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1. Conveying meaning

Conveying meaning is achieved through images, contextual clues, and/or using your students¡¯ first language. This is done first, because it is counter-productive to practice what are essentially, for your students, meaningless sounds. Without an image and concept of the word, your students will not learn well. Don¡¯t assume meaning is remembered or images coupled with the word are noticed. It¡¯s important to check meaning regularly throughout the unit.?

2. Segmentation

Segmentation refers to breaking up the vocabulary list into manageable learning chunks and breaking up longer words into manageable syllable chunks. To break up your vocabulary list, teach three vocabulary items at a time until mastered. Then move onto the next three. We tend to remember things in threes ¨C a limitation (for the average person) of our working memory. Therefore, for the eight language items in Vocabulary 1 of each unit in My Disney Stars and Heroes teach them as 3+3+2. Also break up longer words (multisyllabic words) and teach the pronunciation of each syllable. I teach these words in reverse as it tends to focus the students better. So, for example, when teaching the word ¡®traditional¡¯, I would teach it as: tional / ditional / traditional.?

3. Elocution

Elocution practice is essential for pronunciation. Your students cannot pronounce well (by well, I mean intelligibly rather than mimicking any particular accent) if they do not know how to move their mouths and their tongues, and how to regulate their breath. In Japanese there are 46 syllables, but there is a limited number of sounds to produce these (12¨C21 consonants (depending on the way they are counted) and five vowels). Which means that there is a range of 17¨C26 distinct sounds in Japanese. However, in English there are 44 distinct sounds (called phonemes). These movements need to be learned and embedded as muscle memory, just like learning how to kick a ball. So, how do you do that? Phonics chants are useful for listening to and replicating these sounds and for watching them being said ¨C see . Also, when teaching vocabulary, say, ¡°Please look at my mouth.¡± Instruct your students to mimic your movements, especially for new sounds, for example, /th/, /f/, /s/ /r/ and so on. A very good book for becoming familiar with how to teach these sounds is Jane Setter¡¯s ¡°Your Voice Speaks Volumes¡±. I also use hand gestures and drawings on the whiteboard showing how to position the tongue (it¡¯s harder to see, of course!) ¨C this is especially useful for teaching /th/ and /r/ sounds. After some practice, pair up your students and get them to check each other. Also check them yourself either directly or through video recordings. ??

4. Checking pronunciation

The next stage is to give your students the chance to take control of their own learning. Each main vocabulary item is numbered in the units of My Disney Stars and Heroes so I tell my students to indicate with their fingers which vocabulary item they want to practice. This is because they cannot yet say the word and it¡¯s quick for me to choose and respond. When a student shows me "4 "with their fingers, I will teach vocabulary item 4 (e.g. festival in level 4, unit 2 and show with my mouth how to pronounce the /f/ and /v/ sounds). As per the horizontal syllabus, I will repeat this exercise a number of times throughout the unit.?

5. Critical engagement

The final stage of extended input is critical engagement with the vocabulary. Each unit in My Disney Stars and Heroes provides these kind of engagement exercises, such as identifying the vocabulary items in a picture and/or writing them in cloze exercises. Other possibilities are ranking, categorizing, and/or extrapolating. For example, the vocabulary in Level 4, unit 2 is:

• fireworks
• float
• parade
• festival
• costume
• traditional food
• stall
• lantern?

Instruct your students to rank the physical items (fireworks, float, costume, traditional food, lantern) according to cost, weight and/or necessity for a successful festival. Also, instruct your students to categorize these items into soft or hard, cheap or expensive, or they could make their own original categories. For extrapolating, instruct your students to think of festivals they have seen and whether those items were present. Also ask them which items are better for winter or summer festivals. You are asking your students to take the language items they are learning and to use them in a different context ¨C this is extrapolating.?

By using these extended input teaching techniques throughout your unit, your students will have greater opportunities to learn through increased frequency of input, focused pronunciation practice, and critical engagement. There are several other activities, both for input and output, which are better shown rather than explained here, so I will introduce those in my webinar on August 24th. I will also show you how to put all these activities together into a horizontal syllabus for a specific unit within the My Disney Stars and Heroes series. I am sure you will leave with a few new ideas to add to your own rich repertoire of teaching techniques and with a new way to imagine how to structure your teaching. ??

Finally, start each unit with the personal and social skills page because this provides a value that guides your students through the unit and its related theme ¨C for example, reusing things at home. And that value learning, much like the language learning itself, requires repeated practice, too. I will talk more about this in my forthcoming webinar. I hope to see you there.