Interviewing Affective Educators: Eric Kane

I met Eric Kane in 2013 when I attended my first JALT conference in Kobe, Japan. Eric is that kind of guy that you will remember him after you have met him. He is a kind, creative, and energetic teacher who is always singing, thinking, and sketching how his ideas can become either songs, books, or videos. After the conference in 2013, I had the great pleasure of being at Eric's house for a week in the city of Omihachiman and going many times to ELF Learning, the school for young learners he founded many years ago. In our talks he shared that ELF stands for Everybody Loves Fun, which defines well the mood children experience at his lovely school.

It's my great pleasure to interview Eric, who is both a friend and a professional that I admire and respect immensely.


Juan: When I see you interacting with children, I notice that your interactions come very naturally and full of caring and purpose. It even seems that you were already born a teacher. Please share with us how you have become an English teacher.

Eric: When I was about 16 I had a meeting with my guidance counsellor in high school.  This is someone who helps students identify which career they might find rewarding or interesting.  Her first question to me was, "What do you see yourself doing in the future?"  I told her that I wanted to be a motivational speaker!  I'm still not sure where that came from, but I think I might have known even then that I wanted my life's work to help others in some way.  

Juan: I have been to your talks and you surely have inspired other teachers to publish their materials. I had the great pleasure of being with the children and  your great team in the cozy classrooms you have at your school. How did you start ELF? How has it evolved since its early days? 

Eric: Great question and a very amusing answer.  I started the school after teaching for 6 years at a private language school and a private junior/senior high school.  I told my wife that I would be happy to stay in Japan, but I wanted to quit my job and open my own English school.  She agreed and we put all of our savings into a building, got it ready and opened the doors.  

We furnished it with wooden furniture in an old Japanese house.  I played music and had coffee or tea ready as the students came in.  It was a very pleasant place to be.  Physical environment was and is very important to me and I wanted to create a space that quietly whispered, "You're welcome and you're safe."


The funny part is that when I opened I told my wife that this would be strictly an ADULT English school.  I had been teaching mostly kids for 6 years and must have needed a break.  After a year or so some of the seniors in the neighborhood asked me to teach their grandchildren, so I went down to the used furniture place and picked up a nice cedar table for the kids.  I found myself really enjoying the classes.  We laughed a lot and I found myself building a strong connection with the students...much closer than I had ever become with my adult students.  

I think it was there purity.  They had no reservations if they trusted you.  Build the trust with a laugh and they would follow.  I found myself having a good amount of success with these students despite the fact that, looking back, I really knew little of what I was doing! 

When my daughter was born I immersed myself in books on childhood and language development.  The words were profound and I found myself self-reflecting as I flipped through the pages.  How can I use this information in my classroom?  How do we really learn or acquire language.  More and more it became clear to me that, at least with the youngest learners, it was much more than just language.  It was about learning how to communicate with one another at all costs.  This realization has guided much of my teaching since then.


After a while my daughter's friends started to join the school and I found myself enjoying the classes more and more.  Ever since I've slowly moved away from teaching adults and 2 years ago we closed our doors to all students over the age of 12!  I laugh every time I think about where we started!

Juan: I would have never imagined it if you hadn't told it, Eric! As you know I strongly believe in affective language learning. How do you see affect being lived in the everyday life at ELF?

Eric: One of my favorite teaching quotes is, "If a child can't learn the way we teach, perhaps we should teach the way they learn."

I believe that children learn naturally if we give them the right environment, opportunity and a little patience.  Unfortunately we find that parents are often the most impatient with the learning process.  The kids are just fine!

That's why we've made an effort to discuss how children learn with moms and dads.  If they understand that (in our case) language learning is largely a natural process at this age, they generally are quite happy to back off and not insist on meaningless tests and assessments.  And more often than not, they are surprised at the results.  

