Students enrolled in English language undergraduate courses in Japan typically arrive from high school with varying levels of language ability. Some have spent time overseas for up to a year as part of a study-abroad program and are thus confident speakers, while the majority are products of a highly grammatical approach to language learning. This latter system above all else teaches students strategies to enable them to pass university English entrance examinations, which typically require a TOEFL score of between 400 and 500.

Although majors dictate how many elective classes they take each week, all students take required English writing, reading, and oral courses, which, if failed, need to be resat the following year. They are likely to be taught by the first foreign person they have ever engaged with and have to learn autonomously for possibly the first time in their lives. There will be varying attitudes toward English within the classroom and differing levels in diligence depending on whether passing is simply a requirement to gain credits or a student has future plans to work and live abroad. There may be students who are repeating the course, not because of a lack of ability but because of poor attendance. Due to a lack of space and high cost of land, many universities can be far from the center of town, resulting in students having to make incredible journeys of up to 2 hours each way per day.

So what can we do as teachers to give ourselves the best chance of getting consistently high attendance levels in every class?

I remember teaching classes in Japanese high schools where students were active, smiling, and not producing anything close to the Queen’s English; were actively conversing in English with classmates; and were having a good time doing it. I compared this to a particularly sullen first-year university class who in essence were the same age as my senior high school class and came to the only conclusion feasible: that it was I. I started thinking about why I was teaching this class in such a way dramatically different from the way in which I conducted my classes at the senior high level. Why was my teaching in high school more active, with more student involvement? I realized that there was very little difference between a high school student and a freshman and that the same teaching methodologies could be used with both. Sure, there’s a big leap in expectations and workload, but that doesn’t mean the teaching can’t be done in a similarly active fashion. A class can become something that’s looked forward to as opposed to a chore in an already chock-a-block timetable. And considering that classes are twice as long as they were at high school, this goal is especially important.

The following are a few examples of techniques I routinely use in class to try to keep enthusiasm high and to keep motivation levels from plateauing.

I try to incorporate as much student talking time in my classes as possible, whether it be an oral, a reading, or a writing class. Students always benefit from talking over ideas, pair interviews, and group chats, and though it may be unrealistic to expect this talk to be conducted in English all of the time, even if they are talking about the class topic in L1, it is helpful to do so some of the time, if only to check understanding.

One example is from my first session of a course, which invariably incorporates some sort of interview. For instance, in a first-year writing class, I follow these steps:

• Students are paired up. They are given keywords and expand them into questions. The difficulty depends on the level of the class, but could include “name,” “people – family,” and “part-time job.”
• The correct forms of the questions are checked by the class.
• Students are paired with a new partner; they conduct their interviews using the previously formed questions, and write notes.
• Students now write basic sentences about their partner.

I then encourage students to go back to their original desks and think of questions to get more information from their partner. I generally elicit and write the “wh” questions on the board and model a simple extension question. Getting answers to questions such as “Where do you work?” and “How often do you work?” allows students to write in more detail later. Students can then go back and reinterview their partners, possibly in the next class, and again write notes.

Students now have a great deal of information that needs to be sorted and organized into logical sentences to form a cohesive paragraph. At this point I give a recap on conjunctions and the importance of and reasons for writing longer sentences, which sets students up for producing a first-draft introductory paragraph. A final extension of this could include students typing up the paragraphs and uploading them onto the university intranet or creating a class blog including photographs.

An oral class can be conducted in a similar way, but with students giving an oral presentation instead of a write-up. In a lively variation of this in a smaller class, students form small groups (not including their original partner). Each student is allotted a set amount of time to introduce his or her partner to his or her group.

Another lively activity that I have used in both writing and speaking class to introduce various grammatical points and/or new vocabulary is running dictations. Students are paired off, with one student as A and the other as B. A chosen text related to the theme or grammatical aim of the class in two parts of around 75 words each is typed up in large font size and one or two copies are pinned around the classroom where students cannot see them from their desks. Students A then quickly go to the text, remember a line, and go back and relay it to their partner, who then writes it down. After A has gone back and forth a number of times and has finished his/her half of the text, students read the written text together and check what B wrote down with regard to spelling and grammar, with A possibly going back to double-check. When all students have finished, students A and B switch roles and repeat for the second half of the text. I find that students really enjoy these and it can really spice up a dry reading piece and help students remember new vocabulary while having a lot of fun.

A slight variation on the above based on answering questions about a reading text can inject more interest into what might originally be seen as unexciting. Students are paired off, with the teacher reading out the first question based on a text (that has been previously read if students are reading for detail, or has just been introduced if scanning or skimming is being practiced). Upon finding the answer within the text, one student in the pair writes it down and comes to the front for the teacher to check. If the answer is acceptable, the teacher quietly tells the student the next question, who in turn tells his or her partner and the process continues.

Weekly learner-centered additions like these aim to not only raise motivation levels for the 90 minutes of the class but keep them consistently high throughout the semester. Students are generally more upbeat and stimulated, they are keen to come to class, and the dynamics improve. Class morale goes up due to students being more willing to speak out as they become less introverted and afraid of embarrassment through making mistakes.

I cannot claim that adding these activities to your class will cause students with a 2-hour commute to jump out of bed at the sound of their alarm clocks at 5:30 in the morning to make the Monday period 1 class, but there is more chance that they will enjoy class and feel comfortable in the classroom environment.

Michael Kelland is an English university lecturer at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies in Japan, having previously taught in Russia, Italy, and the United Kingdom.