Astrology 101 – What’s Your Sign?

Heather May

PROCEDURE:

1. Introduce the class by asking a few of the students who are born entertainers what their blood type is, and then get them to name a couple of related personality traits. If they can’t do this in English, gestures and translations by the JTE are okay. The point is that ALL the students asked will immediately be able to rattle off their blood type and its characteristics.

2. Tell them that (in my case) you have no idea what your blood type is, and that in your country people don’t classify personality types based on blood type. Explain to the flabbergasted students that most people in your home country don’t know their blood type offhand.

3. Ask them if they know what the words “astrology” or “horoscope” mean. Most students will have at least heard these words and have a vague idea of the concepts behind them, but won’t know their sign or its related characteristics. Tell them that in your country everyone knows at least their sign, and a lot of people know their own characteristics and those for lots if not all of the other signs.

4. Hand out the Astrology 101 information sheet and go over the language of the headings – explain that sign names are in capital letters in Latin, with the English translation underneath. Tell the students that the proper response to the question “What’s your sign?” is NOT the English but the Latin! And get them to figure out what positive and negative characteristics are (math language helps here). Most of my students knew right away what “good friendship matches” meant, but go over it anyway just in case.

5. Hand out the worksheet and go over the language, reading each question out loud and asking the students if they understand. This activity works really well and the students seem to love it, BUT they have to understand what’s expected or it’s no fun because it just seems like a bunch of pointless translation exercises. Explain that for the last question - whether they believe in astrology and why/why not – it’s okay to answer in Japanese but they should try in English first.

6. Ask students to form pairs or groups in whatever configuration they choose and pass out the dictionaries. They should get quickly to work! Walk around the class as they’re filling in the positive and negative characteristics part of the worksheet (after they’ve translated it) and ask them if they think the information describes them or not.

7. Get a few students to come to the front and read both the English and Japanese answers on their worksheets. Their classmates will get a kick out of trying to compare the astrological traits with the person they know.

NOTES:

• Let the students work with their friends – they do actually seem to get the work done and then they end up comparing their friends’ signs to the “good friendship matches” on their worksheets, and discussing whether they think certain traits are true or not.

• It’s fine if some students don’t finish the worksheet – as long as they’re translating and talking to you or the JTE and their friends about the newfound insight they’ve gleaned into themselves and their peers they’re still participating. But don’t say that at the beginning!

• There’s a blank space beside the “English” section on the Positive and Negative Characteristics Charts – I just wrote the Kanji for Nihongo because my computer has no language pack.

• This is a VERY rough scratching of the surface of astrology, a subject about which I know very little. I thought it was more important for the students to have fun and compare some pervasive aspects of pop culture than to go in depth into the origins of astrology. So, if I’ve offended any serious astrology buffs, I’m sorry! I’m sure karma will get me soon enough…

HANDOUTS and WORKSHEETS

Some example worksheets for this lesson can be found here:

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/Astrology_Worksheet.doc

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/Astrology_101_Signs1.doc

http://storage01.pbwiki.com/f/Astrology_101_Signs2.doc