Most of our students only come once a week, so we try and spend as much time as possible in an interactive environment.  We use many picture books to discuss characters and illustrations, to develop predictive and memory skills and spend whatever time necessary helping them to understand the meaning of the story.  We also use a great deal of songs in creative ways, often with students creating their own versions of the songs!  And one of my favorite activities is to put down an assortment of flash cards on the floor and build a story with them.  They LOVE that.

Juan: In my travels around the world, I have visited many successful schools and yours is certainly one of these. In your opinion, what is important for a language school to thrive?  

Eric: Big question!  For me, personally, it's about creating a great space, hiring the right teachers, training them well, communicating goals and teaching methods to parents and students and then following through. Pretty much the same as any other business I think. 

Eric published this amazing book! 

Juan:You have launched books in the area of phonics, which have been very well received. What are the new features you have included in the books? 

Eric: With phonics and other materials I think it's less, "What's new" and more, "What's the Combination." We tried to combine a number of goals in a clear, classic layout that kids will love and teachers will find both effective and easy-to-teach. The main spreads are designed to be very clear while the activity sections are designed to provide opportunities to dig a little deeper into the English language. So far it seems that we have hit a sweet spot with students, parents and teachers giving us a very big thumbs up! 

Juan: Could you share with us how you create and produce your lovely videos? 

Eric: I could, but then I'd have to kill you....

Seriously, there's no rhyme or reason to it.  Many of the videos are based around our curriculum, those are the videos that I have to make for the kids to have exposure to English outside of the classroom.  For the song videos, it's often just a lot of fun!  Sometimes I make the music first.  Sometimes the video section.  It really is all over the place.  I just try my best to use great visuals, great audio and make them fun whenever possible!

Juan: How was the partnership with Mari Nakamura and Patricia Daly Oe in Lily and the Moon? 

Eric: Mari and Patricia and I have a fantastic working relationship.  We each bring different skill sets to the table and each of these sets compliments the other.  For me, the decision to work with and publish Lily and the Moon was made a no-brainer because it meant working with two lovely human beings! 

Juan: Which message would you leave to English teachers of young learners around the world? 

Eric: I suppose I would remind other teachers to focus on being an example of a great communicator. I've found that the more I focus on sincerely trying to connect and identify with students, the more successful they become. 

Juan: Thank you so much for this great interview, Eric!!!


Would you like me to interview anybody you know? 
Do you have any suggestions for this section of the blog? 
Write me and let me know your thoughts! 

Send you all a big hug from Brazil!

Juan

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Affective Language Learning on video!

During my world tour I have had the great pleasure of being and learning with over 2500 children and 460 teachers in many different and very diverse countries. When I close my eyes I can recall the joy of children during my Buddy shows and the engagement of teachers during the affective language learning sessions I have given. Watching yourselves through the eyes of others is a very intense experience as it allows us to see how we stand, talk, and interact with others. More than that, it allows us to really rediscover who we are. 

I would like to thank Jim George from Luna International in Matsumoto, Japan and Ansemf Bae from FIN English in Daegu, South Korea for having gracefully created videos of me during my sessions and shows.  These sounds and images have allowed me to know myself better and are valuable gifts that I will keep forever. 

Thank you so much Jim and Ansemf for taking the time to create these lovely videos. 

It's my great pleasure to share them now with you. 

The first one shows scenes from the Affective Language Learning session given at JALT Shinshu in Matsumoto: 

The second one is about a frog that visited Matsumoto:

And the third one shows highlights of two shows that I did with Buddy in two different schools:





Hope you have enjoyed them as much as I do.
Which was your favourite moment? Leave me a comment!


Hugs and hugs,

Juan

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Puppeteering again at Hanazono Kindergarten!

Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan

Some moments in life have really touched me with sheer joy.  One of these precious memories certainly was telling stories and puppeteering at the two Hanazono Kindergartens in Gifu last year. These performances were truly a challenge for me as my audience was composed of more than three hundred Japanese young language learners aged from three to five. All at the same time! 

Butterflies in my stomach. 

Guess what? I loved it! 

