bcrAn
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2011-04-29
Posts: 244
I am thinking about designing a small course pretty much based in the same methodology that Rosetta Stone uses to teach alongside my English classes in the school I work at and maybe eventually only teach that.
IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku so I thought this would be a nice idea, simple, fun to implement, easy to teach and maybe / probably more useful for the children than the traditional Repeat > Practice > Write lesson.
Of course I wouldn't copy any pictures but I would pretty much follow the same idea. I will show them items they can easily recognize, apple, boy, girl, followed by an action expressed as a full but simple sentence, the boy eats an apple, the girl eats an apple, and so on.
I could use an iPad to show them the items
What do you think?
Last edited by bcrAn (2011 September 29, 12:21 am)
bcrAn
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2011-04-29
Posts: 244
This is not about faith and I have no possible way to determine if it will be succesful or not, I like the idea because it's easy for me to implement, it's different, it would eliminate some textbooks, kill the traditional classroom grudge, etc. I just want to know if it's legal to do just like Rosettta Stone, using my own pictures and dialogs of course (although I would probably reuse the same general themes featured in RS).
I was also generally speaking, and we, Japanese learners know very well that you don't acquire language in 50 minutes a week.
Last edited by bcrAn (2011 September 29, 12:32 am)
bcrAn
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2011-04-29
Posts: 244
Wait, if RS was free is wouldn't be that bad as just a supplement tool for *absolute* beginners. Plus I think is better than what I am currently doing at the juku with the shittiest textbooks ever written.
Last edited by bcrAn (2011 September 29, 12:43 am)
aphasiac
Member
From: 台湾
Registered: 2009-03-16
Posts: 1036
Pictures, text, code, sentences - they can all be copyrighted. But you can't copyright a method. They could have patented it, sure, but the patent would only hold for a specific implementation, i.e. probably not worth worrying about.
Flashcard picture -> vocab, then sentence pattern + changing vocab is exactly how my cram school teaches English. There's nothing really revolutionary about digitising it and making the answers multiple-choice.
Last edited by aphasiac (2011 September 29, 1:02 am)
magamo
Member
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-05-29
Posts: 1039
If you want your students' learning more effective, I'd recommend you employ a context-based learning method. For example, I don't know a better way to teach what "swing" means than showing a short video or something where the word is used in an obvious way like:
A: *sigh* No other clothes? I don't wanna wear this... Well, better than nothing, I guess... *dress*
B: Oh, god. Beautiful... I can't tell which way I'm supposed to swing anymore!
A: Stop! I don't swing that way!!
You can include another meaning of "swing" by letting his stuff swing and putting an onomatopoeic caption *swing*. Kids will love it. Make sure to put the usual mosaic (or the black bar if it's hand-drawn).
On a more serious note, no. I don't think showing pictures would make huge difference. It shouldn't be illegal, though, unless you use copyrighted material.
kainzero wrote:
bcrAn wrote:
IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku
well, it sounds like you really have no faith in your company so i guess you can do whatever you want since you feel like in the end it's going to be unsuccessful and have no effect anyway, right?
Can't argue with that.
If its fun activities along the lines of Rosetta, you can get a memory game, and use it to teach the children.
You write some action verbs on the blackboard before the game starts. As memory is a game with pairs, a child, once it has found two of the same cards, should pick a partner and give the second card to them. Both then have to go to the blackboard, present the cards to the class, and pick and choose one action verb, and make up a sentence. Once they have decided on a sentence, they should say it out loud. If it was correct, they then stick the cards on the board, and write the sentence underneath it.
There are other activities, like the stop and go game, but this is hardly any good for classrooms when there is little room for it. I am thinking of throwing a word at the children, and they can advance one step when they come up with a good sentence.
There surely are more such activities, that are both entertaining and edutaning for both you and the children, you just have to come up with something. 
