Structuring Fun Classroom Activities into Effective Japanese Lessons
prepared for: SenseiOnline 45th Benkyoukai (Study Forum), June 2004
by: Roberta Young, Guest Speaker



I. Overview
II. General Structure of a Japanese Lesson
     A. Three Parts of a Typical Lesson
          1. The First 5 Minutes
          2. The Next 5 to 10 Minutes
          3. The Remainder of the Lesson
     B. The “Aim”
          1. Not-So-Good Aim vs. Better Aim Examples
          2. Sample Aim Activities--the “te-form”
               a. Listen and sing
               b. Assessing Prior Knowledge
               c. Drill
               d. Hear a short story
               e. Students report classroom news
               f. Group work
               g. Student “Newscast”
               h. Review and Answer the Aim question
     C. Comments
III. Classroom Activities
     A. Theory of Multiple Intelligences
     B. Implications for Language Teachers
     C. Favorite Activities
          1. Musical Intelligence Activities
          2. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence Activities
               a. TPR
               b. Kyatchi Booru
          3. Visual-Spatial Intelligence Activities
               a. Picture Books and Kamishibai
               b. Puppet Shows
          4. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence Activities
          5. Interpersonal Intelligence Activities
               a. Data Collection & Reporting: Example #1 - Phone Numbers
               b. Data Collection & Reporting: Example #2 - Family
          6. Intrapersonal Intelligence Activities
IV. Conclusion



Overview

As a member of NECTJ (Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese), I am also the main facilitator of our Benkyoukai that meets monthly in New York City. At these meetings, questions from fellow teachers frequently begin with the words “How do you....”
We are all very curious to learn from each other and know what our Japanese teacher colleagues do in their classrooms. What activities, assessments and materials do we use? How do we get kids to do homework? In this paper, more personal than academic in style, I will share what I do in the classroom. Specifically, I will discuss the general structure of my typical Japanese lessons and some of the activities that make up my lessons. This paper has become unexpectedly long and I still haven’t said everything I had intended to. For those of you who still want more, I look forward to talking with you online later this month.

General Structure of a Japanese Lesson

In New York City and the suburbs that I have taught in, teachers are required to have an “Aim” on the blackboard. The aim must be stated as the main question that you would like students to be able to answer by the end of the lesson. When I was a really new teacher, it sometimes took me a while to figure out exactly what my aim should be (or had been). It took longer to figure out how to phrase it in a way that my supervisors considered acceptable. But it literally took me years to recognize any usefulness to this bureaucratically imposed requirement. I am a convert. I like aims now. I know what my aims are and I structure my lesson so that my students know it too.

A typical lesson on a typical day - no big tests, student presentations, class trips, etc. - lasts about one hour and looks something like this:
5 minutes - The “touban” starts the greeting, announces the date, gives a weather report, reads the “Do Now,” and collects student homework. Meanwhile, I take attendance, evaluate the touban’s performance, encourage students to work quietly at the “Do Now” and to hold their questions a little longer. I also return corrected homeworks and other papers. Finally, I ask if there are any questions before we begin the lesson.
Note: My “Do Now” is almost always the same: 1) Take out yesterday’s homework for collection. 2) Copy today’s date, aim, and homework. 3) Review yesterday’s aim question and the answer alone or with a partner.
5-10 minutes - (Japanese Level One only) We review and work on writing symbols. When my beginning students are still busy learning five kana per week, they can not yet apply the symbols to the aural and spoken language that they are also starting to learn. But by the end of the first year, my students (well... most of my students) can read and write all of the hiragana and katakana symbols and a few kanji and should be able to use them to read or write about any of the topics that they have learned to talk about. I feel that these ten minutes per day are crucial at Level One. However, next year in Japanese Level Two, I am expecting my class format to change as writing becomes more integrated into the main aim of the lesson.
The Rest - The remainder of class time centers around my main aim. It begins by reading an aim question aloud from the blackboard. It ends by rereading and answering the aim question and students writing the answer into notebooks. In between are at least four but often eight or more different activities that support the aim.

