About Itoigawa English
Welcome to Itoigawa English Resources, a place where JTEs, English specialists, and ALTs can find plenty of information regarding English and Foreign Language education in the beautiful green city of Itoigawa. This website was made to help alleviate the stress we often feel when we can't think of an activity or lesson topic.The aim for Itoigawa Foreign Langauge and English classes are to develop skills that would allow for effective communication in English with both locals and non-locals as well as develop a cultural and social understanding of the world around them while forming and accepting an identity of what it means to be from Itoigawa.The main goal of lessons should not be memorization or strict understanding of language but instead focus on being able to express oneβs opinions, feelings, and ideas by using the English learned in class. Grammar and vocabulary should be learned not through translation but through activities and exercises that effectively utilize these points by creating realistic situations where they might be used. It is encouraged and recommended to cooperate with other schools to assist in the recreation of these situations.
About the Characters
Welcome to Itoigawa English Resources, a place where JTEs, English specialists, and ALTs can find plenty of information regarding English and Foreign Language education in the beautiful green city of Itoigawa. This website was made to help alleviate the stress we often feel when we can't think of an activity or lesson topic.The aim for Itoigawa Foreign Langauge and English classes are to develop skills that would allow for effective communication in English with both locals and non-locals as well as develop a cultural and social understanding of the world around them while forming and accepting an identity of what it means to be from Itoigawa.The main goal of lessons should not be memorization or strict understanding of language but instead focus on being able to express oneβs opinions, feelings, and ideas by using the English learned in class. Grammar and vocabulary should be learned not through translation but through activities and exercises that effectively utilize these points by creating realistic situations where they might be used. It is encouraged and recommended to cooperate with other schools to assist in the recreation of these situations.
Preschool and Kindergarten
About Preschool and Kindergarten
The aim of preschool and Kindergarten classes isn't to just learn a foreign language, but to share the world outside of Japan with children. ALTs will prepare short lessons with music, games, or even reading aloud.During these lessons, it is crucial to allow students to ask as many questions about foreign language and foreign culture as possible. While some of these questions may be uncomfortable or inappropriate, it's important that ALTs answer these questions as to allow preschoolers and kindergarteners to understand that while foreigners may look and speak differently, they share more in common with Japanese people than they might think.The preschool or kindergarten and the ALT should discuss the lesson at least one week before the day of the lesson. Things such as what to prepare, how long the lesson will be, how many students, etc. should be discussed during then.When preparing lessons for preschool, please keep in mind that most if not all preschools will not have a monitor available for use. Especially in bigger schools, it is difficult to show all students a video from a smaller screen such as an iPad or laptop. It is recommended that you prepare a CD or speaker as well as cards, posters, or other analog media to show during the song.
Recommended Lesson Topics
Sometimes, picking a topic is the hardest part of planning. Here are some recommended themes and songs. Click the image to go to Super Simple Song's website to learn how to teach each song.
Elementary School: 1st Grade
About 1st Grade
1st Grade has no curriculum. However, there should be a foreign language class when possible. The aim of 1st grade classes is not just to teach simple vocabulary and grammar, but start teaching students other aspects of the English language and the English classroom such as manners, sharing opinions, and following directions.
Activities and games should be planned together with the homeroom teacher and the ALT.
Recommended Songs and Topics
Sometimes, picking a topic is the hardest part of planning. Here are some recommended songs that can help you shape your classes.
Elementary School: 2nd Grade
About 2nd Grade
2nd Grade has no official curriculum. However, there should be a foreign language class when possible. In 2nd grade, students should continue building from the vocabulary learned in 1st grade and progress through more difficult activities.
Recommended Songs and Topics
Sometimes, picking a topic is the hardest part of planning. Here are some recommended themes and songs. Click the image to go to the Youtube video for a song. Activities and games should be planned together with the homeroom teacher and the ALT.
