Preschool Travels - May 2004
Tuesday, 18th May 2004 - Suibara
My first visit of the year to Nisho Kindergarten. The three year olds are just filing into the main hall as I come through the outside door. The timing is good. I haven’t seen the procedure before. Usually they are in the room waiting for me. I notice how they are being trained to walk in a train, one behind another with outstretched arms resting on the shoulders of the child in front. The lead child holds onto the arms of the teacher who is bent over and shuffling backwards. I catch up and move past them to dump my two large prop bags on the low stage at the front of the room.
Perhaps because they have just been on the move they are more curious about my presence. None of them are nervous and I start to go into the shoe routine. At Japanese Kindergartens it is usual to leave your outdoor shoes at the door. Slippers are usually provided for guests but I much prefer my own indoor shoes. The shoes are at the bottom of one of my bags and it is a genuine struggle to find them. Often the children wear their own indoor shoes. I enter the room without shoes and notice they are wearing shoes. I go around the class pointing at each child’s shoes, first one then the other, and say “Shoe!” Then I look at my own feet and say “No shoes!” I then reach into my bag and look for my shoes. I pull out a toy gorilla and act as if it is a shoe. I do this with a few more toys.
I like this indirect way of introducing vocabulary. By talking to myself, I can introduce items without directly teaching them. It is performance but it is more natural than direct teaching. By saying things like, “That’s not a shoe, it’s a gorilla!” I am giving them an opportunity to hear natural English. Some of them will start to pick up on the concept of “not” and by the time I get a real shoe out of my bag nearly all of them will know what the word “shoe” means.
I retrieve my shoes and I put them on. I put them on the wrong feet. Oops! I cross my legs so that now the shoes ‘look right’ and take a few steps. I take the shoes off and put them on again. I get it wrong. I ask the children if I did it right. I’m introducing the words yes and no.
Finally I get my shoes on the right feet and notice how long they are compared to those of the children. I could have focused on the concept ‘big’ but one of the children has said “nagai” (long), and it just so happened that I had my 5 metre steel tape measure handy.
So I got out the tape measure and measured a few feet. The children were beginning to crowd around me now. With the help of a teacher I pulled the tape out to its full length. I then changed themes and we did, Here, Here There. But I finished the lesson by singing Long, Short, Big Small. Usually I introduce the concepts of big and small before long and short but it seemed to go fine. None of the children cried and basically there was no nervousness at all.
The second class were a bit rusty. I was disappointed that when I asked them, “How are you?” the majority repeated the question back at me. So I did the How are you? song with them. I had my flutes with me again and played the traditional pigeon song for them. Once more I tried to introduce the idea of “oops”. The teachers picked up on it but not the children so perhaps the idea needs to be retired. Introducing the phrase “Be a…” was much more successful. We began with “Be a pigeon.” I then got the children to come up with other suggestions.
One thing that did work well, perhaps too well, was introducing the phrase “Go away!” One or two boys were saying “bye-bye” to me. I realised they wanted me to go so they could shout, “Come here!” This is often the first phrase I teach. So I gave them the phrase “Go away!” by telling one of the teachers present to go away. The whole class lapped it up. We had her coming and going and then it was my turn to go and come back and finally I told the whole class to go. They did this a couple of times. Unfortunately one child was knocked over and hurt a knee.
This is something I need to be more careful of. Avoiding a stampede is important. Nowadays, when asking the children to move I will say, “Walk there” or “Jump here!” Still, I often forget and the children often ignore requests to move slowly. I need to work on this. Especially important is for them to avoid pushing.
The third class was much the same as the second. Of interest was the way that they kept telling me what the weather was. I’d done How’s the Weather? with them last year and it obviously made an impression. I didn’t have the song with me or I would have done it. Something to do is to sit down and get all the songs I use onto the one CD. Wonder when I’ll get around to it.
Friday, 21st May 2004 - Shirone
For some reason I am nearly always late to this kindergarten and this time was no exception. As a result I got mixed up as to when each class started and finished and over ran the first two classes. Altogether, I taught approaching an hour and a half instead of the allotted hour. But I think the classes went pretty well.
I seem to be developing a good rapport with the three year olds. I found a new way of introducing the idea of ‘come here’. Sometimes in the past I’ve worked with a partner in the first class. In such cases I leave the room and my partner calls me back. The children are quick to pick this up.
Without a partner it can be tougher especially when doing it for the very first time when the children’s own teachers have no idea what to say. In such cases I make a lot of use of the Parrot Flag to preteach the phrase in the hope someone will say it. This usually works.
This time one of the teachers remembered the phrase from before, but the children didn’t catch on. One reason was because one girl was calling out ’saru’ (monkey). She wanted to see the toy gorillas I had juggled in the last class. I got one out of a bag. Then I had the idea of saying, “Goodbye Gorilla!” and putting it back in the bag followed by “Gorilla, come here!” I repeated this a few times. The children liked this and more of them latched onto to “Come here!” Still I’ve seen more children pick up the idea on other days.
It is so important to be sensitive and keep looking for what will work on any given day.
In the middle class one boy asked me, “What’s your name?” Usually I introduce the phrase, “Who are you?” and this some time after, “How are you?” But there was the question and I decided to go along with it. I also decided to use a line-up.
With line ups I think it works best if one of the children’s own teachers asks the question. The teacher uses a toy microphone and ‘interviews’ each child in turn. This allows me to wait at the back of the line and talk to the children who have had their turn. This is more flexible than being stuck at the front of the line asking the question but this time I was concerned that the question might be too much of a mouthful for the teacher to ask cleanly and also they wouldn’t know how to deal with the answers.
As much as possible I wanted to encourage the children to give just their given name rather than the usual Japanese style of family name first followed by given name. This is almost impossible for foreigners unfamiliar with Japanese names to understand, especially given the speed at which the name is rattled out.
About 30-40% gave just their given names. I hope this will double next time. The line up took quite a long time but I think was worth it. One or two children looked very uncertain and one boy in particular looked frightened. The fear of making a mistake contorting his face. I made a point of waving to him during the goodbye song. I think it did some good.
There are at least 60 children in the last class. When they sit in a circle they stretch all around the hall. They all want me to be near them and calls of “Come here!” are frequent.
I wanted to do a new activity. I said, “I’m hungry!” and held out my hand to a teacher. She immediately gave me something. I asked her “What is it?” and after a little perplextion she said, “apple” The floodgates were open. For the next five or six minutes I was tearing around the room asking for food. I was offered apple, cherry, lime, orange, watermelon, hamburger and unko. I ate them all except for the unko. The first time I spat it out. The second time I said “I’m not eating that!” The boys thought it was funny. I could have given them the English word, “poop” but didn’t think of it.
To some extent the English, “I’m hungry” “Do you have any food” “What is it?” was lost in the crescendo of offerings. Also I moved too fast. I don’t like watermelon and when one boy offered it to me I ate it and then made a face. This was confusing and disappointing for him, especially as he was sitting near the unko boys. Next he offered me lime and I ate that and then pulled a face, “Sour”, sour!” I said. I think he got the joke, but the idea of not liking a food was definitely lost.
This was my first time to get children to offer me imaginary food. It was a riot. The potential is huge. After a while I started refusing food. I wanted to move on to something else. I told everyone I was full and mimed having a tummy-ache. One boy then offered me some water (in English) and the children switched to drinks. Eventually I restored order by leaving the room and returning with a real glass of water I was able to get from the teacher’s room.
I’ve just had an idea for a song, so I’m going to go write it.