Japanese Nursery School - Teaching English in Japan
In today’s article, I will share my experience of teaching English at a Nursery School in Japan, otherwise known as Hoikuen or Hoikusho. If there was one word that I could use to describe my experience teaching in Nursery, it would be “energy” because the children have it and the teacher needs it - I mean this in a positive way of course!
Teaching in nursery has become the highlight of my monthly schedule – which is rather ironic because it was the place that I was unsure about teaching at the most. So, what changed? I just didn’t know how fun it could be.
As I only visit nursery once a month, there is a lot of excitement from the children when they see me. The nursery in my village looks after children up to age of 4 with each age group in its own separate class. When I arrive, the nursery staff take me to see each class for a quick hello, before I then teach a short 30-minute lesson to the 4-year olds.
Teaching English / Reading Japanese
With my own eyes, I have come to see the benefits of introducing English at a young age. In nursery and kindergarten, the children are so excited to communicate anyway they can - which makes it the ideal time to introduce them to English. Their capacity to pick up new words at this age is unbelievable and there is nothing more rewarding than the kids showing you how much they have remembered each time you see them.
At the start of the day at nursery, the children have an hour of play time. When the children see me enter their classroom, they all usually run over with books for me to read to them. These books are all written in Hiragana (Japan’s phonetic alphabet for Japanese words), which I can read, however as I may not know all of the vocabulary in the book, I may not understand the full context of the story.
To compensate for this, I will either read the book in a funny voice or even sing the words out of tune which always the children laugh (and some of the teachers too). While I’m unlikely to win any awards for my singing of Japanese story books, it does help to create a fun learning environment for when I come to teach them English.
After playtime, we all go outside which usually results in the children chasing me around the playground for about half an hour. The teachers love this because they know the that the children will now sleep well during nap time and as for me - it gives me an opportunity to get some exercise in.
And then the lesson begins……
When it’s time for the English lesson, all the children put their chairs around me in a semi-circle and then the class begins. For each class, I usually start with a short song and then I focus on teaching them a category of new words such as numbers, colours, shapes and animal names.
The class is always fun but there are times when the children show how smart they really are by trying to make me laugh. For example, I could be teaching them colours - I’ll show them a flashcard with the colour red and one of the children may shout out banana, knowing full well it’s not a banana just to make me laugh, and as I am basically a big child myself, it usually does make me laugh.
This typically results in all of the other children laughing too so at times like these, I need to think on my feet to get their attention back. I usually achieve this by quickly switching to a new game which involves a bit of friendly competition such as “Karuta” or “Fruit Basket”. Nothing focuses the mind like competition no matter how old you are!
After the lesson, I have lunch with the staff that run the nursery, and this is always just as fun as the lesson itself. I usually share my travel stories with them, and they always recommend me new places to see and new foods to try across Japan.
The staff are nothing short of fantastic with the children and are even more so with me. Despite our language barrier, we all can communicate very well and more importantly we are usually laughing together from start to finish.
I strongly believe that the introduction of English from an earlier age will help make a big difference in the level of English proficiency in Japan. The most important thing is that the children have fun while learning so that English doesn’t feel so scary to them by the time they get to Junior High School.
Teaching in nursery has proven to be a wonderful experience and a chance to set the children on the right path to learning English. In the next article in this series, we will focus on teaching English in Kindergarten which is where life starts to get a bit more structured for the children, but still very fun!