Elementary School: 3rd Grade
About 3rd Grade
3rd Grade uses Let's Try 1. This textbook aims to help students become familiar with foreign language through games, activities, and short projects. Lessons should allow for not just practicing the language but allowing for questions regarding the language or foreign culture. In 3rd grade, students should also start to understand Japan in relation to the rest of the world.There are nine units in Let's Try 1. Units 1 - 3 focus on understanding cultural differences around the world by showing things like gestures and counting. Units 4 and 5 are meant to help students express themselves openly and freely. Units 6 - 9 start building students' foundations in the English language, whether it's the alphabet or asking questions.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Elementary School: 4th Grade
About 4th Grade
4th Grade uses Let's Try 2. This book has students using much more English compared to Let's Try 1. The topics and projects focus on building a student's confidence in sharing about themselves as well as asking others about themselves. Building from 3rd grade, students should being to understand the importance of English as the global lingua franca while starting to develop a unique identity with the language.Like Let's try 1, here are also nine units in Let's Try 2. Unit 1 serves as a review of 3rd Grade English. Units 2 - 5 continue to build students' confidence in sharing about themselves as well as learning about their peers. Unit 6 - 9, continues to build a stronger lexical and grammatical foundation as the students' prepare for the more complex English in 5th grade.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Elementary School: 5th Grade
About 5th Grade
In 5th grade, vocabulary and grammar starts to become more difficult and students also begin to have more natural conversations as well as work on more in-depth projects. It is through these projects that students should start understanding their own identity as themselves and as a citizen of their town or city. They should then use this identity to begin to craft their unique way of using the English language.5th grade uses the New Horizon Elementary English Course 5. The book is broken into 3 sections: talking about oneself with others (3 units), sharing about one's local area (3 units), and introducing Japan (2 units). Each unit is broken into four parts:
1. Starting Out: a short story portrayed by the book's characters. This is used to share the goal and contents of the unit in a fun way.
2. Your Turn: activities that are meant to allow students to practice using the grammar and vocabulary.
3. Enjoy Communication: explains the project and its steps. It has practice before the final presentation.
4. Over the Horizon: showcases foreign culture. In NEW HORIZON 5, the videos follow non-Japanese people living in Japan and how they contribute to Japanese society and culture.
At the end of each book section, there is a reflection section called Check Your Steps. This reflection serves as a way for students to think about the things they learned in the previous units and combine that knowledge into one last final mini-project.Along with the textbook, students will also use the My Picture Dictionary. This dictionary will be used for both 5th and 6th years. Along with allowing students to create their own digital flashcards through QR codes, the dictionary also has blank spaces for students to be able to create their own vocabulary words.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Elementary School: 6th Grade
About 6th Grade
In 6th grade, students take the identity they create in 5th grade and begin to understand their role not just in Japan or their town but in the world. The English they learn will be used to further shape their identities as well as foster an understanding and respect of other countries' cultures.6th grade uses the New Horizon Elementary English Course 6. The book is broken into 3 sections: talking about countries of the world and their way of living (3 units), taking a deeper look at the globe (3 units), and introducing one's memories and dreams (2 units). Each unit is broken into four parts:
1. Starting Out: a short story portrayed by the book's characters. This is used to share the goal and contents of the unit in a fun way
2. Your Turn: activities that are meant to allow students to practice using the grammar and vocabulary.
3. Enjoy Communication: explains the project and its steps. It has practice before the final presentation.
4. Over the Horizon: showcases foreign culture. In NEW HORIZON 6, the videos follow Japanese people living in other countries and how they contribute to global society and culture.
At the end of each book section, there is a reflection section called Check Your Steps. This reflection serves as a way for students to think about the things they learned in the previous units and combine that knowledge into one last final mini-project.Along with the textbook, students will also use the My Picture Dictionary. This dictionary will be used for both 5th and 6th years. Along with allowing students to create their own digital flashcards through QR codes, the dictionary also has blank spaces for students to be able to create their own vocabulary words.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Junior high School: 1st Grade
About 1st Grade
JHS 1st Grade serves to review and build on the English learned in elementary school.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Junior high School: 2nd Grade
About 2nd Grade
In JHS 2nd grade, students begin learning and using more complex and difficult grammar.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
About JHS 3rd Grade
JHS 3rd grade has students learning and using practical English as they prepare to graduate and move on to the real world outside of the English classroom.
Unit by Unit
Let's go beyond the textbook. When planning for your classes, try to incorporate songs and activities outside of the book.
Phonics is the process of teaching reading and writing to students by helping them understand the relationship between the sounds of a language and how its written. Phonics needs to be taught to English learners due to the fact that a lot of the time words aren't pronounced exactly as they're read. So the questions becomes why is English spelling so hard?
English is a Germanic Language.