The “Aim”

In a Japanese language classroom where communication in Japanese (rather than, for example, literary text translation or culture) is the primary goal, the “aim” is supposed to ask the student how to do something communicatively useful with the language. It can focus on any of the various real-life functions that communication plays in society: explaining, describing, persuading, requesting, apologizing, inviting, playing games, telling stories - in other words, all the different things people really do when they communicate in their language. Here are some examples of aims that my supervisors would have never approved and how I made them better. In the last example, I’ll show how an aim might actually play out in terms of classroom activities:

  1. “Not-so-Good” Aim - What are eight body parts?
    “Better” Aim - How do you play “Fukuwarai”?
  2. “Not-so-Good” Aim - What are the numbers 1-100?
    “Better” Aim - How do you play “Double Digits”?
  3. “Not-so-Good” Aim - How do you refer to things near you and far from you?
    “Better” Aim - How can you go shopping if you don’t know the words for all the things you want to buy?
  4. “Not-so-Good” Aim - How do you create the “te-form” of a verb?
    “Better” Aim - How can we use the “Te-form Song” to create a “Breaking News” report on activities taking place in the classroom? (gossip and tattling permitted)

In all the examples above, the “not-so-good” aim becomes a component of the lesson while the “better” aim requires a more real-life communicative application of the language.

I start by focussing my students’ attention to the blackboard and then have them read the aim aloud. “Minasan, kokuban o mite kudasai. Kyou no mokuhyou o issho ni yomimashou!” Next, we move into a series of activities that will lead us toward achieving the aim.

Sample Activities for Aim #4
Comments:
  1. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to answer the “Not-so-Good” aim too. (i.e. How do you create the “te-form” of a verb?). The difference is that instead of grammar being presented as the goal of the lesson, it is used as a tool for accomplishing a communicative goal.
  2. One of the useful little facts I was taught in a second-language acquisition class was that a student can only be expected to learn about seven or eight words in one sitting. This has led me to reexamine my lessons with less focus on the vocabulary itself and more focus on applying words in a meaningful way.
  3. When an aim is focussed on grammar e.g. the “te-form,” a teacher may be tempted to present more than one application of the form. For example, we might want to review the “te kudasai” form or demonstrate the “te mo ii” form, etc. When the aim is focussed on function e.g. reporting on activities going on in the classroom, other possible applications of the te-form will most likely go unmentioned. That is probably a good thing as people tend to remember language better and with less confusion when its application reflects a real situation and is contextually relevant. We can anticipate though that a student might also want to say “I am going to the door” by using “itte imasu.” It would depend on the student and the situation but I would probably just say that the “te-imasu” form doesn’t always correspond to the English “ing” and we will learn how to express that sentence another time.
  4. When I was a new teacher, I was often told in my post-observation conferences that I was trying to cover too much material in one lesson. I have since realized that this is a common mistake of many new teachers. (Perhaps you were once told the same thing too?) At any rate, two things that have helped me to improve in this area are: a) Have one main aim. Then create several activities that support that single aim, b) In every lesson, try to give students a chance to work with a partner or in a small group at applying the new language. This can be either through drill or a game or ideally, a real communication activity. This will take time but is a very important part of the lesson because it gives each individual student far more time at using the language than they would have had through more typical teacher-student interaction.
  5. A big part of structuring the activities in a lesson is having a variety of activities and, like a set of tools, knowing when and how to use them. One of my favorite things about teaching is upgrading the quality and increasing the number of tools in my toolbox. Below is some background information and then some of my favorite activity “tools.”
Classroom Activities

Are you familiar with Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences? As teachers, I suspect that many of you are already at least somewhat familiar with this theory. But when I first began teaching Japanese in 1995, there were many, many things I had not yet heard of including Howard Gardner and his theory. Many classes later... I have come to know and love this theory because I have come to recognize it as an excellent teaching methodologies “checklist,” a useable guide for planning and combining fun activities into effective lessons that will meet the needs of a diverse and sometimes reluctant student population. So before going any further, here is a quick summary of three main points:

Howard Gardner and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences
  1. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences states that there are a variety of intelligences and that individuals are intelligent to some degree in each of the following areas:
  2. Although all of us are typically stronger in some intelligences than in others, all individuals have the ability to become stronger in the other areas of intelligence.
  3. Activities that target a student’s stronger intelligences will be the most effective activities for teaching that particular child. A child’s stronger intelligences are also the ones he will naturally favor for learning and therefore are also referred to as a child’s “learning styles.” By using activities that target a child’s learning styles, we can help the child to develop further in other areas of intelligence.
Implications for Language Teachers

The primary goal for Japanese language teachers is for our students to learn to communicate in Japanese. In terms of the multiple intelligences, we are aiming to further develop our students’ verbal-linguistic skill. According to Gardner, children who are strong in this intelligence will show greater than average sensitivity to the sounds, structure, meanings, nuances, and function of words. They will flourish in class with a teacher who engages them in discussions, word games, choral reading, storytelling and poetry, lectures, journal writing, etc.

What about the children who do not come to class with strong verbal-linguistic ability? These same activities will often seem boring and meaningless to them. Students will not become engaged in activities that they perceive as meaningless. Lack of engagement will then lead to inattentiveness which results in minimal learning which can often lead to discipline problems.

