Projects–Step Two Planning the Project This is Step Two of teaching with projects–How to plan a project To sum up, my previous post, this is where you should be: You have decided your project goal. If you are doing a group project, you probably have made project groups . You have decided the topic and, …
Category Archive: Education, learning, and teaching in Japan
May 13
Projects in Teaching and Learning, Step One–Setting Goals
Projects–Step One Setting your Goals and Making Groups Projects that accomplish specific learning objectives, also called project-based learning, is the best way to learn. I’ve been using projects for more than 10 years now, but what if you are just starting out and want to use projects in your teaching, but you really have no …
Jan 30
Stuck with an Awful Textbook? Tips for People Teaching in Japan
Are you stuck with an awful textbook in your English class? Here is what to do. First though, why do you have an awful textbook? The university, high school or whatever wants you to use it simply because they are not sure that you know what you are doing. In some cases, they also want …
Jan 23
Teaching in Japan, The English Center Test, Translation
This is my third article on the English Center Test. This time, let’s look at translation. Many English teachers in Japan feel that they need to translate English into Japanese, or that students need to translate the English in to Japanese. This has its uses, but they are few. This time, we will look at …
Jan 22
Japan Teaching, Grammar and the English Center Test, Part Two
We talked about grammar and the English Center Test in the last post. We saw that in the first section we looked at, Part 2, Section A, that what looks like grammar questions, are in fact, testing usage. They do not test grammar. Next, I will look at the only section that really requires that …
Jan 21
Teaching in Japan, Is There Grammar on the English Center Test?
Today, I want to talk about the English Center Test and grammar. If you do not know what the Center Test is, and you teach in Japan, you need to learn. There is a myth that grammar is important to do well on the Center Test. This is wrong. Students only need to …
Jan 16
Teaching in High Schools in Japan–The Center Test
If you are teaching in Japan, you probably have heard of the Center Test. If you haven’t, and you are teaching anywhere in the education realm, you had better learn what it is and why it is important.The Center Test is the largest entrance exam taken in Japan. This year, it was given on Saturday …
Jan 01
Teaching in Japan–What are your goals?
I am teaching in Japan now at a high school. The classroom is each teachers temple, and teachers here are often left to their own devices. This can be great, but if you want to more than that “funny foreign person,” you need to succeed. To do that, you need to have goals and plans to achieve those goals. …
Dec 05
Novelty–different and new ideas are good for you
Beyond classroom education Novelty is an important idea in education. I’ve seen it here and there, but basically it means that learning should be fun and new. We should challenge our students with novel ideas in novel ways. Against that background, my colleague brought up a depressing story in the paper today. In the largest …