themselves with confidence. You don't want them having to make this stuff up on the fly. So this short lesson will put everything down on paper. Use the worksheet provided to get students thinking of their hobbies, favorites, etc., offer them additional vocab, check for accuracy, help with pronunciation, etc. Relax and let this take most of the class time.
I also take this short lesson as an opportunity to introduce some English words and phrases that I commonly use to run the class itself: Classroom English.
Small Talk
As in real life, getting to the point of making small talk takes a surprising amount of preparatory maneuvering to pull off smoothly. But here it is at last, the big moment! This lesson should take 2 full class periods, and maybe even 3 depending on your students' stamina for presenting in front of the class. This lesson will present a variety of Question & Answer phrases for a full-length interactive conversation of the small talk variety. I highly recommend taking this one section at a time, getting students practiced and comfortable with each of the Q&A topics before putting them all together. After modeling and practicing the full conversation, you can show students how to short-cut the process with natural phrases like "Me too!" or "How about you?" Also included are two games using the Q&A phrases to mix things up and re-energize a lagging class.
This series leads up to the infamously difficult task of giving and following directions to a destination. Along the way we pick up some related material including numbers, adjectives, and command forms of verbs. Body parts are thrown in just to make life a little more interesting. When you arrive at your destination, please keep in mind that with the possible exception of migratory birds, giving and following directions really isn't anyone's native language.
Numbers
You may be taking this for granted, but if you check, you might be surprised by how poorly your students handle English number usage. This lesson attempts to give your students a well-rounded review of the English number system and its uses. It also takes advantage of this moment to give a cultural introduction to the monetary system and weights and measures of the ALT's home country (I'm from America where they persist in clinging steadfastly to the most arcane, obtuse, and awkward measuring system on the planet).
To be honest, I find numbers interminably boring myself, so I usually split this lesson up. The first class period, I review simple numbers and ordinals, and go into the Western place value system in detail (it's different from the Asian system which goes by 4 places rather than 3 places). Then I move on to the next three lessons in this series before running the second class period of the Numbers Lesson, in which I review dates & times, money, and measurements.
Opposites
A simple lesson on adjectives. Some common adjectives are introduced here in pairs of opposites. This makes it easy for your students to guess the meanings of at least one from each pair, adding an element of self-discovery to the vocabulary review process. Some very simple grammatical usage is introduced and practiced, followed by a competitive "Categories" type game.
Comparisons
This lesson is very similar to the Opposites lesson, following the same overall lesson plan and activities. The same vocabulary set is used, but advanced a step into the formation and use of superlatives for making comparisons between things.
Body Parts
A fun lesson that brings the previous 3 lessons together while introducing some simple command forms and vocabulary pertaining to human and animal bodies. This lesson has a lot of drawing exercises and "follow-the-leader" type activities. It also tends to lead into some hilariously embarrassing moments as well as some potentially personally embarrassing questions, so be sure to be accompanied by your sense of humor at all times! With that in mind, the handout is an uncensored daVinci, but if it's too Greco-Roman for your needs, I guess you could give the Vitruvian Man some pants with a magic marker...
Directions
The long-awaited conclusion to the eponymous Directions Series. In this lesson, students learn vocabulary and phrases for giving directions in the context of a city or a building. The first class period introduces vocabulary for getting around in a city, with some pair-work practice using maps. The second period covers vocabulary and phrases for getting around inside a building, using mental imagery as the practice medium. The final class period brings the two together by having students write out directions sending their partners physically wandering around the school grounds. This is a lot of fun, but requires a heads-up to the other school staff so no one freaks out.
Here are lessons on some very common situations requiring specific vocabulary and extended phrases.
Weather
In this 3-part lesson, students will learn phrases and vocabulary to talk about the weather, give a weather forecast, and discuss climate. In the final activity, students will act out original weather news forecasts.
Restaurants
In this 3-part lesson, students learn phrases and vocabulary to order a complete course at a restaurant. In the final activity, students will make their own menus and act out the scenarios.
After the students have come so far, they are ready to tackle some difficult and more open-ended material. This is a chance for them to have some fun and rise to a challenge, engaging English more creatively.
RAP
With this rather long lesson, I use RAP as the final nail in the coffin of Katakana English. The rhythm and rhyme inherent in RAP is a perfect framework for teaching and practicing English accents and pronunciations. It's also a lot of fun for both students and teachers, and can bring a lot of creative energy into what would otherwise be an extremely tedious task. The grand finale of this lesson is a line-up of original RAP performances from the students.
