Breaking News English

This website offers a great selection of activities based on contextual news stories. The activities provided for each of the articles touch on all of the four skills. The teacher can use what is level appropriate and focus on the activities that the teacher feels as the most useful.

This I Believe

While many of these articles are for advanced levels, some of the articles that one can listen to can be used to increase perception. The material is very contextual and offers the students the ability to hear native speakers talk about issues in America. This is important to normalize the culture. The articles all have scripts that can help students who are have a higher reading skill. Many of the articles can also be good discussion points.

English English
This website offers a lot of links to helpful listening activities. Since Japanese students need to have out of the classroom interaction with English, providing links where students can listen to authentic English is important. Also, if the teacher can use some of the listening in class, they can allow the students the time to listen to the articles ahead of class in order for them to feel comfortable with it by class time.

English Voices

This site allows users to record and post comments, but more importantly for this context, it allows the users to listen to audio clips with questions following. The vocabulary used in the clips, as well as key phrases are show in a video that accompanies the audio. This is helpful because it allows the students to have visual aides to the audio which may present a challenge. The audio can be used to as homework, and also as in class activity.

Make Own Comics

On this page is a group of comics that the teacher can print out. This can be an interesting activity because it allows the learners to use the language creatively. A good follow up activity could be to have students read the comics with a partner. This activity offers enough freedom for learners of this age to feel challenged, but is still structured enough where the students will not feel overwhelmed.

Online Resources for Teachers in Japan

How to Teach English In Japan

This website offers a lot of resources to individuals who are looking to teach English in Japan. The website was created by Kevin Burns who has been teaching English in Japan since 1991. The resources that this website offers range from information on living in Japan, to applying for teaching jobs, to of course suggestions on how to better teach English. The website has a large number of links to websites that have activities and games that are helpful to individuals who are teaching in Japan.

Games for Japanese High Schoolers

This link is to a page on the Teaching English in Asia website. This page is focused entirely on games that have been successful for Asian students in high school. While all teachers will agree that it is important to have games in classes in order to make it engaging, it can be daunting to figure out what game will be effective. This page has discussions for each game posted, so one can read the comments and decide if it is useful in their situation or not.

Minimal Pair listening practice

This website offers quizzes on minimal pairs. This can be a useful activity for teachers who want to help students improve their listening. The students will be able to control how many times they listen to a word before taking a quiz, so it allows the student to lower their own anxiety. The teacher could use this site to reinforce pronunciation lessons. Since Japanese students do not have any outside chances to speak English, this can be a helpful resource.

Cambridge Dictionary

This online Cambridge Dictionary is useful for learners because not only does it define words in simple terms, it also allows the user to listen to the pronunciation of the word. This can be used to introduce vocabulary outside of class, so that the students will feel prepared to hear the word in class in an activity.

Helpful Pronunciation Website for Japanese students

Pronunciation is often a difficult hurdle for many Japanese students. In order to encourage students to practice pronunciation is important for them to have a source of input outside of the class. This website offers a wide range of activities that give examples visually as well as through listening activities. Since this website has a lot of Japanese written in its instructions, it will not be too daunting for Japanese high school students. I think that this website works best when used in tangent with lessons that introduce and practice the concepts presented.

Konan University Pronunciation Website