Hajime Umeda
Suzuka International University

I. Introduction
　It is hard work to teach EFL to those who do not like to study and to those who are not motivated. However, the teachers have no choice if the EFL class is a required subject. What teaching methods/devices can the teachers apply in such classrooms?
　In this paper, I would like to introduce some teaching methods I used in the Suzuka International University repeater classes. At the same time, I will present an idea of how EFL should be taught in order to give the EFL students a feeling of familiarity with English.

II. About the Repeater Classes and the Students
　I taught two repeater classes for the 1998-99 academic year. Both classes met once a week and lasted 90 minutes per meeting. The instruction was given in Japanese. One class, mainly for sophomores, had 53 students while the other had 35, most of whom were juniors. The students in both of these classes had not passed the required freshman reading/grammar course yet. Some of these students had not chosen English as a test subject when taking the entrance examination to our university. This might suggest that quite a few of them were not good at English and/or do not like it.

III. The Choice of Textbook
　I chose an approximately 90-page EFL textbook for both classes. It consisted of 22 lessons.
　One reason why I decided to use this text was its short reading passages. At the beginning of each lesson, there was a one-page reading passage followed by a few kinds of exercises. Since each passage was short (96 words, the shortest, and 148 at maximum), the students did not show anxiety towards reading when they glanced at it.
　Another advantage of this textbook was the selection of topics among the passages. They were about world news, social problems, sports, fashions, and other items the students were interested in.

IV. In Classes
　When each class met, I divided the 90-minute session into two 45-minute sessions. In the first session, I mainly used the textbook, followed by another 45-minute session that was for teaching grammar.

　A. In the 1st session: Reading by Use of the Textbook
　Although these repeater classes dealt with reading, I avoided asking the students to translate entire sentences into Japanese. Direct translation is one of the big factors which may cause Japanese students to dislike and/or feel bored with EFL classes. Rather, I told the students to try to catch the general theme of each passage after giving them the Japanese meaning of some crucial words in each passage. In addition, since each passage included some statistical numbers, I asked the students what each of the numbers represented (See Appendix 1 for a sample passage and questions concerning the contents.).
　Yokoyama (1998) reports that there are lots of cases in which Japanese EFL students can understand the meanings of English sentences without Japanese translation. He also insists that the ultimate goal in reading classes is not in doing translation but in catching the general meaning of what the English sentences/passages are written about.

　B. In the 2nd session: Teaching Grammar
　I spent the next 45 minutes in teaching some basic grammar items/points. Taking into consideration that some of the students have not retained what they learned in high school, I started teaching with the junior high school 1st year level. The grammar items I taught included BE verbs, ﾔ-sﾕ in the 3rd person singular verb form, present/future/past tenses, present/past progressives, present perfect, interrogatives, active/passive voices, imperatives, comparatives/superlatives, relative pronouns, etc. I spent quite a long time in introducing each item to the students; one 45-minute session per grammatical item/point.

　C. Visual Aids
　To help the students more easily understand what they were studying about, I used the following visual aids, maps and slides, when and where necessary.

　　1. Maps
　Since some passages in the textbook included the names of the places around the world, showing the students a map in the classroom helped them figure out where the stories in each of the passages happened.

　　2. Slides
　In one class session, I showed the students some 30 slides of an American university campus when I was teaching about university students in the United States. Although this topic was not included in the textbook, I talked to them about it since I was a graduate student at an American university. Most of the students, even some of those who did not like to study EFL, seemed like to listen to my lecture while watching the slides with scenes related to it.

　D. Extra-Curricular Activities: Showing Videos
　There were also two videos shown in class; one was a 10-minute collection of American TV commercials, and the other was the movie Rainman.

　　1. A Video Clip of Liquor Commercials on American TV
　One day, I talked about the social problems concerning drinking and smoking in the United States, which were introduced in the textbook. After telling the students that showing cigarette commercials was prohibited on American TV, I showed the 10-minute video, a series of beer/wine commercials. Then, I asked the students how the American liquor commercials were different from the Japanese counterpart. They immediately answered that the people in the American commercials did not show any scenes of actual drinking. The actors did not put their lips onto the glasses. This brought up a very interesting cultural difference and the students were interested in watching the scenes and realized the broadcasting code is stricter in the United States than in Japan.

　　2. A Movie: Rainman
　I also showed the students the entire film, Rainman, in four full 90-minute sessions. The main purpose in showing this movie was to have the students realize that listening to English can be a popular pastime and that the language is something one can easily become familiar with. Since the film is 120-minutes long, I divided it into four parts. The activities made to accompany the film viewing are as follows:

　　　a. Listening Exercises
Portions of the film script were written out, including some blanks, and was handed to the students. While watching and listening two or three times each to what the actors in some scenes were saying, the students tried to fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (See Appendix 2.).

　　　b. Showing the Diversity of the Geography of the United States
　Rainman shows a variety of American geographical scenes throughout the story, from the hilly Midwest to the desert in California. It helped teach the students that the land of this big country varies very much.

　　　c. Understanding the Family Relationship
　This movie depicts the relationship between two brothers. As the story goes on, the younger brother gradually shows more friendliness and understanding to his older brother. This process of his changing attitudes seemed to interest the students beyond the EFL learning.

