My English Club

It is now March, which means there are about 3 weeks left in the Japanese school year. The 6th graders will graduate, and the rest of the students will have about a week off before starting the new school year in April. (Take that 3-month American holidays!)

It was around this time last year that a 5th grader named Nana came up to me after class and read something on the board I had written. Or maybe she wrote something on the board and asked me what it meant. I don't really remember, but I was surprised because I don't teach my kids reading or writing. I asked her if she was attending an English cram school and she said no, she taught herself.

When she walked away, I was left with the feeling of observing wasted talent. She had a drive to learn English but no one but herself to take her down that path. I started thinking, "Man...if I had her for even just an hour a week..." That thought process quickly led me to asking my vice-principal if I could start an English club the following year. It would only be at Ogimi Elementary and would only focus on reading and writing.

When I did sign-ups for the club, I limited it to 4th-6th grade. Fifteen kids signed up. Given that there are only 38 kids in the entire school, that's almost every 4th-6th grader. I like to think my classes are fun, but as the club was going to be a study club and not about playing games, I had to get this message across quickly and weed out the kids who weren't going to make an effort. So, I intentionally made the club difficult from the very beginning by giving them lots of writing assignments and homework.

Within a month I had six kids left: four 6th graders and two 4th graders. Every time a kid dropped out, the vice-principal made them come up to me and apologize in person. I didn't really need that, but I guess it was good manners.

Once the kids got there ABCs down, I brainstormed what kind of structure or goal to give the club, and I settled on having the kids aim for the Eiken Level 5.

The Eiken is an English test for Japanese students. Level 5 is the level 7th graders aim for when they enter junior high. It is not terribly difficult...if you study. Also, you have to be able to read the test, and my kids couldn't read, yet. As a teacher, the challenges I faced were:

• no experience teaching at that level
• explaining the more difficult grammar points in my so-so Japanese
• only 30 minutes a week

What I basically did was I found an Eiken book that did not teach grammar but had lots of example sentences that included the grammar/vocabulary from the test. I would do one chapter from the book for half the lesson, then I would put all the example vocabulary and sentences in a spaced repetition flash card program called Anki, and had them 'anki' for the remaining half of the lesson. During the fall, I was busy with meetings and stuff, so English club during that time would be me saying, 'Go to the computer room and Anki.'

The logic behind it, in a nutshell, is they learned to read by recognizing the word, not using phonics. The same way I learned how to read. Also, they learned vocabulary by memorizing a correct English sentence containing that word. The same way I learned my English.

When test time came around in January, five of the six kids signed up to take it. Out of those five, four passed.

The passing score was 29/50. The students that passed are:

Nana (6th grade): 42/50
Haruhi (4th grade): 32/50
Shou (6th grade): 31/50
Rena (6th grade): 31/50

As you can imagine, I was delighted on a number of levels:

• I had a high pass percentage rate.
• My 4th grader got a higher score than two of the 6th graders.
• And best of all, Nana, the girl who inspired the club, got the highest score out of every single student who took the test at the junior high that day. That's including the junior high kids themselves.

For the coming school year, I have my heart set on Haruhi, the 4th grader. My dream would have her passing Level 4 next year and Level 3 as a 6th grader.