In the third week of August, I had the wonderful opportunity to teach an intensive graduate school course on teaching young learners at the Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (NUFS). While preparing for the course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what I do in the classroom and why. It was also a good chance to catch up on the latest research, as it has been eight years since I graduated with my MSc in Teaching Young Learners English.

My students were mostly current junior high school or high school English teachers. All of them had taught English before, but few had experience teaching children. We spent a long time going over the differences between older and younger learners, as well as CLIL lessons and using picture books and graded readers in the classroom.

Yoko-sensei stopped by the last day of class. Many BIG BOW students met her at the Van Gogh Museum Excursion in March.

The class was held at the NUFS satellite campus next to the AEON mall in Noritake no Mori. It was fun being able to visit the mall after the day's classes were over!

   

Now that the class is finished, I have a few weeks before my students hand in their final projects for grading. Teaching this course was a great experience and I hope to have the chance to teach it again next summer!