Activity ideas by Nishikawa Naoko (Murrumbeena Primary School, Victoria, AUSTRALIA)
If you are interested in using IT tools in your lesson you can try:
a) Web conference
b) Video interview letter
c) Photo letter
You and your exchange school can talk and see each other on line:
<You and the exchange school take turn to do each activity listed below>
- Greeting in Japanese and your language
- School information
- Quiz – about your school, country, food, etc…
- Game – on line janken, flash card game + Question time
- Singing songs
- Greeting – goodbye
- *You need a brief rehearsal before the conference so that your students are
ready to perform in front of a webcam. Encourage students to speak as much as
they can (both in Japanese and your language).
Materials:
- Webcam
- Data projector and Screen (or whiteboard), speakers etc…
- Exchange schedule
- Song lyrics
- *You could show some photo resources before/after the exchange. (Students
will ask you a lot of questions after the conference.)
- *You need to install webcam
and video conference soft ware (MSN, Yahoo, Skype or other video conference software).
I use ‘V2 Conference’ and ‘Nice to meet you’ with my exchange schools (these
paid/rental software are very stable and great for multi connection conference.
These softwares let us share Word, Excel, Power Point documents on the same web
conference window.)
- *You may need an IT help to set up the software and configuration
of the connection.
b) Video interview letter
Saving students’ self introduction in Japanese (and your language) by using MS Movie Maker (digital moving image recording and editing soft ware)
- Students listen to the self introduction of Japanese students (The Lives
of Japanese Elementary School Students CD or website:
http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/index_j.htm (JPN)
http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/index_e.htm (ENG))
- Students practise
self introduction in Japanese (name, nickname, age, favourite things…)
- Recording
the self introduction with MS Movie Maker (or any equivalent video recording
software)
- Saving the whole students’ introduction onto CD
- Sending the CD to the exchange school
- *You can record other messages in your language (with translation) and songs
Materials:
C) Photo letter
Editing students’ and/or school photos with a professional touch by using MS Photo Story (digital still images editing soft ware)
- Teacher shows a sample of Photo Story letter.
<How to make the video>
(1) Teacher saves images of The Lives of Japanese Elementary School Students
CD or website.
(2) Edit the images with MS Photo Story (add captions, narrations
and music). (Depending on your students’ Japanese language levels, you can edit
captions in Japanese as well.)
- Teacher shows this video first to students and tells them to pick the
repeating phrases. Then students will practise the set grammar patterns during
the lesson by oral or written exercises.
eg.
これは～です。
～室
～に～がいます。
～に～があります。
- Students/teacher takes photos of the images that you are going
to introduce
- Students create captions for each photo and translate them into
Japanese with teacher’s help
- Join all images together with MS Photo Story
(or any equivalent photo editing software)
- Record voices and captions on each
photo and insert music (you can record voices in Japanese and words in your language
or vice versa)
- Saving the final Photo Story letter to CD and send the CD to
the exchange school
- *You can record other messages in your language (with translation)
and songs
Materials:
Students’ works
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