A Term in School

A Term in School

Self-Assessment  (September 2008 – March 2009)

Barry Crisp

This self-assessment is entirely composed mainly for the purpose of my own reflection of my teaching experience and development. It is imperative that I catalogue the progress of my teaching in order to improve without forgetting all that which I have done previously. Experiences are best remembered, embraced and learnt from. My experience at my previous school both good and bad had prepared me well for the six and half months spent at XXX Junior High School.

Below you will find my self-assessment broken down into several mini sections for easy reading. I have tried to cover the core bulk of the thoughts circling around in my mind.

10 Reasons to learn a foreign language

Upon introducing myself to students at each class, I presented them with a sheet of paper listing 10 reasons why one should learn a foreign language. I grabbed several of the reasons from the Internet and added a few to the list myself. Knowing that this comprehensive list would be difficult to understand, I had it translated into Japanese by a good friend of mine.  I scanned over the reasons with students, but left the bulk of the content to the pleasure of their own reading.

I felt compelled to write up this list because of my experience at my previous school where by many students seemed to lack purpose or simply not given beneficial reasons as to why they should learn English (or any other foreign language) other than for High School Entrance Examinations. I am delighted to say that my small document received positive feedback from both the students and English teachers.

http://gurugurujapan.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/10-reasons-to-learn-a-foreign-language/

Barry’s English Point System

Knowing that some students need a little push or incentive to learn English, I decided to create an English Point System for each grade. The initial rules for the point system were as follows:

• Only gold and silver stickers given by Mr. Crisp count as a point
• Stickers are rewarded for positive participation in class during activities and communication
• Extra points will be given to any student who wishes to write English compositions (of any length) as self-homework
• Students who reach 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 sticker points will each receive an English certificate
• At the end of the second term, the top three students from each grade with the most stickers will each receive a small gift

The point system worked almost immediately with students who were at first very reluctant to demonstrate, ask and answer questions in class, but whom suddenly began taking an active role whilst at the same time dramatically improving their English ability. Before long, I started to receive more than a dozen diaries and English practice notebooks for marking. Some wrote about their daily lives, others introduced their favourite comic characters and a few wrote about some of the environmental problems around the world. Needless to say, I gave students the opportunity to express and develop their English thoughts and abilities, which had not been given to them before. I really enjoyed marking the diaries, especially those with photographs and drawings. Many students achieved over one hundred points, with a third grade student obtaining a remarkable 320 points.

20 points = Yellow certificate, 40 points = Green, 60 points = Blue, 80 points = Silver, 100 points = Gold (from the hyaku-en shop). The colours repeated in the same order for 120 points and over, but I also wrote a quote related to learning at the back of each certificate, while changing the content of the certificate a little. For 220 points and over, I created an updated version of the certificate, used the same colour code but also gave bookmarks (from the “Loft” shop). For 320 points and over I simply gave students essays for pleasure reading about world culture.

After a while, I started to make students work a little harder in class in order to receive stickers because they became more focused and were no longer only participating in order to receive stickers. This was also due to other factors such as team teaching, which I will talk about later.

The overall nine winners each received an English goody bag, which I presented to them during a school assembly. This probably makes me one of the few ALT’s (if any) to stand up on stage, call out student names, and give awards to students (just like the principle and vice principle do). I was honoured to be able to do this in front of the school, and it was nice for the students to be rewarded for their hard work in English lessons in front of their peers.

Black History Month

The month of October in the UK is most popularly known for Halloween, but also known as Black History month, and I therefore thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity to introduce to the students some wonderful achievements by black people (in particular, African-Americans). I created a poster (with images and text) of some fine achievements and inventions. The students were amazed at the poster and were interested to know more. I was avalanched with questions in relation to racism, politics, sports players, musicians, slavery and so on. The poster was created in both English and Japanese (translated by my darling wife). I also thought it was wise to state when, where and why Black History month started.

As well as the ’10 reasons to learn a foreign language’ document, I gave a copy of the poster to each teacher in the teacher’s room (including the head teacher, deputy head teacher, receptionist, etc), as well as making a larger copy for the English room. I received positive feedback and interest from several teachers.

Typical British Christmas Dinner

Prepared for and already used at my previous school, but slightly updated for 2008 was another chance to let students know what a typical British (well at my house at least) Christmas dinner is, and how I used to spend Christmas back in England as a child. This time I included my five favourite Christmas films and songs. On the backside was a Christmas word search, which students did while listening to a compilation of Christmas songs, which I put together. It proved to be a fun lesson.

