ACET (Association of Children’s English Teachers)

Many thanks to all those who attended on Sunday, 12th July 2009. We were shown a nice range of activities suitable for preschool, elementary and junior high students.

It was good to have Nigel back as MC. He warmed up with “Under the Sea”, by Genki English, using his very special “cubes”, as shown(different topic) a few meetings ago by Yoriko. She kindly posted details of her link here.

Once again thanks to Richard Graham (his version of “Under the Sea”) for already sharing the above video on his Youtube page. Video courtesy his wonderful new Apple 32Gig 3G’S’ iPhone that everyone must want…nice!

Yoriko presented some ways to teach “What can you see under the sea?” using classic obscuration techniques to draw the kids interest. That seaweed looked rather oishii, and the porthole looked rather fun too, in a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea kind of way. She used the under the sea Genki English flash cards and also prepared her own photo flashcards, a nice bit of variation and extra vocab.

Nori?

Mami showed a simple but effective math game using playing cards (trumps). The numbers ace to 10 are 1 to 10, but Jack = 11, Queen=12, King =13. The deck is shuffled and divided in two. Each team takes 2 cards, and the first team to add/subtract/multiply the numbers together correctly wins their 2 cards(or was it all 4 cards) . The team with the most points(or was it cards) wins. Lots of scope for varying the rules with this game, plus it is naturally nice and speedy!!

Noriko presented a number of activites including, phonics othello (a winner), the sit down game, the outline details of which may be found here at Genki English. Thank you Richard!! One of the other activities was a chant to practice adverbs of frequency, and Richard made the point that we ought to be careful that the rhythm matches the words – something about how the major word stress should fall on the first beat of the bar. Please could you elucidate further on this point if you read this, Richard

Noriko then showed us how to combine the adverbs with the verbs she used for the sit down game into a form of white board othello. The verb flashcards go along the top (in the squares) and the adverbs go down the side.

Seeing the “What can you see?” question on the whiteboard made me think – maybe you could use “What do you usually see [at the seaside/on the way to school/at school]?” as the heading, and play this game. Just an idea…

Emi read Stone Soup, a very old story based on several European fables. She was using quite a plain book, so she prepared her own flashcards, especially for the food. She put these on  the whiteboard each time a new food was introduced to the story. At the end of the story the soup is made, and the kids get to put the food into the soup pot, a circle on the whiteboard. Richard suggested getting the kids in a circle, they become the pot. Finally, if you are a proper, caring English teacher, you make the soup and bring it in for the kids(joking!), but I understand Emi and an number of other members have actually done this, and they promise that it is quite delicious!

Craig read “The Aliens Are Coming” by Colin McNaughton , a BRILLIANT possible Halloween book. He asked one of the children present to point to the eye ball, planet, etc, finally point to the poo poo. She loved it. Interactive, fascinating and funny. Craig noted that as with all reading to students, this is a great opp to introduce abstract language not often covered in the classroom. How exactly do you answer the question “What is ‘outer space’?” I wonder? Thanks again for the video Richard.

Aug 10 ACET Beer Garden Party, RSVP.

There won’t be a workshop next month (Boo!), as, as usual, it is “Summer Vacation”. Hurrah! However there might be “ACET Beer Garden”, proposed by Miki to be held on August 10. RSVP to acet-fukuoka@hotmail.com. Thanks again to Miki for the amazing banana and zucchini bread, and the freshly brewed coffee. What a star!

The next meeting will be on Sunday, Sept 13 2009 at 1.30pm at AMIKAS. The theme will be “Halloween”. Bring Halloween songs, games and activities to show. Check out this page on YouTube songs, Genki’s “Apple Bobbing” and “Trick or Treat songs”. Next MC: Yoriko. Book: Miki. Activity: Me(Jon). Party and craft ideas welcome. 2009 officers election will also be held.