Many teachers try to avoid this by using a variety of activities to make Japanese class “more fun.” For example, they play popular Japanese songs, show anime, and make riceballs. This is very much a step in the right direction, and in schools that have to struggle to receive funding, these types of activities may be just what we need to maintain our enrollment and maintain a Japanese language program at all. But if these activities are not also designed and presented to relate to language goals, they may not actually have very much impact on students’ language learning. From the students’ point of view we now have a boring and meaningless class with occasional and unrelated fun activities.

Our goal then is to develop verbal-linguistic ability by engaging the other intelligences. To do this, first we need a variety of activities that support the specific language goals of a lesson while also requiring a student to utilize one or more of the multiple intelligences. Second, we need to combine these activities so that within any given lesson a variety of learning styles are addressed and, one way or another, we increase the chance of reaching and providing a meaningful learning experience for each of our students.

So, what are activities that require students to utilize various intelligences? See: “When Planning a Lesson” for questions that can help guide the planning of classroom activities to target different learning styles. Then, please read some of my favorites listed below.

These Are Just a Few of My Favorite Activities (categorized by intelligences)

1) Musical Intelligence
I categorize the use of music in the classroom into four groups based on how easy or difficult I think they would be for non-music teachers to use: mood music, chants, songs, and thematic units. Please go to my article “Using Music in the Foreign Language Classroom” for more specific information and activities that target one of my favorite intelligences.

2) Bodily - Kinesthetic Intelligence
TPR (Total Physical Response) is the quintessential activity for the kinesthetic learner. TPR requires a student to demonstrate aural comprehension through physical response before requiring a student to produce spoken utterances. In this sense, it is a very “natural” technique, imitating the way a child learns his first language. An obvious application is through “commands” - tatte kudasai, suwatte kudasai, te o agete kudasai, etc. The student shows that he understands by standing, sitting, and raising his hand. It can easily be combined with music by adding movement to the song lyrics e.g. Atama, Kata, Hiza, Ashi no Uta. I also use this technique to introduce vocabulary such as parts of the body, directions (up, down, left, right), classroom items (window, blackboard, door). In addition, students can physically manipulate objects on a page to simulate an endless variety of actions they can not really do in class e.g. with a street map and a toy car: go straight, turn right at the bank, stop at the light, etc. For more information, please see my article “Using TPR to the Fullest”.

Kyatchi Booru is another physical activity to make drill more tolerable but also more memorable: You’ll need one sponge or other soft ball and a drill activity e.g. forming the te-form from the dictionary form.
Goal: As a class, let’s try to name ten verbs and te-forms.
Game: Say a word, throw the ball to a volunteer. Repeat. (Teacher always starts.)
Example:
Teacher: “hanasu” (Students put up hands to volunteer. Throw the ball to one of them.)
Volunteer 1: “hanashite” (Throws ball to volunteer.)
Volunteer 2: “nomu” (Throws ball to volunteer.)
Volunteer 3: “nonde” (Throws ball to volunteer.)
Volunteer 4: “kiku” (Throws ball to volunteer.) and so on
If a student makes a mistake... either throw it back to their previous partner who tries the same word again throwing the ball to a different volunteer or throw it back to the teacher and start again. Alternatively, the ball can always go back to the teacher to provide a dictionary form.

3) Visual - Spatial Intelligence
Picture Books and Kamishibai - I categorize books into three groups:
A) Super-Easy - Real Japanese:
First, here’s a bit of information based on educational research that I found eye-opening when I first heard it:
In order for language learners to make the contextual inferences needed to accurately guess the meaning of unfamiliar words that they encounter, they must first understand between 95-99% of the surrounding vocabulary.
That said, most Japanese children’s books contain far too many unfamiliar words to be understandable to our beginning students. However, there are some books that are so easy that even beginners will understand and enjoy them, especially combined with pictures and a dramatic reading style. One of my favorites is part of the Akachan no Asobi Ehon series by Kimura Yuuichi called “Itadakimasu Asobi.” In spite of the childish title, my high school students love it and they can basically “get it” and even learn a few new words from it by the end of a first lesson. I read “Super-Easy” books aloud to the class in Japanese only.
B) Not-as-Easy - Real Japanese:
I sometimes use books in this category even though the language is challenging, to teach something related to a cultural topic. I have four guidelines that can help this activity to work:
One book I read from the Manga Nihon Mukashi Banashi series (Kodansha 1986) is “Juunishi no Yurai.” We read this as part of learning about traditions associated with the New Year’s Season in Japan.
C) Super-Easy - Self-Made Materials
I sometimes make kamishibai style picture boards with text written on back in order to provide students with additional examples of understandable language. In particular, I use this activity to present contextualized applications of a sentence pattern. The “stories” may only be 6 or 8 pages and may take only 2 or 3 minutes to read. I may read them more than once or have students say them or fill in missing words after a first or second reading. Examples of these are “Kouen De” which uses the te imasu pattern to describe ongoing activity and “Teeburu ga Arimasu” which describes objects in a picture. Simplicity and repetitive language make these books effective language tools.

