日本の小学生生活
Soft Toy Exchange - [Optional] IT activities
Activity ideas by Nishikawa Naoko (Murrumbeena Primary School, Victoria, AUSTRALIA)

If you are interested in using IT tools in your lesson you can try:
a) Web conference
b) Video interview letter
c) Photo letter
a) Web conference

webconference

You and your exchange school can talk and see each other on line:

<You and the exchange school take turn to do each activity listed below>
  1. Greeting in Japanese and your language
  2. School information
  3. Quiz – about your school, country, food, etc…
  4. Game – on line janken, flash card game + Question time
  5. Singing songs
  6. Greeting – goodbye
  7. *You need a brief rehearsal before the conference so that your students are ready to perform in front of a webcam. Encourage students to speak as much as they can (both in Japanese and your language).

Materials:
b) Video interview letter
Saving students’ self introduction in Japanese (and your language) by using MS Movie Maker (digital moving image recording and editing soft ware)
  1. Students listen to the self introduction of Japanese students (The Lives of Japanese Elementary School Students CD or website:
    http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/index_j.htm (JPN)
    http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/index_e.htm (ENG))
  2. Students practise self introduction in Japanese (name, nickname, age, favourite things…)
  3. Recording the self introduction with MS Movie Maker (or any equivalent video recording software)
  4. Saving the whole students’ introduction onto CD
  5. Sending the CD to the exchange school
  6. *You can record other messages in your language (with translation) and songs

Materials:
C) Photo letter
Editing students’ and/or school photos with a professional touch by using MS Photo Story (digital still images editing soft ware)
  1. Teacher shows a sample of Photo Story letter.
    <How to make the video>
    (1) Teacher saves images of The Lives of Japanese Elementary School Students CD or website.
    (2) Edit the images with MS Photo Story (add captions, narrations and music). (Depending on your students’ Japanese language levels, you can edit captions in Japanese as well.)
  2. Teacher shows this video first to students and tells them to pick the repeating phrases. Then students will practise the set grammar patterns during the lesson by oral or written exercises.
    eg.
  3. Students/teacher takes photos of the images that you are going to introduce
  4. Students create captions for each photo and translate them into Japanese with teacher’s help
  5. Join all images together with MS Photo Story (or any equivalent photo editing software)
  6. Record voices and captions on each photo and insert music (you can record voices in Japanese and words in your language or vice versa)
  7. Saving the final Photo Story letter to CD and send the CD to the exchange school
  8. *You can record other messages in your language (with translation) and songs

Materials:

Students’ works ->