English Boards
Depending on the school, you may have the responsibility of being in control of an English Board. Each school has a different expectation for them, so if you’re not sure where to start, just ask one of your JTEs! Some schools may have a very specific way they want the board done, while others may give you free reign.
If it’s the latter of the two, here are some ideas:
- Pick a theme! For example: Holidays, the seasons, hobbies, etc! Any theme is okay.
- Get your students involved! Have them help make decorations or highlight a current grammar point. This can be great to present some of the work students have done in class.
- Highlight similarities and differences between your home country and Japan.
- Show interesting things from your own country. For example, news or magazine articles that would highlight current events, popular movies, or even people of interest.
- Do you have too many ideas? Mix it up! Divide your board up into different sections to maximize your space without sacrificing any of your ideas!
Here are some fun ways you could incorporate English and, hopefully, get students to engage with the board:
- Post fun English idioms and slang. It’s really exciting to watch students try to figure out what they could mean.
- Riddles are always a fun way to not only introduce interesting new English, but also to present some of your home country’s culture.
- Quizzes can also be used as a way to engage students with your board. For example, getting them to guess certain vocabulary words based on other vocabulary they might know or by using pictures (in the case of elementary boards).
- Puns, like riddles, offer a wonderful opportunity to get students into some fun English.
- Put a mailbox on it! Offer students a chance to talk directly to you by putting an ALT postbox on the board and periodically checking it. You can either respond directly to the sender or, for even more fun and English, you can post your answers on the board!
These are just a few ways you can include English on your board. There are many more things you could do, of course, but there’s only so much space available. If you need more ideas, why not visit the Facebook page CreativeJET? This page highlights different English boards from JETs all over Japan!
Hopefully this gives you a good idea of where to start so that you can come up with your own special way of making an awesome English board! Good luck!
Hannah Price