Puppet Shows
First of all, I think I should mention here that any potentially silly or childish activities that you might consider using in your classroom should be introduced within the first day or two - before the students know you well enough to complain about it and before they have formed firmly established ideas about what may or may not take place within your classroom. On my first day of class, I always take attendance first with my puppets (I use the term “puppets” loosely as this also includes my photo boards of some “Deai” high school students) (thanks, Japan Forum!). The puppets then introduce themselves to the class and before the students know what hit them, we sing a Hajimemashite Song. That firmly establishes silliness as OK.
To continue, my puppet shows are very much like my use of other super-easy, self-made books. I use puppet shows to provide students with additional comprehensible language - often highlighting specific vocabulary or a sentence pattern. In addition to the self-introduction of all the puppets on Day One, other examples include: “Inu and Usagi Attend a Taste-Test” (oishii desu, mazui desu), “Inu and Sensei Discuss Wakeup and Bedtime,” and “Kanta Introduces His Family.”

4) Logical - Mathematical Intelligence
I have a very strong opinion on the use of grammar and “ALM (Audio-Lingual Method) Style” grammar-oriented substitution drills. Here it is: Even in a communicative classroom, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having students learn grammar rules! As long as learning grammar doesn’t become the final language goal, this is simply another one of many tools in your bag of tricks. In terms of multiple intelligences, the manipulation of words as symbols within sentence patterns will have strong appeal to the logical-mathematical thinkers. In addition, they will find it very handy and fun to learn a sentence like “I love pizza” and then, through simple noun substitutions, create sentences like “I love video games” or “I hate school” to express their truer feelings. That said, I want to add the following comments:
a) I have a strong, personal preference for giving students the opportunity to figure out the rules themselves before telling them explicitly. For example, when the aim question is “How do you express your wakeup time and bedtime?” and the students already know how to tell time, I may give a puppet show where Inu asks me what time I get up and then, what time I go to bed. After the show, I have the students tell me what they heard and deduce the rule for expressing what time you do something: time + ni + verb of action. Then, I let students enjoy making new sentences using this pattern. We made this one recently: “At 10:00 I watch South Park.”
b) Don’t overdo it unless you know you have a class that enjoys it. Many students will find this boring. When I taught Japanese in a Special Ed. 7th grade classroom, this was the first tool I threw away. The students were enthusiastic and responsive with real communication but got totally perplexed when the conversation shifted “meaninglessly” from one pattern to another.

5) Interpersonal Intelligence
Data Collection and Data Reporting
Example #1: By around the third week of school, my first year Japanese students have finished Unit One. They have learned basic greetings, self-introductions, and some useful classroom language. They know how to address each other using name + san. They can say, “Sumimasen, (name) san desu ne?” to confirm a name if they aren’t sure and they can ask, “Onamae wa?” if they really don’t know.
Now we move into Unit Two - Math Master. Students learn numbers, arithmetic, and telephone numbers and they learn to ask “Sumimasen ga denwa bangou wa?”
Our first “data collection and reporting” activity requires that students move around the classroom and, using Japanese only:
Part 1 - Data collection:
Address, confirm or ask name, ask and then write down phone number, repeat and confirm the phone number, say thank you. Reverse roles.
Part 2 - Reporting:
After collecting 10 phone numbers, students will still have many unknown numbers. So, after returning to their seats, students will alternately report the numbers they have written down using “A-san no denwa bangou wa xxx-xxxx desu” and participate in a listening comprehension activity filling missing number telephone numbers onto their sheets.
Comments:
  1. Interacting with other classmates to exchange real information is probably a favorite activity for the majority of my students. However, it took 3 weeks to prepare students for this first, relatively simple activity. In other words, this type of activity is a favorite but never a first activity. Many other preparatory activities, drills, and modeling are required before students can really negotiate this successfully in the target language.
  2. In terms of the National Standards, this activity addresses all three areas of communication. “Data collection” requires shorter utterances and allows for interaction and negotiation of meaning. (Standard 1.1) “Reporting” requires longer utterances, as the topic “A-san no denwa bangou wa” must be stated each time. (Note: While older textbooks might teach a similar “watashi no denwa bangou wa” for the first activity, many teachers who prefer more natural-sounding language would not feel comfortable with such “textbookish” style. They will welcome this second activity which teaches a fuller sentence pattern in a more natural application.) The reporting requires presenting information without opportunity for negotiation of meaning. (Standard 1.3) It also requires understanding and interpretation of language without opportunity for negotiation of meaning for the listeners. (Standard 1.2)
  3. For classroom management and closure, the reporting part of this activity pulls it all together.
  4. As student skills increase, this activity can become increasingly complex. As data collection becomes more complex, I generally prepare a “matrix chart” sheet (see Example #2 below) and students then only fill in the boxes. That also makes reporting much easier. Using graphic organizers such as a matrix chart for data representation will appeal to visual learners.
  5. To avoid the confusion of students wandering freely through the class, a similar activity can be done at the blackboard. This will not be as strong at targeting interpersonal strengths. The use of a graphic organizer chart adds a strong visual component to the activity. (See Example #2)
Example #2: “Gokyoudai Imasu Ka”
Students have learned names for family members, they have learned the verb forms “imasu” and “imasen,” and now they have just learned counters for people. In this activity, the aim question is “How do we talk about and report on family members?”
A five-column matrix chart can be quickly drawn on the blackboard. Students can then fill in information as shown below:





