teaching advice

[jothod]

tonite my old japanese teacher asked me if i would teach english to some of her coworkers who only speak japanese.... i am not the most proficient in japanese; i know hiragana, katakana and maybe 50 or so kanji... but not enough to were i could carry on a full conversation with someone......... she is fully aware of this though but im still alittle confused as to what i am supposed to teach and how i will communicate with someone who barely knows any english

she suggested that i cover pronounciation of B and V, TH and S, L and R....... but that is about all she said

anyone have any ideas on what i should try to teach or how i should try to teach with my limited japanese?

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by jothod

tonite my old japanese teacher asked me if i would teach english to some of her coworkers who only speak japanese.... i am not the most proficient in japanese; i know hiragana, katakana and maybe 50 or so kanji... but not enough to were i could carry on a full conversation with someone......... she is fully aware of this though but im still alittle confused as to what i am supposed to teach and how i will communicate with someone who barely knows any english

she suggested that i cover pronounciation of B and V, TH and S, L and R....... but that is about all she said

anyone have any ideas on what i should try to teach or how i should try to teach with my limited japanese?

Once you gauge their English ability, it'll get easier. Then play games where English is used (where using english is the point of the game). They'll get really competitive, it will be fun and they will learn.

[Sketchy]

That whole "th" is annoying, many people with certain accents (including me) don't pronounce that th sound and get along just fine.

[MMM]

Those kinds of pronunciation exercises are going to be too hard and frustrating the first day. Practice "get to know you" exercises.

Introduce your self in about 5 sentences. Then ask the group to answer questions about you. "Where was I born? How old am I?"

Then have each of them write their own intro and read it to the group. They you can ask the group questions about each individual.

This way you can gauge their English, and it's not that much work for you.

[Paul11]

half of what they want to do is form a social club. Make it enjoyable and don't hammer them of technical stuff unless it's clear that's what they want. They'll probably tell yuo something like, "I want to learn English naturally," which is code for "I don't what to work hard or study."

[jothod]

thank you for advice so far, i guess ill wait a little bit before going too deep into pronounciations... i think ill do an introduction and try to go into basic pronouns like I, you, he, she the 1st day

i am kinda nervous since i have never taught anything before; any more suggestions are welcome and i thank you all for your replies

[MMM]

Originally Posted by jothod

thank you for advice so far, i guess ill wait a little bit before going too deep into pronounciations... i think ill do an introduction and try to go into basic pronouns like I, you, he, she the 1st day

i am kinda nervous since i have never taught anything before; any more suggestions are welcome and i thank you all for your replies

Just do games and activities so that every time they can walk away with one new sentence of the day. Like Paul said, keep it fun and interesting. You aren't giving tests or grades, so light and fun, and social is probably the way to go.