Technology
This is a very open-ended lesson intended to bring English to my tech-school students in a practical and immediate way. Basically, the students compile a list of Japanese words related to their main field of study, and together (students, JTE, and ALT) we use whatever resources we have at hand to translate them into English. This involves a lot of drawing, gesturing, and linguistic triangulation. Luckily, I have a previous background in technology, so I have rarely had to resort to consulting a dictionary. But depending on your own background, you may do well to have a good electronic dictionary on hand. Keep in mind that this lesson will undoubtedly move beyond the vocabulary range of most JTEs, so don't count on them to know the words (in either language).
This may seem like a very difficult activity to accomplish in class, but after an entire year of progressing in English, even my worst students are up to the challenge. This lesson can be modified to focus on any field of study for use at the various types of vocational schools. Finish the year out by showing your students exactly how English applies to their field and giving them the vocabulary to put it into use.
Not to be confused with Holiday Lessons, which I will leave up to you and your own enthusiastic creativity, this is seasonal as in coming into play at a specific time of year, and I think the proper seasons for these lessons will become self-evident. Read on!
The Hammer Game
Do you find your students to be pretty useless in the first class period after summer break? Well, weren't YOU a pretty useless student in those first class periods after summer break!? It's hot, but your students' brains are still cold: a bad combination. Try keeping that first class relaxed and fun with a game that is simple yet engaging. For me, this involves two hammers and a lot of talk about my mouth.
Let me explain. It's a simple game in which you post two words with very similar sounds on the board, say one of the words aloud, and let the students compete by trying to be the first to hit the correct word. What you are doing is teaching your students Phonemic Awareness under the pretense of letting them hit things with hammers.
The key to this lesson is doing your own bit of phonemic awareness study on the sound pairs that you choose. Please don't try to teach the difference by telling some stupid, tired, old joke about rice/lice, even if your JTE tries to pull that one out. As part of your preparation, sit in front of the mirror one day and pay attention to what is going on in your own mouth when you say the sound pairs, dredge the internet a bit to confirm your discoveries, and then use drawings and exaggerated mouth movements to show your students how to see, feel, and produce the different sounds correctly.
For example: L, R, and ラ. Japanese ラ sound is made by tapping the tip of the tongue up against the roof of your mouth on that ridge about a centimeter behind your teeth. English L sound is close, but it's a flick that pushes against the back of your top front teeth. Go ahead and try that real quick. I'll wait. Yeah, can you feel that? OK, English R sound is quite different and much more challenging. It's not a tap or a flick at all. It is made by scrunching up the tongue and pulling it down into the throat a bit, but keeping it lifted slightly above the floor of the mouth (try this a while and you may discover how to improve your classic French R as a bonus). Also, pay attention to your lips, they will change shape as well. While making the English L sound, the lips are stretched as if in a smile; English R brings the lips scrunched up like a kiss.
Explain this to your students with drawings of tongues on the board and your own exaggerated mouth movements and they will not only think it is unforgivably hilarious, but they will have a tangible anchor for their own attempts at pronunciation.
PS: Try to use soft toy hammers. But you knew that, right?
Summer Stories
After welcoming my students back into a productive, post-summer student life with The Hammer Game, I take the opportunity to get them writing. This lesson reviews some very simple past-tense grammar, introduces some vocabulary and phrases for common summer activities, and gives the students some models to work from. The goal of these two class periods is to help them develop a simple paragraph about their summer vacation, present it to the class, and answer one or two simple questions about the content. You should adjust the requirements and the questions to the level of your class, but even my lowest level and naughtiest classes often surprise me by how well they perform if they are guided into the task.
Winter Holidays
This lesson runs exactly like the Summer Stories lesson above, except that I do it just before winter break, and the grammar component is a simple introduction to using future-tense verb constructions.
Summer Plans
For those of you who might be finishing a contract in summer but still want to leave your recently arrived April students with some student-centered writing & presenting: this lesson uses the same material as the Summer Stories lesson above, except that you do it before summer break, and like the Winter Holidays lesson above, the grammar component introduces using future-tense verb constructions.
Review
Here is a simple review I sometimes use before moving on to my final two lessons of the year (Technology and RAP). This review covers everything from self-introductions, giving directions, and situational conversations. I start off with a revised Hammer Game covering oft-confused words from previous lessons, then move on to Box & Ball with question/answer pairs from various lessons. I finish off the class period with pair-work in an open-ended practice conversation that brings it all together in one semi-realistic scenario.
Want detailed practical advice on actual in-class implementation? Feeling inspired to develop your own curriculum from your own ideas but not sure how to start? or daunted by how to keep extending from there--?
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