Or should the title read teaching the superlative and comparative forms of good and bad? Anyway I thought I'd share this gem of an idea for teaching the various forms of good and bad.

I was in a company class on Tuesday morning working my way through the assigned business English text Quick Work from Oxford University Press. I quite like the textbook as it has a European feel to it and the language doesn't get too tied up in the usual American business jargon that dogs other texts.

Anway I was trying to get them to grasp the comparative and superlative forms of good and bad, and at 8AM in the morning that isn't an easy task, when I came up with this:

Give each student a piece of paper and ask them to draw the popular Japanese children's anime character Doraemon. If you're in Japan all your students will know this character (if outside Japan you'll have to choose soemthing else!)


Chances are, if it's like the class I tried it in, most students will make an absolute hash of the drawing creating giggles all round. This is the beauty of the idea in that now we can use 'his is better than hers', 'hers is worse than his', 'this is the best' and 'this is the worst'.

And I'll bet that whenever they need to use the comparative or superlative of good and bad they'll think back to the time they drew Doraemon.

I think the Halloween bug has really bitten me this year...I've just put together a new set of Halloween themed flashcards that I then printed, cut, trimmed and then laminated, cut and trimmed; twice! As I wanted a set of cards that I could use for playing 'Memory' and 'Go Fish!', so duplicates are a must.

Was quite time cosuming but hopefully they'll last a good few years.

The link to the Halloween flashcards will appear here, when I get the chance to upload it!

It's that time of year when the ETJ expos set up shop across the length and breadth of Japan.
So if you're looking for presentations on teaching adults, children, junior/senior high, reading, communication, the Internet, business, exam preparation etc then this is a must do event. You'll also find displays from all the major ELT publishers as well as having tyhe chance to purchase ELT materials at discount.

The venues and dates for the expos are as follows:

Chugoku ELT Expo Oct. 19th (Sun) 9:30~18:00
Machizukuri Shimin Koryu Plaza (Hiroshima)

Chubu ELT Expo Oct. 26th (Sun) 9:30~18:00
Chukyo University (Nagoya)

Kansai ELT Expo Nov. 16th (Sun) 9:00~18:00
Seifu High School (Osaka)

Tohoku ELT Expo Nov. 23rd (Sun) 9:00~18:00
Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University (Sendai)

Tokyo ELT Expo + TEL Book Fair Nov. 29th (Sat) 9:00~18:30 & Nov. 30th (Sun) 9:00~18:30
Toyo Gakuen University (Bunkyo-ku)

Kyushu ELT Expo Dec. 7th (Sun) 9:00~18:00
Seinan Gakuin University (Fukuoka)

For more details visit the Expo website at:
www.eltnews.com/ETJ

Time just seems to slip through my hands...hence the lack of updates to this blog over the summer months, apologies.

Well there's no mistaking Halloween is just around the corner. I swear that Japan seems to be going in more and more for Halloween with each passing year.

Although it's not just Japan I read an article last year the spending on Halloween had increased exponentially in the last five years or so. Which figures because when I was a child growing up in the UK Halloween barely registered on the event calendar. We were all much more interested in Bonfire Night, as that meant we could let off fireworks in the weeks leading up to November 5th. It also meant taking part in trying to build the biggest bonfire in the neighbourhood. The only elements of Halloween I can remember are carving out a swede (kind of hard turnip) sticking a candle in it and having the smell of burning turnip fill the air; I'd never saw a real pumpkin until I was in my late teens!

Anyway I digress, reluctantly I've come to accept Halloween as an important event that our students seem really keen to celebrate. And, hey, if more kids in the UK now celebrate Halloween over Bonfire Night, then I suppose I'd better move with the times.

So over on our Halloween page you'll find some games and activities for your lessons. Also today I put together a really simple Halloween Dominoes game for you to print-out, cut and play with your students. The great thing with dominoes is that the game play is so simple that it can be used with students aged 3 to 10 and needs very little explanation.

You can download Halloween Dominoes here.

Halloween Dominoes (PDF 356KB)

Recently I've become very interested in e-learning or to put it more simply 'using computers to study English'. While the role of a teacher is irreplaceable, in my opinion, for practising the language, it's the time outside of lessons that I'd like to see students using English more. Of course in a setting such as Japan the chances to use English outside of their 45 minute lesson per week are extremely limited.
So if you're going to encourage students to do something that uses English outside of class time it better be fun. Hence here at englishpool I'm forever creating dices/ spinners/ cut and paste sheets etc. for our younger learners to take home and play with.
As computers, or multiple computers, become more commonplace in our students homes I'd like to direct the students towards various educational programs that may complement their studies with us.
One such site, as shown in the screen shot above, is Mingoville. It revolves around a community of flamingoes and has a list of tasks, dictionary, notebook facility etc. While some of the reading may be beyond our students abilities it seems that most instructions/ games include voiced dialogue.
I've only played with it briefly but my first impression is that it looks like a lot of fun!

And best of all, it's free!


Get Mingoville