There is a famous productivity book by Brian Tracy that encourages the reader to “Eat that frog”. This is a metaphor that implores us to tackle the hardest thing on our to do list as the first item of the day, rather than waste time on less important tasks.
When teaching Japanese, I felt like there was an unspoken rule that dictated the order we generally teach students. The order of script acquisition tends to move from Romaji to Hiragana to Katakana with Kanji added regularly along the way. Individual words and phrases progress to set question and answer pairings to lists of grammar structures that can be more widely applied. The polite masu/desu was introduced before the plain form, and features of text types became more of a focus once enough language content had been acquired.
But what if that order was actually creating more work for myself and my students? What if we changed gears and began “eating the frogs’? These ponderings led to the birth of the Kaeru Project.
Project aspirations
Kaeru in Japanese is a homophone for frog (noun) and to return/go home (verb). This resource is designed to be the home base of student writing acquisition, where they feel safe and supported by scaffolds, vocabulary repetition and frequent practice. It is designed as a resource that they can return to frequently (kaeru verb) and as an impetus to hop (kaeru noun) straight into the more complex aspects of Japanese writing acquisition as the first frog of the course.
The new order favoured by the Kaeru project includes an emphasis on text type, Kanji and the plain form from Week 1 of the year 11 course. It is designed to sit alongside the textbook and regular classwork in the form of a weekly writing supplement. It could be used by teachers as a Home study task, holiday review booklet, class warm-up or quiet lesson ending. It is assumed that students will complete three tasks each week and that these tasks will take approximately 5-10 minutes in Course 1. This will gradually increase in subsequent Course booklets to incorporate longer tasks of 15-25 minutes to mirror the length of the longer writing tasks in the HSC.
The resource aims to save some time as the syllabus Kanji are introduced for each new word rather than introducing the word in hiragana, then unlearning that habit to later write the word in Kanji. We “eat the frog” and learn the kanji upfront.
This resource is designed specifically with the Stage 6 Japanese Beginners course in mind, although it could be used with students in Stage 4 and 5. Although it assumes that students are working through the Jblog 4 textbook at the same time, it could be used as a support resource for any textbook or teacher created program. It assumes that students have learned or are learning hiragana and katakana during their regular lessons. It could also be useful for teachers who are teaching Beginners and Continuers in the same class as a common task across the courses.
There are five course booklets in this series:
Course 1: Diaries and Dialogues (plain form focus)
Course 2: Casual Emails and Letters (plain form focus)
Course 3: Transitioning from Casual to Polite texts (including speeches)
Course 4: Messages
Course 5: Articles
Why do I need this?
This task is useful for students in many different contexts from Stage 4 to 6. Consistently bringing the learning back to the bigger picture of communicating in context within a framework of gradually developed scaffolds and familiar language allows students to feel real growth milestones in their writing and reading skills development. Teachers could also use the texts when creating their own assessment tasks or class tasks. The courses also support student preparation for several Manten Resources Assessment tasks as discussed in the Home Edit post. This resource includes a word and pdf version of the student booklet, teacher marking guidelines and a teacher guide.
How do I order this?
You can simply email jblog1help@gmail.com to request a quote or tax invoice for this item. We are always happy to answer questions about the task.