Teacher begins and models: Jenny san, gokyoudai imasu ka.
Jenny: Hai, imasu.
T: Oneesan wa nannin imasu ka.
J: Hitori imasu.
T: Imouto-san wa?
J: Hitori imasu.
T: Oniisan wa?
J: Imasen.
T: Otouto-san wa?
J: Otouto mo imasen.

As Jenny answers, I enter her responses onto the chart on the blackboard. Next, Jenny comes up to the blackboard, asks questions and fills in responses for a second student, Michael. (Alternatively - the teacher can continue to ask the questions and have the class repeat the questions in unison while the student at the blackboard only fills in Michael’s answers. After several rounds as the questions become more familiar, the student at the blackboard can be expected to both ask the questions and fill in the answers.) The activity continues with each answerer becoming the next questioner. After several rounds, ask the class to report using the gathered data.
“Jenny san wa oneesan ga hitori imasu. Imouto-san mo hitori imasu. Oniisan to otouto-san wa imasen. Michael san wa oneesan mo imouto-san mo imasen. Oniisan ga hitori imasu. Otouto-san wa imasen.”
Comments:
  1. Student answers can be somewhat open-ended but will be limited to what they have learned. Establish in advance the language pattern for reporting data in unison to avoid confusion.
  2. I also have used this activity for exchanging information on birthdays, wakeup and bedtime, favorite activities, family pets, opinions about beans at Setsubun (oishii, maamaa, oishikunai), etc.
6) Intrapersonal Intelligence
This is probably an intelligence that we target the least within the classroom. That is to be expected as this is a very personal, not group-oriented, style of learning. Activities that appeal to the intrapersonal learner are self-paced and self-chosen, scrapbooks and journals, reflections and memoirs. An example of an activity that taps intrapersonal intelligence is the Self-Introduction Manga:
If you could meet anyone, alive or dead, real or fictional, who would it be? Imagine that you are meeting that person for the first time. How do you feel? Now suppose you have to greet each other - in Japanese!
Draw a cartoon of your first meeting. In the cartoon “speech bubbles” write the three-line Japanese self-introduction that we have been studying in class.

Conclusion

When I first learned about the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning, more than anything it seemed to be an overwhelmingly large list of things to do, categorizing my inadequacies in the classroom into five categories and eleven subsections. Later, when I took a wonderful class on creating thematic units, I was ready to succumb to that same sense of despair. But the teacher told us, “Don’t try to suddenly transform your entire curriculum into thematic units. It takes far too much time and effort; you’ll go crazy trying. Aim to create just one new unit per school year.” That calmed me down considerably. I followed her advice and now my curriculum is primarily thematic unit based... and the units incorporate a significant number of the National Standards!

If you are a new teacher, the list of multiple intelligence and the variety of activities that can be created to target those intelligences may seem equally daunting. But if you have reached this part of my paper, that surely indicates your sincere interest in this topic.
So my suggestion: Choose one intelligence that you feel is not being addressed in the classroom. Then choose one activity that targets that intelligence. Play with it until you can incorporate it into a class lesson. Get comfortable with it and apply it in other lessons as well before trying another new type of activity. Try to add one or two new activities to your bag of tricks each year. I sincerely hope that you have found something useful here and that both you and your students will enjoy the benefits.

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