It was the first day of tadoku class this year yesterday. I've got to write down what I did before forgetting everything. I've been so forgetful lately, anyway...
One of the main goal this year is to use English as much as possible during the class. Until this year, I was reluctant to speak in English during the class because it takes so much time for the students to understand me and I have to speak again and again and extremely slowly, or some of them don't understand me. It's simply painstaking and time consuming, so I'd given up speaking English during the class besides with some students who are already fluent like returnees.
Then the government has released a new teaching guidelines for EFL recently and they encourage teachers to use English during all the English classes, so I thought there would be more teachers to use English even the school I work at and more students would feel comfortable to use English during the class. So I decided to speak whatever the chance I get in my class. I started to using English before starting class when they entered to the library room and gave instructions saying "please put your bags in the lockers and take your wallet and pencils with you to the room."
Since it was the first time for most of them to practice tadoku, I explained the basic ideas of tadoku or classroom rules in Japanese, them moved on to reading aloud session of a picture book. After that I walked around the room tried to speak to each one of them in English and had a chitchat. At the beginning of the class I emphasized that we're all here to make mistakes. I said, "If you were not likely to make any mistakes, then there is no need for you to come to school, to begin with. I myself is a learner of English just like you, so let's be proud of yourself making lots of mistakes and get as many chances as possible to be a better user of English." I guess the message somehow encouraged them int o speaking out in English and many of them didn't look so nervous or intimidating talking with me.
Here is the skeleton of the class yesterday.
・Greetings
・Rules for attendance(No chitchat in Japanese, welcome chitchat in English though. Put everything they used back where they should be. They're to write easy five sentences with more than five words in a notebook.)
・Activities(The first half of the class for a group activity and the last for individual activities.)
・Explanation about tadoku
・Read alound session; "It looked like spilt milk"
・tadoku ORT and FRL for beginners, books with CD for experiences ones