English Room

Luckily, XXX JHS has an English room, which proved to be a welcome refuge to escape the teacher’s room from time to time. Though at the same time I immediately recognised the room had potential to be used (as it was literally abandoned), and so with the help of one of the English teachers and several second grade students (during their cleaning time) we were able to transform the English Room into a lively space for studying.

We went through the painful operation of fixing all the desks and chairs so that they were all on the same level, cleaned out old stuff, put up new curtains and changed light bulbs. I took down all the old posters that looked like they had been there for a decade at least, and then printed out and created new content for the boards and walls, which included the following:

• Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)
• Personalities (Cool, funny, smart, etc…)
• Greetings (How are you? I’m fine, etc…)
• England & Jamaica (introducing British and Jamaican culture)
• Save Our Planet (easy to understand eco-friendly advice and games)
• Invent a Super Hero Posters (‘I, he, she can…’ content created by students during class activity. I selected eight of my favourite ones with good English)
• English Speaking Countries (Flags of countries where English is considered the first language)
• ABC (Abc chart)
• Calendar (Using unused calendars from the teacher’s room)
• Film/Movie Board (I collected small posters from a local cinema to create a colourful space, and wrote target language [conversations] for each grade level)
• World Map (using one of the world maps and placing it at the front of the class for use during lessons)

It was hard work, but it felt great to use my free time productively. After the English Room was cleaned and nicely decorated, I recommended that it be used for English lessons for first graders (second and third grade often use it for their selective English lessons), as it would allow the students to be enveloped in an English learning and fresh environment to revitalise their English learning focus. It worked! Student’s loved getting out of their home-room classes and studying in the English room. It raised the attention and productiveness of one class in particular, who were previously very difficult to teach for many reasons.

School Events & Photography

School events provide a wonderful opportunity to mingle with students and teachers and always remind me of the beauty of Japanese culture. The two main events are Sports Day and the Singing Contest. The singing contest in particular made the hairs on my skin stand up – such beautiful harmonious songs from each grade and of course us together as teachers. I arrived at this school in September, when everybody was preparing for Sports Day, so I was able to talk with many students and form a good relationship before official English classes started.

Knowing that I was going to participate in several student-teacher races, I decorated myself with my Arsenal kit (which I always wear with pride) and my Jamaican sweatband, which prompted a lot of interest by the students, especially at a time when the Olympics had ended and Usain Bolt rocked Beijing and the world with his lightening quick feet (later bettering both his world records in Berlin, 2009). I helped as much as I could in preparing for Sports Day, and when the wonderful day finally arrived, I decided to take my camera to snap a dozen or so photos. It also gave me an opportunity to test out my new camera using the far-ranged lens in sports mode. After the event was finished I uploaded the photos I had took onto the school’s computer and left a note for teachers giving them the opportunity to put them onto their CD or USB sticks. Many of the teachers were impressed with my photography, and so I was asked to take photos during the schools next big event, the Singing Contest and the Graduation Ceremony.

Music & Dance

Music and dance are integral art features in my life and I wanted to bring my passion for both music and dance to the students. Luckily, one of the English teachers was willing to take a gamble on letting himself and I do some dancing as a warming down to several of our lessons. The students really enjoyed it a lot and really appreciated being taught some simple and very funny dance moves. In addition to dance, I introduced the use of music into my lessons (Reggae, UK Rock, Japanese, Christmas songs, old classics from Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Jazz etc…).  I used it as a warm up to see how many English words students could hear, and also as a timer for worksheet activities like word search, crosswords, and so on. Later, I would going to create ‘Musical Imagination’, where by students listen to music from around the world for two minutes and then by using their imagination write down what they could see (in their imaginations) and what they felt.

School Club

Participating in school clubs actively as well as teaching purposefully were both equally important roles for me, I felt. The English lesson schedules are rather random at this school and so because of this, I sometimes did not get to meet many of the students. Rainy days meant I could walk around and talk with students in art, music/brass band, handicraft, judo, kendo, table tennis, basketball and badminton. However, when the weather was nice, I could go and talk with the baseball, softball, tennis, joggers, and football students.

Being the football fanatic that I am, I naturally spent most of my time with the football team. We always had a good laugh and joke about, but also the level of the students at this school is very good, so playing training matches was always interesting. I did a lot of football training when I was in my teenage years, and so I tried to pass on any useful advice to the students when possible.

Teacher-Teacher Relationship

The teacher-to-teacher relationships are always the most challenging. Meeting them for the first time is kind of like a blind date, do you just simply be yourself to begin with? On the other hand, do you try to be reserved in some sense? At my last school, I experienced both the fantastic and devilish characteristics of the Japanese. It was a most rewarding experience that allowed me to strike the balance between assertiveness, tolerance and submission when interacting with Japanese people.

