I have some students who lived in London or America for a couple of years and came back to Japan. It’s nice because I can have a bit more meaningful conversation with these children because they are speaking English, but at the same time it’s not. During class, when the HRT asks a question, since everyone knows they have a fluent English speaker, they just rely on that person to answer all the questions in English. These fluent kids also often look very bored during English class (and I don’t blame them because me too lol.)
I was thinking, maybe I can just give these kids something else to work on during English time so they can hone their English more and not get bored. I’m just not sure if this is okay or not.
So, how do you guys deal with a student who lived in an English speaking country and is now fluent?
24 comments
Tell them, your can bring a novel to read in class. At long as you do the work I ask all students to do. It’s ok.
Ask the teacher if you can have a “mini-lesson” with just the kid, which means you can tailor the lesson to the kid.
Additionally, make sure you’re speaking with them on a regular basis. They’re not in an English-speaking country now, and lack of practice will not be good for them, even if they’re “fluent”.
I had this in an elementary school, It was a bit tricky because I made some special worksheets for them focusing on grammar levels that they should be at but the homeroom teacher said that they should be involved with the other students, that whole “harmony” thing…
It’s frustrating that they are purposefully holding them back so that they will be learning at the same level as everyone else, but that’s Japan.
All I can say is it’s not your problem, those students are probably going to after-school programs that are more their level that the parents are paying for, I doubt they are relying on public school to keep their children’s English levels topped up.
In fact it could be the opposite, they want their children to learn Japanese because they have been deprived of it in the other country.
TLDR: don’t worry about it, just let them enjoy being the geniuses.
Ask them to find the grammatical mistakes in the textbook… always worked for me.
in Japanese schools the emphasis is on everyone receiving the same experience. So special lesson plans for some students won’t work. It doesn’t matter if these kids are way above the others, you cannot single them out for special treatment within a lesson… it’s not your problem that these kids are bored, you’re there to provide a lesson that all the students can follow. If it’s below the ability of some students (for whatever reason) it doesn’t matter. That’s outside of the scope you have been directed to teach.
Is your HRT always leading the class, or do you have time/classes to lead with activities at your own discretion? Your brief description of the class makes it sound pretty teacher-centered (which is to be expected because Japan), so activities that facilitate more student interaction (e.g, task based learning, communicative language teaching activities, etc) could help with the differentiation and benefit both the strong and weak students alike, but that doesn’t really help you if you don’t actually have the authority to implement such activities.
When I had native students, I found worksheets from America/UK that fit their English level to do while others were listening and asked them to help demo if I was stuck. That worked pretty well.
My daughter is one of them. I’m ES and she is so bored with doing things like numbers and “I like apples”. Or whatever. It’s hard as think about it , what if you were taking kindergarten level English while in high school or so? It’s be so easy, that’s it’s be hard to check out
I guess you’re an ALT, so there’s probably limits on what you can do, but I would use those strong kids as ‘leaders’ get them to set up activities, monitor group work etc. Kids like being treated like a grown up, and they’re still participating with others while doing something more challenging.
Give them a writing assignment or prepare a separate worksheet for them.
When I use to teach I made my worksheets have different levels to them and told students they had to try to get to step 2 for each section but there was also a step 3 for more eager kids and in the case of fluent ones I would add a step 4 to some parts.
Depends how much freedoms you have. I tend to implement a random point event in activities and games so the best and smartest groups don’t always win. Or I’ll have quizzes where no one will know the answer and they have to ask me and then relay learned info to teacher. Or I’ll make them do logic based games like 2 groups out of the 10 have to lie on their answers. So the other groups have to try to find the liar groups etc.
You could always teach a rare, fun word, like defenestration or forswunk. I personally follow Susie Dent, on Twitter, for cool words of the day.
Remember that these are students. 1) singling them out for a more level-appropriate side lesson could lead to bullying. 2) they may be loaded down with work in other topics, and not *want* a more level-appropriate experience.
Either way, talk to them about it on the side, before or after. Find out how *they’re* feeling, and proceed from there.
UDL – Multiple means of Representation
Get em to help teach. If that’s allowed.
Honestly I just talk to the kids privately and say hey sorry, I can’t really call on you that much because this is too easy for you, but even if the English is easy, just focus on the game part.
I design all my classroom games in a way that the winner is usually decided by a combination of luck/English skill, or just luck.
And when we do games in groups I try to rotate the groups around so that kid can join every group, because usually they are helpful in those situations.
Honestly I have never really had a problem, most kids are pretty cool if you speak to them like normal people one on one.
Been there done that, both as a teacher and as a dad of hafu kids. Unfortunately there`s nothing you can do. I`m assuming you are an ALT/JET? You have no authority to give them anything different to any other student. The only thing you can do is talk to the JTE as it is their class not yours. Just speak to them as much as you can in class, without disrupting the lesson and if you see them during lunch etc.
Talk to your handler or the HRT. It’s not your job you’re just an assistant. If the teacher doesn’t want to do more for these students it’s out of your hands.
Are you in a public school? Are you an ALT? In that case, there’s most likely very little you can do.
You could chat with them before and after class or you could try setting up some kind of English club at your school. But special worksheets, advanced classes, different activities for them only – forget it.
Their parents are failing them. My kids are fluent and I have them take that time and go to a room and study math, Japanese or for a subject that has a test coming up.
They still do the homework and tests. They just don’t need to be there during the regular classes.
Junior high here.
I always ask for “new faces” when I want a student to answer a question.
For the fluent students, I sometimes have them, as well as the already finished student, be little teachers during group activities, where they go around and help others.
For the lecture, I usually let them do their own things, especially since you don’t want them to get too much attention or else they’ll be bullied or feel too embarrassed.
Have them write something related to the topic and then give it to you. There will be something you can give them some feedback on and they get practice writing.
My advice is that whatever you do should be done only once the teacher and the administration has signed off. Once they’ve officially signed off you could do something