In your teaching schedule, do you have any JH classes? While teaching younger kids is my forte, this year I have more JH classes each week than at any other time in my teaching career!

I quite like them. JH students have a complex mixture of attitudes towards English, school, their teachers, their families, their friends and themselves. I find myself preparing well for these lessons because unlike younger students, these kids fully know when I don’t! I’m fortunate that for the most part my students seem to enjoy my lessons. Most (but not all) of them have come through a Learning World experience, and we’ve built a good degree of mutual trust over a good number of years.

However, I was surprised to learn recently that one of my students, JH 2nd grader, was considering leaving my class because she felt it wasn’t meeting her needs. She wanted a class that was “more focused on reading, writing, grammar and Japanese explanation”. With more focus on these areas, she felt she could do better at her school English, as her school lessons shared the same focus areas.

For the record, my JH lessons are designed around grammar points taken directly from JH textbooks, and include activities that involve reading and writing. Every time. My student likely missed this fact because the communicative nature of the lessons may have hidden it.
She was right though when she claimed that my lessons don’t contain any Japanese explanation. I don’t believe Japanese explanations are necessary. But I must acknowledge that my student believes they are. In fact she had voiced her concerns with me regarding this on a previous occasion as well; it was clear though that my reasons for not including Japanese explanations hadn’t convinced her.

I definitely didn’t want her to quit, so I decided to compromise. In class the following week I announced that the lessons from now on would contain Japanese explanations of grammar rules and structure. These however would not come from me – they would come instead from the students themselves. I suggested that whenever anyone felt the need for a Japanese explanation, they were welcome to ask for it from their classmates, and classmates were welcome to give it. I would continue to use only English but I would not discourage Q&A about grammar conducted in Japanese.

I’m happy to report that the student began to enjoy her class after we implemented the change – and in fact, the class atmosphere generally warmed. The students liked my insistence on only using English with them because they felt benefits to their listening ability. However they also enjoyed the opportunity to confirm areas of grammar among themselves in Japanese.

＊Part 2 coming soon!