Buddy and I felt super loved before, during, and after both of our presentations. We were welcomed with lots of warmth and excitement by every single person we met at school. Children shouted hellos, teachers served us tea, and our pictures were in the hall. Buddy and I were kindly introduced to the kids, children enjoyed the kamishibai stories, and everybody laughed a lot with our puppeteering. After the show children sang and danced a marvellous thank you song, I got the most amazing medal, and had some delicious cake. We truly felt as kindergarten pop stars!  

As I planned to come back to Japan, I hoped to be able to return to Hanazono to have a similar experience again. As you have probably guessed, fame is highly addictive. 

But would I have the same feelings? 

Could I run the risk of losing that great memory that I had experienced there? 

It was even better! 

Taking the classic photo before my second show at Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan in 2014.

I felt much more confident as I knew the children, the school, and had been successful in the past. Many children  remembered Buddy and I guess me too. The difference was that this year I had the whole fifty minutes with Buddy instead of alternating telling kamishibai stories with some puppeteering sketches as I did last year. This represented a real challenge as I could run out of time or maybe lose the momentum with the kids. 

This year children were to teach Buddy how to sing the songs they know in English. I also chose three sketches that I knew children would love. These were Buddy farting and pooping in his potty, teasing him with a huge inflatable hammer, and having Buddy flying over the kids with a balloon. With these three powerful acts I was ready! 

Children greeted us joyfully, laughed loudly at our jokes, and participated giving lots of commands. Everything went well and Buddy and I have now double Hanazono memories!                                                                                                                                                                                                    I gained lots of practice and confidence in my puppeteering skills with large groups and I feel now very empowered to get even better at it. ( Puppeteering can also be highly addictive, beware!)                                                                                                                           

I plan to invest in my professional development as a puppeteer to be able to come up with a much more elaborate experience for children all over the world. Buddy is also very excited about all this! 

Last year we got a medal from the children and this year it was the same. 

Can you notice any difference? 

Here you can watch a clip that I have prepared for you with some of the best moments of these two performances. Enjoy it!

I would like to thank Mark Kulek who has made these magic moments possible not once, but twice. Mark is the founder and director of Gifu Kids which is a lovely school for kids in Gifu as the name says it all. Mark has also had the privilege of teaching these lovely children at both Hanazono Kindergartens for the last eight years. 

Mark is now a friend who I admire both personally and professionally. 

What are your best memories with young language learners? 

Have you ever had similar challenges to mine that you simply loved? 

Send you a big puppet hug,

Uribe Sensei

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Storytelling and Puppeteering at Hanazono kindergarten!

Being an English Teacher, Storyteller, and a Puppeteer, I have told more stories than I am able to imagine. But telling stories at Hanazono kindergarten was really something to remember because of the audience, the environment, and the recognition I got. A truly remarkable experience! 

I probably got you curious, didn't I? Well, let me tell you how everything started. While taking the CELTA at EC Languages in April of 2012, I mentioned to my instructor David Nield that I was going to Japan to give workshops to teachers of young learners. As he had seen me with my puppet Buddy the Frog, he looked at me and said: Juan, you should have a show, because then you can present your show even more frequently than giving workshops for teachers.  I went home with that idea on my mind. Yes! I should definitely have a show of mine!

I prepared a page here on the blog with 5  different show possibilities and waited to see if anyone in Japan would be interested. And it was with great pleasure that I received Mark Kulek’s message telling me that he would be interested in hiring me for two shows and some consultancy. Wow!

In my mind I thought I would be presenting to 30-40 children at a time, probably many times throughout the morning. That was my experience telling stories at kindergartens. It was only some weeks before the actual show that Mark mentioned there would be 300 children in each presentation!

Hanazono Kindergarten is a large kindergarten in the prefecture of Gifu in Japan. It has two large schools in two different parts of the city. The schools are very organized and the students' art projects are simply amazing. When I arrived at both schools I was invited to go to the director’s office for some tea. That lasted ten minutes and then I was ready for the show. Before we had some time to interact with the children in the large playground they have. Children were very open and confident, coming and greeting with lots of “Hello” and “What’s your name?”. I felt very welcome by everybody and everybody knew I was coming.

