These concerns were less relevant when I was working with middle school students who had been exposed to a broader range of English. However, as I now teach at an elementary school, I have learned that it is even more important to provide students with a consistent model of English as the teacher. Elementary students need clarification when they encounter something new in their own language, let alone a foreign one. I must admit I struggled at first to use language that my elementary year 2 students could understand as I was unfamiliar with the textbook or their English level initially. I fell into bad habits of using half sentences or single words to convey meaning. Both my school and I are against doing this if possible, and so eventually, I realised something had to be done to resolve this issue.

I decided to record audio recordings of myself periodically during class when appropriate. The goal here wasn’t to record the students but myself and the language I was using. I could then listen back to myself and assess whether I was using the target language for each lesson sufficiently and whether I was falling into bad habits mentioned above. I was then able to work out at which points during the lesson I struggled to keep consistency and write notes for myself to take into class. This is still an ongoing work in progress to this day. However, it has allowed me to greatly enhance the understanding of my students, the flow of my lessons and ultimately ensure that a balance is struck between using target language as well as authentic and natural speech in the classroom. I would encourage anyone with similar concerns to attempt the same method or a variation to assess their language usage in class. It has been a very rewarding process, and I will continue the process moving forward.

Image Source: RDNE Stock project from Pexels

For new teachers who are new at creating tests, here are some examples that I have seen from my schools using Japan’s English Junior High  School textbooks: New Horizon, New Treasure, My Way, and the Sunshine series.

Below is a format with real, altered questions and real Japanese used on past tests.

The number of questions and points in the parenthesis per section is what I’ve personally seen being used as well. Usually, tests are about one hour and use 60-80 questions, 1-2 minutes per question on average.

Vocabulary: Translation (10 questions, 1 point each)

Grammar Table: (10 questions, 1 point each)

Rearranging (5 questions, 2-3 points)

Fill in the Blank: ( 5 questions, 2 points)

Multiple Choice: (15-20 questions, 1-3 points)

Passage Reading ( 5 questions, 2-3 points each)

Word Box: (5-10 Questions, 2 points each)

Short Answer (3-5 questions, 3 points each)

Essay (3-5 sentences, 6-10 points)

Follow this guide and well done! You will have made up the majority real English questions used in the Japanese public and private education sector.

For veterans and beginners alike, I hope you have learned a new assessment method from the above and good luck making your next test!

Header image “Solo exam” by Perrimoon is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Recently, I have noticed something during my time teaching in Japan is the lack of mnemonic acronyms. Although I have only worked at a couple schools as well as having talked with a few other native teachers of their experience with mnemonic acronyms, my experience with this topic is still undeveloped and will of course need more research in the future.

However, through my personal experience I have seen and heard that not only native but Japanese teachers do not use mnemonic acronyms in the classroom. As someone with an American education, we constantly learned mnemonic acronyms to help our memory for learner retention and was interested in bringing mnemonic acronyms to the classroom.

The other day, my students were practicing with coordinated conjunctions and I noticed a repeating mistake of them using the famed western mnemonic acronym FANBOYS, (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So), at the beginning of their sentence. Another hindering fact is also that many Japanese classroom English textbooks teach students with example sentences that they can begin students with “So” and “Because”, a practice that many students repeat from Junior High School into Senior High School.

When I showed my Japanese English teacher in my school the mnemonic acronym FANBOYS, he had no previous knowledge about it, thought it was very helpful, and will introduce it into his own lessons. While in the west we have ROY G BIV, My Dear Aunt Sally, and many others, this concept strictly speaking of each letter meaning something does not exist in the Japanese language as they only have short form.

For my high school students who are preparing for Eiken levels 3, pre-2, and 2, I tested out FANBOYS with them to see if they could remember English rules better for starting their sentences. Usually in Eiken, there’s an opinion question where the students are given a question such as “which season do you like better, winter or summer?” and then have to give one to two reasons for a perfect score. By providing alternative starting vocabulary examples instead of FANBOYS as well as answering questions as to why they can’t use any of them, I saw a drop in the usage of them.

Moving on to my JHS students, I noticed a trend of many constant mistakes. I chose three mistakes that can be applied to all sentences no matter the question. I developed my own mnemonic acronym for these three mistakes and wanted to test out if it could work in the Japanese classroom.

To do so, I took a picture of a checklist clipboard, added a face to it, and called it SOP-kun.
S – s (games)
O – おー大文字
P – period.
SOP stood for s, as in to make their words plural such as game(s), O, for “oomoji,” the Japanese translation for capital letters for names, cities, beginning of sentences, and P, for period at the end of a sentences. I chose O for “oomoji” instead of “c” for capital letters for Japanese students to remember it easier. Also, it was hard to find a vowel for those three constant mistakes, S, C, P. By adding a -kun, a familiar ending to names in Japan, I made my students interested in him. When I introduced him to my students as my friend, they lightheartedly asked if SOP-kun was my boyfriend and laughed.

After introducing SOP-kun to the classroom, whenever I had a worksheet activity where the students were writing sentences, I would say “remember SOP-kun?” and they would respond “Oh yeah!” instead of me pointing out each individual mistake over and over again. I also would have them do pair work in this style as well where their partners would use SOP-kun to check their friend’s writing.

Header image by Alan Levine from PxHere

Topic discussion sheet is here.

Lesson plan here.

This lesson incorporates the theme of the Olympics by creating a “mini-Olympics” in the classroom in which students can represent countries of their choice and compete by testing their ability to form sentences and questions in English.

This is a picture-recognition based activity. Pictures and materials are available here.

Lesson plan here.

Lesson plan

Follow links for lesson plan and materials.

Lesson Plan

Game Instructions

Game Cards

Workflowy Link