ALT life: English boards

Like most ALTs in Japan, I had an English board at my Junior High School. I tried to keep mine updated about once a month. It felt like a good opportunity to chat to teachers and students. Often when teachers were walking past they asked me questions about the theme of the board. I had conversations with the tea lady about Christmas, breakfast around the world and other international topics. When students saw me updating the board, some would stop to say hi or try out some English.

Here are some of my boards:

 My first English board! 

Post cards, map and photos. I think I added a small self introduction about a week later with basics like "My name is Becci." "I'm from England." "I like....." etc.

Hallowe'en!  

Lots of pictures and some photos of my past halloween costumes.

 Bonfire night!

Trying to explain this one during class, in basic English that the kids might understand, was a challenge. 

"We make a man" "We make a fire"......"We burn the man....."??

Students: 「怖い！！」　 Scary! 

Not in the photo, but just underneath this I posted info about the city wide English comic contest. The poly pocket at the side is full of blank comic sheets for the students to take and draw their own English comics.

 Christmas!!

I made lots of Christmas tree, stocking and circle shapes in Christmas colours before class.

 Depending on the year group, they had to write 1 sentence on their card. The best ones went on the board.

"For Christmas I want a..." "Next year I will..." "Next year I want to..." etc.

Lots of the students seemed to write about boyfriends and money.

(I've made this one big so you can read what some of the students wrote)

 New Year!!

Pictures and a few pictures of New Year in different countries

 This board was a bit of everything. 

It was the start of a new year so I put a welcome message to the new first years, and welcome back messages for everyone else. I put a small self introduction at the bottom. At the top there is a bit about Easter and St Georges Day. 

I made a post box out of a cereal box and red card, with little explanations in English and Japanese. I got so many letters from the students. Most students wrote one letter that I replied to. But there were a few students who wrote loads of letters to me. At the end of the year I gave the students who wrote the most letters little gifts. 

On the bottom left there is a small magazine made by ALTs in Sendai. I added the latest copy every month, so there were lots to read by the end of the year.

 In my second year I started having regular themes on my board. I kept the post box and the ALT English magazine at the bottom.

At the bottom of the board there is an American/British English poster. On the front of each flap there is the American word and picture. Underneath there is the British word and Japanese word.

At the top there is the round the world section. This month I featured breakfast.

Advent Calendar!!

I put up different coloured cards with numbers up to 24 on them. On the back I put a different feature of Christmas. Every day I turned over a different card. 

Christmas pudding, German markers, dinner, lights, crackers, advent calendars, cards, reindeer, mince pies, pie for Santa and carrot for Rudolf, hot Christmas in Australia, Queen's speech, pantomime, mistletoe, Nativity plays, carols, New Year fireworks, tree, The Snowman, Santa, presents, chocolate log, Christmas stockings, Christmas Eve

 I started adding a words in different languages section too, with the katakana pronunciation underneath. (Hopefully I researched that section correctly for the languages I don't know..)

I started adding a themed vocab list in the bottom left. 

My favourite part was the white board and pens. Picked up for 100 yen. Every few weeks I wrote a new question.

One kid wrote "I am God's chaild." O.O