Coming to the large hall, I did some terrain recognition and I arranged a table, the kamishibai box, and tested the wireless microphone. Everything was set!

Children arrived in a very organized way and sat in rows according to their grades. They were incredibly behaved. I could see in their eyes that they were excited about what was about to happen. I had fun making contact with their eyes and waving at them in the crowd that was suddenly forming in the large hall.

My introduction was a beautiful one. Every grade was called and Children replied. I can say it by the tone and how I was presented. Even though I can not understand Japanese very well, I was able to understand that I had flown from Brazil to be with them. I also liked my new identity: Juan Uribe Sensei!

My performance consisted of a mix of kamishibai stories and puppeteering sketches with Buddy the Frog. The show lasted 30 minutes as I had children between 3 and 5 years old as my audience. But do not think that it was an easy task, being in front of more than 300 children requires very precise actions to be able to get and maintain their attention. By the end of the 30 minutes, I could notice that some children were already drifting away.

I simply love this picture. It really captured my joy. 

My language had to be very precise, so that I could make sure that children would understand me. I had lots of single commands, induced language, counting until 3, and answering yes or no. I also had to be careful that children way in the back could see what I was doing. I lived my clown side by falling of chairs and giving my funniest looks. And they worked! What a feeling!

Buddy has no idea of the surprise I have prepared for him.

When I finished the presentations I had two unforgettable surprises. At Hanazono Kita, all the students sang me a thank you song while dancing. And then they shouted in a lovely choir “Thank you, Juan Uribe Sensei!”. Wow! At Hanazono, two children came to stage and gave a lovely medal, which reads “Arigato, Juan Uribe Sensei!”. 

Hanazono kids singing me a thank you song. Breathtaking!

In both schools, after I had my presentation I was invited to go to the Director’s office for a treat of delicious tea and pudding. I was then given two more gifts! A laminated posters of my show in the morning and a box with a famous Japanese character. I plan to go to Japan every year and I will certainly return to visit and probably perform again to the lovely kids at Hanazono kindergartens.

Here I share a video  created with some of the very best moments at Hanazono.




On the next day I was at Gifu kids, which is just across Hanazono, and Buddy and I went to have lunch with the children. We felt like pop stars with all the kids happily waving and calling us. This was the confirmation that the show had been a success!

Buddy even went to have lunch with the kids the next day! 

Mark and I made news in the local newspaper! 

This fantastic experience energizes me to continue developing my skills as a performer and to become a professional entertainer, or maybe even an enterteacher. Do you know that question of what you would do if you didn’t do what you do? I always answered I would be an actor. Maybe this is my calling. And the best thing is that I can continue being an educator.

What about you?

What is the biggest audience you have talked to?

Do you have a latent actor/actress inside of you?

Send you a big frog-hug,

Juan Uribe Sensei

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Caring, Learning, and Sharing at JALT 2013

Happy we arrived at JALT 2013!

A conference is always a very special moment. We meet old and new peers,  question old ideas and learn new ones, and many times share our work. And JALT 2013 in Kobe is certainly one of those intense growing experiences that will always stick near and dear to my heart. I had wanted to return to Japan for a long time and I am happy that I made it to JALT!

The conference finished more than a month ago and after the euforia I can see better what I have lived. It is my great pleasure to share share my experience here with you.

Meeting people is one of the things I love the most doing. I love listening to their stories, their successes, and their challenges. Being curious as I am, I also love making questions. As you can see in the picture above, it is not usually hard for me to meet people as Buddy always strikes up conversations with everybody.


