Katakana IS NOT English

Michelle Argueta

OBJECTIVES:

To start the long process of achieving the aforementioned objectives, you can do a “Katakana is not English” lesson once. In this lesson, you may show the students the difference between Katakana and English pronunciation. I focused on the English endings (~t, ~ard, ~ake, ~r, ~er, ~or, ~ame, ~age, sh~). You may want to adapt this according to your student’s level.

Every lesson after that, you have to make the students aware of correct pronunciation. A technique I have found useful is seen in this example:

-If a student says “Hoto” I would repeat “hoto?” and the student realizes her error and corrects herself saying “hot” and then I say “hot, very good. Don’t say hoto. Say Hot.” If the student is unable to locate her own mistake, then I will write the word on the board, “Hot” and show the class that there is only one “o” in the word “hot”. I then proceed to write an “o” at the end of “hot” (hoto) and with a different color chalk, I go a little crazy crossing out the extra “o” with a massive X and many lines over it. Students find this funny and little by little they become more aware of not putting extra O in English words ending with ~t.

The main idea here is to make the usage of correct English a habit without antagonizing students. So find a funny way to correct the kids. Sometimes, I pretend to have a heart attack if I hear a completely katakanized English word. The students laugh and find the mistake.

Another technique I have found very useful is to always add an extra rule to every single game we play. The rule says that if you blatantly mispronounce a word, you will have a -5 point deduction. This makes students be very aware of their own mistakes and their team mate’s pronunciation.

I also encourage the students to use as much English as possible. Every worksheet I make has nothing but English written on it. Instead of writing katakana for “リスト“ I write LIST because I want them to leave the Katakana outside the door during an English class. The students write their names in English on the worksheets and they must answer all the questions in the worksheets in English. It takes a long time and effort to enforce this but little by little the students begin to make a conscious effort to write in English in the worksheets.

NOTES:

I have been able to apply these techniques because I am virtually in charge of all my lessons. I decide what to teach and how to teach. I make the lesson plans and the worksheets, so I am able to use only English in them. I am also able to stop class at any moment to emphasize correct English pronunciation. You may adapt these techniques to whatever situation you are in, or perhaps suggest them to your JTEs if you do not have this much responsibility.