Day 2 - Learning New Words through New Year Game

Here is the lesson plan for Day 2. Enjoy! If you find anything that can be improved, please post a comment!

第二日のレッスンプランです。ご意見ご感想お待ちしておりますので、お気軽にお寄せください。また、福笑いに関する英語の説明でうまいものがあれば是非紹介してください。

Vocabulary Lesson: Facial Parts and Directions

Context: The setting is a 9th-grade public high school Japanese class of 13 students in a suburban community in Indiana. The students of the class should have studied simple greetings in Japanese, hiragana (cursive-style Chinese character), katakana (part of a Chinese character), and basic vocabulary. The lesson is 50-minute and ideal for the beginning of the second semester. The lesson focuses on facial parts and directions such as right-left, up-down, east-west, and north-south. The students are encouraged to use the vocabulary as much as possible through different activities and games.

Goals: 1) to learn how to say facial parts in Japanese and 2) to learn how to tell directions in Japanese.

Objectives: After the lesson, the students will be able to 1) say the name of a facial part in Japanese, 2) say the directions in Japanese, 3) tell a location in Japanese, and 4) provide directions to a certain place in Japanese.

Materials: Facial parts cards, two sheets of paper with a person’s face printed on each of them, and blackboard and chalk

Procedures:

Warm-up activity: The students greet the teacher using the simple greetings they learned from the previous semester. Then they tell the teacher about their winter break. Make sure to encourage as many students as possible to speak up and remember what they learned in the previous semester. The activity should take 10 minutes.

Introduction of the new vocabulary: First, the teacher tells the students how to say facial parts in Japanese pointing each facial part of his/her face. The students repeat after the teacher to memorize which is which. Then the teacher goes over facial parts again, but this time the students repeat after the teacher and point their facial parts. The activity should take 5 minutes. If they finish early, the teacher says facial parts randomly to make sure the students memorized everything.

Introduction of directional words: The teacher tells the students how to say directions in Japanese using gestures. For example, if the teacher says “right”, he/she should point left so that they can get the direction correctly. Then the teacher asks a student who is sitting where using the directions they learned. For example, ask questions such as “who is sitting right/left to you?” and “where is X sitting?” The activity should take 5 minutes.

Introduction of four directions: The teacher now tells the students how to say east-west and north-south in Japanese. He/she draws a simple map on the blackboard and tells the students how to say four directions in Japanese. Then the teacher asks a student about the location of a certain building. For example, he/she can ask questions such as “where is the building X located on the map?” and “Is X located (any direction) from Y?” The activity should take 5 minutes.
Showing directions: Use the same map from the previous activity. The teacher assigns 6-7 pairs of two students. One student is a stranger to the city, and the other student is a resident of the city. The stranger asks the resident how to get to a certain place. The resident tries to give directions in Japanese using the vocabulary they learned in the lesson such as right-left, east-west, and north-south. The basic pattern for giving directions is provided by the teacher, but the teacher scaffolds the instruction. The students are encouraged to use ...te, …te pattern (conjunctions) and basic verbs they learned in the previous semester such as iku (to go) and magaru (to turn). If a pair finishes early, the teacher asks the pair to switch the roles. The activity should take 10 minutes.

Fukuwarai (traditional Japanese game): At the end of the lesson the students play fukuwarai. Fukuwarai is a game played by Japanese children or family typically on New Year’s Day. The students are split into two groups, and the teacher gives each team a sheet of paper with a person’s face on it. The face does not have any facial parts. Then the teacher distributes to each team the cards with facial parts printed on them. Each student picks one facial part out of six facial parts (eyebrows, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hair) and lines up in front of the sheet of paper. After the teacher says “begin”, the students place the card on the face blindfold by turns. Make sure that the students use directional words they learned such as right-left and up-down to give their teammate advice while the student tries to place the facial part on the right place. Once a student places his/her card, it cannot be moved. After both teams finish, the teacher compares their work to the original face and decide which team made the face closer to the original face. The entire activity should take 15 minutes.

Evaluation: Objective 1 is evaluated through the vocabulary activity. The teacher determines each student’s pronunciation during the activity and memorization by asking questions during the introduction part (b). This accounts for 20% of the entire grade of the lesson. Objective 2 is evaluated through the introduction part (c) and fukuwawai. During the introduction part (c), the teacher asks questions to see if they can respond naturally and smoothly using directional words they learned. In the fukuwarai activity, the teacher monitors each student’s participation and make sure that the students are giving advice to their teammate using directional words they learned. This accounts for 20% of the entire grade. Objective 3 is evaluated through the introduction part (d) and the “Showing Directions” activity. During the introduction part (d), the teacher asks questions about four directions (east-west and north-south) to see if they memorized all four directions correctly. During the “Showing Directions” activity, the teacher walks around to see if the students are using four directions correctly in a real-life situation. This accounts for 30% of the entire grade. Objective 4 is evaluated through the “Showing Directions” activity. The teacher walks around the room to see if the students are providing directions clearly by using four directions (east-west and north-south) and simple directional words (right-left). This objective is very useful in a real-life situation when the students want to ask directions in Japanese. Therefore, the teacher should pay extra attention to make sure everyone understands the words and use them correctly. This accounts for 30% of the entire grade.

Homework: The students practice writing down the vocabulary they learned in hiragana at home. This homework is for the vocabulary quiz at the beginning of the next class.