Recently I had the great pleasure of becoming an associate educator with iTDi, a group of dedicated teachers from many different countries, whose mission is to improve language learning around the world. At JALT I had the chance to meet many members from the iTDi family I had known only online. The only person I had met in person before the conference was Malu Sciamarelli, who I had the delight to take on a tour of my school in São Paulo.  The very special people from iTDi that I met are Barbara Sakamoto, Anna Loseva, Nina Septima, Marco Brazil, Tim Murphey, Matt Shannon, Naoko Amano, Kevin Stein, Michael Griffin, Steven Herder, Eric Kane, and John Fanselow. What a family!

Here you can see a little bit of the fun it was being in family!

Malu, Tim, Nina, Barbara, Buddy, John, and me. 

iTDi guys: Matt, Marco, Kevin, Michael, and me. 

More iTDi: Malu, Nina, Eric, Anna, and me in a great shot by Barbara!

 I also had the great pleasure to meet three amazing educators at the conference and to be with them in their own settings, many times even participating as a guest storyteller/puppeteer!

 These energetic and passionate educators are Naoko Aramano from Yellow Banana Kids in Kishiwada, Eric Kane from Elf Learning in Omihachiman , and Mark Kulek from Gifu Kids in Gifu. 

I usually get overwhelmed at conferences with the sheer amount of information and JALT 2013 was no different. There are so many ideas, talks, and people that it was hard to choose where to be.

 Some of the things that have me had thinking after the conference are lapbooks with their marvellous process and products, classes with very young chidren and their parents, and innovative games for children.

I also really enjoyed the discussions about feedback, gamification, modelling rapport, and professional trajectories of language teachers. But nothing compares to seeing  Mari Nakamura and Eric Kane dressed as ladybugs in the presentation of their lovely Lily and the Moon!

JALT is a large international conference and one can even get lost in the amount of sessions that are happening at the same time. One great idea was to have all the presentations that had children in them in the same area, which was called JALT Junior. This made it super easy for me to go from one to the next one and make sure I met other teachers. JALT Junior was like a mini-conference inside JALT!

Presenting to small groups at a time made it very personal. 

Many of you might know that I hosted a poster session on Affective Language Learning with young learners, which has been my passion for a long time. I have lived, studied, and talked about it for almost 20 years now and Affective Language Learning is the area that I thoroughly researched during my Masters at OISE/ University of Toronto.

In my poster I highlighted four main areas that when well addressed can create very positive emotions for children learning a foreign language. In reality these areas are important not only for children, as you can imagine. These four critical affective domains are:

Holistic language as a real and accessible means communication
Creating memorable personal experiences through relevant student-centered activities
Power sharing and discussions about learning for empowerment and ownership of learning
Mental models and collective reflection to gain learning self-awareness

I will come back to these domains in a post to come. If you are attending TESOL Arabia, I will be hosting this very same poster session, but now with an enhanced version!

Nina and Malu checking the monoculars!

A special treat I inserted in my presentation were monoculars with pictures from students and teachers learning affectively at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo, the school I founded in São Paulo, Brazil.

 Most people who paid me a visit had never seen them and were delighted to see the tiny pictures. That is how affective learning should be, with surprise, fun, and some mystery. I am really happy that it worked out and participants were able to feel some affective learning. 

After the conference I had the great fortune of being invited by Barbara Sakamoto to go to Kyoto together with Anna Loseva and Malu Sciamarelli. We had a fantastic day going with Hiroshi, our fantastic guide, to different temples and having the most amazing lunch in a traditional Japanese restaurant surrounded by a gorgeous garden. These experiences I will cherish forever! Thank you Barbara once again! 

Barbara, Anna, Buddy, Malu, Brownie, and me at this lovely Tori in Kyoto! 

After the conference I had the chance to still continue travelling for more 20 days and only now I have started to feel the post-conference blues that has been mentioned in posts. I have this feeling of having truly lived humanity during this one month I had the privilege of spending in Japan. And more than that, I feel that I am more myself by carrying a little bit of all the people I met during my stay. So blessed! 

What about you? 

How often do you go to conferences? 

