Other Teaching Materials that I Created and Use

        Since I left my elementary school Japanese teaching position in 1999, I have been teaching mainly at the high school level. I also taught middle school Japanese for one year. During this time, I have consistently created and used my own teaching materials.
        My teaching style has changed from the topic-related style that appears in my book “Japanese for Elementary School Students” towards a thematic unit format. So far, I have written 14 thematic units for first or second year Japanese.
        Although my classroom lessons are generally rich with activities and realia, the accompanying unit text is somewhat dry though concise and functional as review material. There is no accompanying “teacher manual.” In addition, the units are specific to student interests and local activities. For these reasons, in spite of urging from some colleagues, I do not feel that my units would be easy for most other Japanese teachers to use and I have not released them for publication.
        Nevertheless, I do occasionally sell my thematic units, usually after workshops or presentations, to teachers who are familiar with my style and interested in the content. The titles and brief descriptions of these units are listed below. Please write to me if something grabs your interest and you would like additional information.

1) Let’s Begin (Hajimemashou) - basic greetings and useful classroom language, songs

2) Math Master (Sansuu no Tetsujin) - numbers 0 - 100, expressing arithmetic equations including fractions and negative numbers, phone numbers, kuku, origami, songs

3) Gather! Ghosts of the World! (Atsumare! Sekai no Obake!) - a comparative study of scary creatures from Japan, America and student heritage cultures, the religions of Japan, Japanese ukiyoe (woodblock prints), creating artistic representations of scary creatures from around the world, describing existence and location of creatures and objects in a picture, songs

4) Let’s Go Shopping at Mitsuwa (Mitsuwa e Shoppingu ni Ikou) - types of stores and restaurants and their goods, asking availability, location and price, “this” and “that,” shopping manners, reporting on what you bought, songs

5) Dear Penpal - (still under construction) expressing and asking age, birthdays, months and days of the month, related kanji, songs

6) Let’s Make a Calendar (Karendaa o Tsukurimashou) - numbers to 9,999, expressing the year, month, date, day, related kanji, Japanese and American holidays, birthdays, songs

7) Christmas and New Year’s Day (Kurisumasu to Oshougatsu) - holiday greetings, parts of the body, fukuwarai game, animals, juunishi - the Asian zodiac and its legend, songs

8) Three Japanese Holidays (Mittsu no Nihon no Gyouji) - Setsubun - the traditional New Year’s Eve, Hina Matsuri - the Doll Festival, Kodomo no Hi - Children’s Day, expressing and asking opinion, expressing admiration, understanding the historical relationship between Boys’ Day, Children’s Day and WWII, origami, songs.

9) In the Morning When I Wake Up (Asa Okitara) - telling time to the hour or half hour, describing morning routines, family, songs

10) A Spring Festival (Haru Matsuri) - talking about yourself, Japanese traditional crafts and activities, weather, haiku, teru teru bouzu, songs

11) What do You Do in School? (Gakkou de Nani o Shimasu Ka) - telling time to the minute, school subjects, school schedules, likes and dislikes, teachers, describing and evaluating, comparison of American and Japanese schools, songs

12) Spring Vacation (Haru Yasumi) - likes and dislikes, plans, expressing what you want to do, expressing sympathy, discussing what you did or didn’t do, descrbing and evaluating, songs.

13) The Prom - transportation, colors, clothing, price, friends, location and time, songs

14) African-Americans and Japan (mini-unit) - the first African-Americans in Japan, “The Bicycle Man” - African-American soldiers during WWII and the Occupation, Japanese rap and hip-hop today.