With two of the teachers (second grade), I was nothing more than a spectator during class time. I was not asked to read from the textbook, make activities or anything challenging (although I presented many possible activities and games). At most, I did the occasional warm up. My time during these lessons, which was few in comparison to the first and third grade schedule, was spent walking around the class checking students’ workbooks and notebooks. As a cure for the sleepy eye kicking-in during these lessons, I would write notes in preparation for future lessons and think of new warm-up activities and games. I wanted to use my time productively, no matter the situation.

This I felt was a positive approach to take instead of being disgruntled with the teachers and challenging their reasons for not using me effectively in class. Considering that a negative incident did not occur between these two teachers (in fact our communication was great outside of class) and me, I concluded that they lacked in self-confidence in teaching the ‘wild’ second graders. Second grade is no joke I have learnt; they are the most difficult of all grades. In a strange way, I guess they did not want me to receive the same rudeness (from students) that they were getting at times. The best I could do was smile and talk with the teachers to let the teachers know that I am supporting them.

For first graders I had the freedom to exercise and experiment as much as possible, and the teachers put a lot of trust in me. I was glad.

I am often told that my strengths rest in communicating, analysing and understanding others. I will call it my sixth sense then. A most precious attribute growing up in London. On a couple of occasions one of the English teachers (male, late twenties) complained to me about being more professional in the sense that I should spend more time with him to prepare for lessons. His argument was void from the moment the words skimmed the interior of his lungs simply because he and I spent the most time together preparing for lessons, laughing and joking, and so on. Instead of arguing back, letting it bug me, or mentioning it to my company, I simply stated to him that he was being unfair because of the reasons mentioned above, and asked him what was wrong.

Being that I am younger than him, a male, not one of the Japanese teachers, and the fact that we get on fantastically as teachers and mates in the school, I am the only one that he could let his frustration and stress out on. Yes, I was his wonderful verbal punch-bag. Well, this was my conclusion at least. On both occasions, he apologised afterwards, and smiles and laughter were all around again. Problem solved.

Teacher-Student Relationship

I believe I struck a great balance with all students. I gave equal attention to all students (both foreign and native), spoke to shy and withdrawn ones, mingled with the ‘bad boys and girls’, and the so-called ‘bookworms’. During lessons, I was always very professional. ‘Joke’ when joking, ‘perform’ when demonstrating, and ‘stop’ when students became too noisy. I have a simple method in keeping a good level of respect in my English lessons.

During my first few lessons (when some students became distracted), I gave the students the ’10 Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language’ document and set down only one rule (translated nicely by each teacher).  ‘If you do not like English, it is ok, but please do not disrupt the lessons for other students’. It is easy to notice which students are interested in English from the start, but a teacher must be professional in his/her approach. I am here to teach those who want to be taught, and make classes interesting enough for others to bear it. I understand their feelings because I had to study French (no option) when at school and I did not like it the slightest for I had no reason or future ambition to use French. A trip to Paris on my honeymoon soon slapped that one back in my face. You have to love the French!  Refuse to speak English to a Brit even if they can.

I told them about my French learning experience, but added that although I saw no use for it, I did not disrupt the class and I did try to study and understand the language in a stress-free manner (which is to say if you understand then great, if not then do not worry for support is on hand). Most students I am delighted to state responded positively. In the case that students became too noisy or excited during lessons, I simply smiled and waited for them to be quiet. I saw no use in getting angry or frustrated, after all, we were all once little tigers with the same spirit. Besides, the students that want to study and the class prefects get annoyed on my behalf. Peer to peer management always works best. This method I believed rubbed off onto the English teachers I worked with, but of course, them being Japanese, they enjoy getting angry and having a good shout from time to time.

The English points system helped to develop my teacher-student relationships because it gave students an added opportunity to meet and talk with me. The two most effective methods of learning that I introduced to my lessons (and which the English teachers adopted) were drama role-playing, and boy-girl practice and presentations. These helped to brake down barriers, and promote peer-to-peer development and communication, as well as boosting confidence in using English in the presence of their peers.

Conclusion

I learnt a lot from one teacher in particular because he wanted to be the best teacher of English as much as possible, and therefore he was constantly pushing himself and me at the same time. This was good because I was kept on my toes and from falling into a standardised teaching routine. I firmly believe that I tried my best in everything I did in relation to preparing for and teaching English and my reward is that I feel my teaching skills and focus has improved a great deal. There is always room for improvements, but for now, I am satisfied with my own steady progress to becoming a better teacher of English.

Barry Crisp