NEW: If you wish to find partner schools in the UK, the British Council can help:
When I was a JET I tried this lesson out with my 6th graders, ones that were really too "cool" for anything else, and it worked really, really well and lead onto lots of similar things in Junior High But it also works really well for lower grades and is a fantastic example of the International Understanding lessons we are supposed to be teaching.
1) Do some sort of warm up game just to get them in the mood2) For a few minutes run through a review of food words. You say a word
in English and they have to guess what it is, then you put a picture card
on the board. This is really fantastic as they get a huge confidence boost
from realising they can understand so many English words. It's also a good
way to show them (and the teacher) that the katakana and English pronunciations
are different.3) Now you explain the lesson. You say there is a school in XXX country that wants to hear what your kids have for lunch. In reality you will have found a school on www.epals.com that is willing to do an exchange. Even if it's really you that has initiated contact with the school, you tell the kids it's a special favour that the other school are asking them!! Lots of motivation! 4) Ask them if they can find the school on a World map. Try and answer any questions they may have5) Get them to write on the board in big letters, in JAPANESE, one of their school lunch menus. In most schools they will have the whole weeks menus on the wall. If not have the teacher prepare this weeks menu in advance. With the kids discuss which day's menu they'll write (e.g. Mondays or Tuesdays). This is good to get them to choose which types of foods they think are most typical of their school.6) Now say "Cool, let's send it off.". Then say "Do you
think they'll understand?". Let the kids think and answer for themselves
(i.e. don't say "now we have to do it in English", let them come
to that conclusion themselves and hence they'll want to do it!).7) Now comes the fun part! You pretend not to understand the things they have written. They have to figure out how to say the things to you in English! (You could put them in groups to do this but they'd probably just write things down in katakana, so it's probably best to do it as a class.) E.g. if you have "niku jyaga" then they'll say something like "potato meat ...etc.". They should come up with some really imaginative ways of saying their food!! You then write down on the board what they have written. You should correct it a bit, but leave some of their interesting ways of explaining things as the other school may ask them to clarify things later (e.g. Chinese long noodles for "ramen")!8) When you have the whole thing finished, go through the English, and ask them if they can help you write the beginning and ending of the email. They'll probably shout out things like "Hello!" "How are you?" or something and then "Thank you" "Goodbye" at the end. They'll probably also ask you how to say "onegaishimasu" in English, a good chance to say we don't have such a word!! 9) Tell them you'll send off the menu and they'll get the response in the
next class!!1) Do a warm up game2) Have a large print out of the returned email lunch menu3) You say each term out in English and the kids have to work out what it is in Japanese4) Have a chat about the findings. There should be quite a few things that the kids go "ehhhhhhhhhh" which you can follow up later5) Ask them if they have any questions for the school. They probably do. Let the kids figure out how to say these things in English. You write them up and send them off after the lesson.6) Now say you have to thank the other school for the menu.7) Get the kids to think up a nice thank you message e.g. my kids simply came up with "Hello Thank you for your school lunch menu!"8) Get a microphone (or video camera) and record the class saying this
in unison!! Real English speaking practise!! After the lesson you'll send
this recording off to the other school and hopefully they'll reply in kind!
Get a computer teacher to help you if you're unsure of the techy points
(or you could always email me!).9) Ask them if there are any other countries they'd like to find out about. It maybe an idea to find out what countries they are studying about in Social Studies. This is good practise of country names! They'll come up with some cool ideas!! 10) Find out a few more countries and send off some replies!sending photos, make a video about their school lunch in English. You can send surveys to different schools to ask what their favourite foods
are. Or you can get the kids to make individual presentations on what foods
they eat at home. @
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