英語を教える冒険 ・ My Adventures in Teaching English

金曜日、僕はボランティアとして小学生たちに英語を教えた。二週間前、僕のゼミの先生はこのボランティアの機会を紹介してくれたけど、一週間後に子供に教えるようになるなんて考えなかった。

早かったので、早く準備しないといけなかった。子供に英語を教えたことがないので、教える方法とか、子供の注意を引き続く方法とかを調べた。でも、子供たちはどんなに英語が分かるのか知らなかったので、準備は難しかった。子供を知るようになるために、最初のレッスンでみんなの好きなことを聞いて、ゲームや歌もした。やっぱりゲームは一番楽しくて勉強になった。

一般的に、この子たちに教える目標は二つある。一つ目は英語を紹介して、英語を勉強する情熱を発見させたい。もちろん、みんなは英語が好きで、情熱に勉強するわけないけど、そういう子がいたら、その子を支援して、勉強する時間を楽しくしたい。僕はこの子たちの初めて会った外国人かもしれないので、外国人に対していい第一印象をしたい。

その二つ目の目標はアメリカの英語の発音を教えること。学校で子供は文字の書き方や文法を勉強するので、そんなことを教えたくない。今、僕しかできないことは発音や簡単な単語や簡単な表現を教えることだ。子供は学校でアメリカ人のＡＬＴや先生がいない可能性が高いので、正しい英語の発音を聞く機会が少ないと思う。それに、カタカナの英語の発音は違うので、早くいい発音を教えたらいいと思う。例えば、バナナとbananaの発音は違うので、その意識をさせた。

最初のレッスンはよかった。何となくうまくいって、いろいろなことを知った。やっぱり子供の注意を引き続くのが難しい。みんなはポケモンが好きだ。レベルが予想以上に高い子供はいたけど、まだ数字とかあまりできなかった子もいた。僕の話をあまり理解できなかった。

今週は休みなので、準備する時間がある。頑張らないと！

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On Friday, I taught English as a volunteer to elementary school kids. It's crazy to think that two weeks ago, my seminar teacher informed me of this volunteer opportunity, and then a week later I had my first class.

It happened so fast, so I had to prepare fast. I've never taught kids before, so I need to look up methods for teaching kids, keeping their attention, etc. However, I didn't know how much English they understood, so preparing was difficult. In order to get to know them, for my first lesson I asked them what things they like, and also played a game and did some songs. As I thought, games were the most fun and educational.

In general, I have two goals for teaching these kids. My first goal is to introduce English and help the kids find a passion for learning English. Of course, not everyone will like English, and won't study it passionately, but if there is a kid like that, I want to support him/her and make studying English fun for them. I might be the first foreigner that these kids have met, so I want to make a good first impression as a foreigner.

My second goal is to teach American English pronunciation. In school kids learn how to write letters and they learn grammar, so I don't want to teach stuff like that. Right now, the thing that only I can do is teach them correct pronunciation and simple vocabulary and expressions. There is a good chance that the kids don't have an American ALT or teacher, so they probably don't have very many chances to hear correct pronunciation. On top of that, katakana English pronunciation is wrong, so it's best to teach good pronunciation early. For example, the pronunciation for バナナ and banana are different, so I want to make them aware of that.

The first lesson was good. It went well somehow, and learned a lot. Keeping their attention was predictably difficult. Everybody likes Pokemon. There were some kids that were higher-level than I expected, but there were also some that had difficulty with numbers. They couldn't understand most of what I said.

We have a break this week, so I have some time to prepare.