V. Possible Shortcomings in my Grammar Teaching
　As stated in IV-A, I taught grammar explicitly in both of the classes. This is due to the concern about the extremely low reading ability level of my students.
　According to Nunan (1995, p.143), ﾒ...the place of grammar in the language classroom is currently rather uncertain.ﾓ
　Krashen (1988) says in his Monitor Theory that ﾒacquiringﾓ languages is very similar to the process of childrenﾕs language development: it comes automatically and is different from ﾒlearning.ﾓ From his point of view, therefore, ﾒteachingﾓ grammar makes very little sense for the EFL students. Ellis (1988, pp.21-22) reports that ﾒ... the order of grammatical development is the result of the types of conversations which learners typically take part in.ﾓ Moreover, McLaughlin, Rossman, and McLeod (1983) also report that ﾒcontrolledﾓ processes may precede the development of ﾒautomaticﾓ processes. If this is true, there is no reason to exclude grammar teaching from the EFL classroom... I would rather support the theory that ﾒteachingﾓ grammar has an important role for development of studentsﾕ EFL abilities

. VI. Having Office Hours for the Students
　I held office hours to answer the studentsﾕ questions concerning what they were studying in class. Since both of the classes were held on Thursdays, I set my office hours on both Thursdays and Fridays, for approximately one hour each day.

VII. Conclusion
　How to teach EFL and what teaching approaches to use are what we teachers always have to be seriously concerned with, especially when teaching students with little motivation and/or those who do not like to study. However, some methods/devices can make the classroom atmosphere more comfortable for both the students and teachers. As a result, this may accelerate the studentsﾕ motivation to study. To make this happen, teachers would rather consider what methods/approaches can interest the students in class over considering how to make them understand English.
　Even if my grammar teaching method is not accepted by other teaching professionals, I think the students need to understand English grammar to at least some degree even though their goal may be to study EFL for communicating with others.
　While I was teaching these classes, I did not give the students any pre/post tests to find out if their English had been improved although I gave them a questionnaire which asked them how they felt about my teaching approaches (See Appendix 3 for the questionnaire and its results.). When I have another chance to teach repeater classes, I would like to examine whether these teaching methods/approaches are scientifically effective, using a statistical analysis.

Ellis, R. (1988). Classroom Second Language Development. London: Prentice Hall International.

Harley, B., Allen, P., Cummins, J., and Swain, M. (1990). The Development of Second Language Proficiency. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Krashen, S. (1988). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. London: Prentice Hall International.

McLaughlin, B., Rossman, T., and McLeod, B. (1983). Second Language Learning: an Information-Processing Perspective. Language Learning, 33, 135-58.

Morinaga, M. (1996). Eigoka Kyouiku wo Kaeru 6-shou (Six Chapters That Can Change the English Education of Japan). Tokyo: Taishukan.

Nunan, D. (1995). Language Teaching Methodology. London: Prentice Hall International.

Takanashi, T., Midorikawa, H., and Wada, M. (1995). Eigo Communication no Shidou (A Guide to Teaching English for Communication). Tokyo: Kenkyusha.

Umeda, H. (1994). An Introduction to an Innovative Approach to EFL Teaching. CAMPANA: Suzuka International Forum, 1, 65-69.

Yokoyama, T. (1998). Yaku-doku to Imi-rikai-----Rikai nakushite Yaku wa dekinai ka? (Translation and Understandings of meaning-----Can Translation be Done without Understanding?) Modern English Teaching 35 (6): 38-42.

　The World Health Organization warned Thursday that smoking-related deaths will likely rise from 3 million to 10 million per year early next century.
　About half of all smokers are killed by their addiction, the UN health agency said in its most comprehensive ever report on smoking.
　ﾒNobody is standing on street corners selling handy shirt-pocket-sized packages of the AIDS virus,ﾓ said Neil Collishaw of WHOﾕs program on substance abuse.
　ﾒYet that is exactly the problem we face when we deal with the tobacco industry,ﾓ he said.
　One person dies every 10 seconds as a result of tobacco use, not including victims of passive smoking, the WHO report said.

(Excerpt from: Matsui, E and Shirono, I. (1997). Day-to-Day Information 1997-98. Tokyo: Yumi Press. p. 66.)

[Some sample questions about Lesson 17 (asked orally in Japanese)]
1. What does WHO stand for?
2. How many people may be dying in a year early the 21st century?
3. What disease is introduced in this passage other than possible smoking-related ones?
4. What do you mean by ﾒpassive smoking?ﾓ

Question 1: Are you satisfied with the content of this class?
　a. Yes. 20 (83.3%)
　b. No. 4 (16.7%)

Question 2: How do you feel like the teaching method the instructor takes: giving reading session in the 1st 45 minutes and grammar instructions in the 2nd 45 minutes per meeting? Feel free to write your comments.
　a. (those who wrote positive comments) 18 (75%)
　b. (those who wrote negative comments) 2 (8.3%)
　c. No answer 4 (16.7%)

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