Teaching English

I have to admit my biggest problem teaching English is keeping the level low enough. For the first year students, I am teaching phonics listening each time, in addition to the monthly theme. I teach a communication class for each class in each week.

There are 3 years, corresponding to our 7th - 9th grades. Each year has 4 classes, except the first year which has 5. Or is it the 3rd year? At any rate, there are roughly 30 students in each class, which precludes a lot of one-on-one work.

But for the first year students, I do a drill each time which involves listening to pairs of words that are different by only one sound. For example, "rate" and "late". I purposely choose sounds that are not significantly different in Japanese, but make a difference in English. Here is where my studying Japanese comes in handy. Besides r/l, there is s/th, d/th, f/h, v/b, n/ng and g/ng. Of course, the r/l pair is the most difficult. But if I can help them hear the difference, they will have a big head start in communicating in English, I think. Indirectly, I'm finally putting my Spanish phonetics course to good use!!

BTW, phonetics is one reason I've given up on learning Mandarin for now. There are varieties of "s" and "sh" that are significantly different, and I don't hear the difference. And then there is the whole tone thing. If you are inclined to study Chinese, however, Mandarin is supposed to be easier than Cantonese, which has 9 tones to Mandarin's 4 (5 if you include the neutral tone).

I still need to find a way to teach them important things such as how the Packers are a much better team than either the Vikings, the Bears or the Cowboys. Give me time....