Personal Pronoun/Potential Cootie Catchers

Greg Logan

OBJECTIVES:

1. To practice the potential verb (can/can’t).

2. To introduce personal pronouns in a relatively painless grammatical construction. Unlike most other constructions in the present tense, the verb ‘can’ and the verb it accompanies remain unchanged despite subject variations.

3. To practice building original sentences in a fun and communicative manner.

PROCEDURE:

1. After a warm-up of your choosing, start by introducing/reviewing a number of verbs. Of course, you should modify the verbs you use to meet the ability demands of your kids: single words for lower ability (run, fly, swim, jump), longer phrases for more advanced kids (speak English, use chopsticks, emulsify a vinaigrette).

2. Next, introduce/review the ‘I can/can’t _____” construction. I like using two cards, one with a large blue circle (maru) and one with a large red X (batsu) in combination with the verbs used above. For example, if you were to hold up the maru card with the run card this would prompt the students to say, “I can run.”

3. Then, bring in the personal pronouns. You could probably explain this without visuals, but the use of some flashcards will save you from a lot of unnecessary pointing and broken Japanese gibbering. Flashcards also allow you to piggy-back on to the previous exercise by holding up three cards: a pronoun card, a O/X card and a verb card. For example: we + X + use chopsticks = “We can’t use chopsticks.” As the Japanese can use different pronouns for groups of exclusively men or women it’s worth pointing out to the kids that, in English, we only use ‘they.'

4. Here’s where you blow their mind. Start by passing out your pre-made cootie catcher templates (instructions below). Guide them in folding the apparatus (roughly half of my students already knew how and were able to help others). Then, show them how you can form a number of sentences by using the cootie catcher to combine a personal pronoun, a can/can’t and an accompanying verb. This is done by choosing a personal pronoun, opening and closing the cootie catcher a number of times (number located next to the pronoun), choosing a newly exposed can/can’t option, and reading the verb found under the chosen can/can’t.

5. Finally, after all this build-up, it’s time for the activity. As this is the most adaptable part of the lesson, feel free to tweak it to your liking. I usually make the game simple by instructing students to walk around, janken and the loser to construct sentences with the help of the winner’s cootie catcher. If this sounds a little vanilla for you, spice it up by making it an interview type game or having the winner collect points or even fusing it with a gokiburi/evolution type game. Do whatever sounds fun/communicative to you. I’ve found that as long as the kids have the cootie catchers to play with, the accompanying activity is merely icing on the cake.

NOTES:

1. If you have forgotten or never learned the ancient art of cootie-catcher folding, you can find the instructions at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cootie-Catcher. Or you could, of course, consult your little sister.

2. To make the cootie catcher template start by trimming a sheet of A4 paper to make a square (roughly 21cm x 21cm) and folding it as per the instructions above. After unfolding you should have a 4X4 grid pattern with each square being bisecting diagonally. In the corner squares write in the personal pronouns. In the adjacent small triangles write in can or can’t. Finally, there should be four larger diamonds in the center of the paper. In these put four verbs of your choosing. See the provided example for clarification.

3. You may have noticed that in my template I used a mix of written Japanese and English. As reading is not the first priority in elementary school visits you may want to use one, the other, or neither (opting instead for graphic representations) depending on your students’ ability level and your personal preference. As long as it’s not katakana and what’s coming out of their mouth is English, then you’re golden.

4. As this activity contains a number of parts (pronouns, can/can’t, other verbs) I find it best to make this a culmination of several class sessions. If they have already been introduced to the construction, “I can/can’t ____,” then this lesson can focus solely on substituting other personal pronouns in place of ‘I’.