What do you like about going to conferences? 

Write me a few lines, I'd love to start talking to you. 

Send you a big frog-hug from Toronto!

Juan

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Kamishibaing with Young Learners in Japan!

Remember I told you that I was going on a kamishibai adventure? 

I did and here I have here the great pleasure to share with you my experience kamishibaing with children in Japan.  If you are new to kamishibai, I'd like to invite you to first read my previous post  in which I recall how I got in contact with this lovely ancient art. 

My kamishibai experience started on a rainy morning at Junkudo, a large bookstore in Osaka. I arrived before it opened, waited a little bit and was the very first person to enter it. I looked around, didn't see any kamishibai,  and then asked one of the employees in my basic Japanese.  Would they have them? Yes, they did! You can not imagine my pleasure when the young lady showed the shelves in the picture with more than 200 stories. the stories. They were just in front of me, but in the other side. I sat on the floor and started exploring all of them. 

After a good 50 minutes sitting on the floor, I finally made me mind and chose 5 stories. I choose stories that can be told to children from 1 to 7 years old, specially thinking about the sessions I was soon going to have in Gifu. I wish I could have chosen more, but not only I had the cost but also their weight as I was backpacking. I also got the kamishibai box, which is really heavy!




I also bought the kamishibai box and hyoshigi. Lewis Carroll said that telling a story is giving a present of love. If we consider the kamishibai stories the gifts, then the kamishibai box is a fantastic and mysterious wrapping. Just by taking it out, children are already curious and excited for what is about to come. But before touching opening the three magic doors, I clack the hyoshigi three times as a way of announcing that we are entering fantasy world, and chant "story, story, story".

After a couple of times doing it, I can guarantee you that the audience is with you and ready to enjoy this unique art. Another trick is really ritualizing the way in which the story ends with 3 words said one at a time, when the little doors are being closed. Kamishibai is pure magic!


Kamishibai stories usually have 8,12, 16, or even 24 picture cards. The more the cards, the older is the intended audience. Here below I share the froggy story that I bought. I still need some help to figure out the real story as I can not read Japanese. Help me please if you know it!

Well, I was then ready to start! My first two sessions were at at Hanazono Kita and Hanazono kindergartens in Gifu. And in a mega way as I had 300 kids in each session. Yes, you read it right, 300 kids between 3 and 5 years old. Each session lasted 30 minutes and I alternated kamishibai stories with Buddy sketches. I even had a wireless microphone. My challenge was to make the stories linguistically accessible to all the children and to do so I used greetings, counting until 3, and lots of commands. I was impressed with the amount of English they knew and happy to say that the kamishibai telling was a success! 

Here I am telling one story in which characters come out of shapes. The ghost cries because it does not have friends and then the girl and robot come to play with it in the end. A very sweet story! 

Here I have prepared a surprise for Buddy. He doesn't know that we have a really big cake for him! The children really enjoyed the suspense and the interactions in which Buddy did not know where the cake was! Then, as you can imagine, Buddy ate it all!

After this amazing experience at Hanazono,  I told stories at almost all the schools I visited.  Small groups, big groups, really young, almost teenagers, only children, children with their parents. You name it! 

One experience in particular that was very special was when Lisa at Oshaberi invited me to teach her class of 1-year old students, who come to class together with their moms. That was my very first experience telling kamishibai stories to such young children and I wasn't sure how much I would be able to get their attention and tell them the story. You know what? Children hooked up and really enjoyed it!  Here in the picture you can see students accepting my invitation to try the cake. Some of them even said one or two words.  I am still excited about having had this marvellous moment with these very very young learners! 

I wasn't able to meet a real kamishibaiman this time and my search continues.
Next year I will certainly invest more in getting to know at least one of these amazing artists.
This possible dream encounter energizes me even more to continue my Japanese studies!

What about you?

Do you see yourself telling stories with kamishibai?
Have you ever heard a kamishibaiman?

Send you a big kamishibai-hug!

Juan

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