English is part of the Germanic language family. That means that we share a lot of vocabulary with other languages like German and Dutch.
| English | Dutch | German |
|---|---|---|
| water | water | Wasser |
| house | huis | Haus |
| Monday | maandag | Montag |
English pronunciation, however, changed a lot compared to their linguistic cousins. Take the word "knuckle" ("knokkel" in Dutch and "KnΓΆchel" in German). While all 3 languages write the "k" at the front, English is the only one that doesn't pronounce it (only sounding out the "n"). English often changes and drops sounds all the time, unlike other languages; but changes in writing move much more slowly. So, while the word is pronounced differently, the spelling remains.
The Norman Invasion and the Introduction of French
In the 1000s, the Normans invaded Britain and introduced French into the language. However, French became the language of nobility while Anglo-Saxon (an ancestor of English), remained the language of the common people. When English became the standard language for Britain, the languages were combined.
| German | English | French | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kuh | cow | bΕuf | beef |
| Schwein | swine | porc | pork |
| Blume | bloom | fleur | flower |
| Traum | dream | fantasmer | fantasize |
The French words that made it into English maintained their French spellings and that is true still today except in America. In the 19th century, Noah Webster, a teacher, noticed that his students were struggling to spell some of these French words because it didn't sound like how it was written. Eventually, he created a dictionary that changed these words to look more like how they're pronounced.
| Ameican English | British English |
|---|---|
| honor | honour |
| labor | labour |
| center | centre |
| theater | theatre |
| criticize | criticise |
| prioritize | prioritise |
| program | programme |
The Great Vowel Shift
From the 1300s to the 1700s, English went through a process of sound change called the Great Vowel Shift where all the vowels started to change. However, writing was already starting to be standardized and it was very difficult to change those spellings.
| Word | Middle English Pronunciation | Modern English Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| mice | mee-se | mais |
| house | hoos | hows |
| name | nah-meh | naym |
| doom | dohm | doom |
| light | leet | lait |
English is a Sponge
English is a language with around 40 unique sounds, making it really easy to absorb new words from other languages into its vocabulary. Even today, words from other languages are being used in modern English.
Japanese | Arabic | Indigenous Australia | Africa | Indigenous Americas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| otaku | alcohol | kangaroo | banjo | moose |
| futon | coffee | boomerang | ebony | avocado |
| soy | mask | billabong | chimpanzee | jerky |
| emoji | spinach | koala | safari | potato |
| zen | zero | Kylie | zombie | chocolate |
English is Unstandardized
There have been many attempts to try and create a global standard for English but they've all failed. This means that every country has their own pronunciations and spellings for words. While this can be seen as a problem by some, this can be relieving to others since there technically is no "proper" English.
While phonics can help with pronunciation practice, that is not the focus of teaching phonics. Phonics is meant to help students learn to read and spell out words. Remember that while American English is taught here in Japan, there are many sounds in the language that aren't found in Japanese and that can be incredibly frustrating for students. When teaching phonics, it's crucial to not pressure students to say things "with an English accent" but instead recognize the sound and associate it with a letter or set of letters.
Alphabet vs. Syllabary
English and Japanese could not be anymore different from each other and that includes their writing systems. Japanese hiragana and katakana works on a syllabary system: the name of the character is the same as its pronunciation.
The hiragana γ will always be pronounced as /a/ regardless of its position in the word.
The letter A, however, changes its pronunciation in relation to its location in the word as well as the letters surrounding it.
While there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, English consists of 44 unique sounds (though this differs betweens dialects), which combine in various ways to form over 15,000 possible syllables. This is one of the reasons why English is such a difficult language to study.
Jolly Phonics is a program that focuses on teaching students 42 sounds found in English. While phonics can start being taught in earlier grades, it's recommended that Jolly Phonics start in 5th grade. There should be at least one sound taught every week at the beginning or end of class. Every elementary school should have a copy of the γ―γγγ¦γΈγ§γͺγΌγγ©γγγ―γΉ teacher's book.Every sound is taught in 8 steps:
1. Review: a review of all previously studied sounds
2. Story: a short story that ties the sound to the action
3. Action: an explanation of to say the sound and do the action
4. Writing Practice: students write the letters on 4 lines
5. Listening Comprehension: students listen to the words and determine whether or not the word has the sound
6. Blending: students read words using all the sounds they learned
7. Dictation: students listen to a word and try to spell it out
8. Song: students sing a song while doing the action
By using Jolly Phonics, students can start developing a confidence in reading. Teachers are free to use the CDs provided by the teacher's book or with the powerpoints and worksheets provided in the Google Drive.
Try these Fonts instead!
(PW: eigolab-fonts)
(PW: eigolab-fonts)
(PW: eigolab-fonts)