In one of the English Firsthand teachers books, there’s a teaching tip saying, “Don’t solely rely on the book. Try other activities that let students escape the book.”

When we are using Finding Out in our elementary school-aged classes, there is not too much on each page so most teachers will have the students using English and not holding the book all lesson.

With Macmillan English, there is a lot in the book, but it’s just as important to put the textbook down.

Here are two activities that are going really well in my JHS class. Thank you to Parisa and Melissa for the ideas.

Parisa presented at ETJ in Sendai, inspiring us to inspire our students. She had her JHS class write a diary. I tried this with my JHS class and was initially met with “めんどくさい。。。” Look at the photo to see what / how much they are producing each week:

Melissa has worked hard to set up a pen pal program between schools. The project was only started recently but my student involved loves getting and writing the letters.