The Language Teacher
05 - 2002
Increasing Students' Awareness of their Roles
David McMurray
The International University of Kagoshima, Shimofukumoto
QUICK GUIDE
Key Words: Haiku, listening, vocabulary, syllables
Learner English Level: Beginner
Learner Maturity Level: Grade 3+ Elementary School Children
Preparation Time: Quick add-on to almost any existing lesson
Activity Time: 10 minutes
Materials: Crayons, paper, and props borrowed from the day's lesson
Providing children with the necessary language tools to capture in a poem what they see and feel can be a rewarding experience for both the teacher and student. Most children are curious about the bugs, small animals, and wildflowers they come across in parks and schoolyards, and will watch or toy with these natural wonders for hours on end. This ability to closely observe nature means they have likely witnessed images that could be formed into an interesting piece of poetic literature. A child can help an adult to see things they may have long forgotten.
Example 1
Fireworks display
the boy in his father's eye
illuminated
Once children enter the classroom, however, it can be quite an endeavor to get them to talk about what they had just enjoyed playing with outdoors. By the third year of elementary school in Japan, students are introduced to Japanese haiku and counting 17 syllables (morae) arranged in a 5-7-5 meter. As of April 2002, in general study classes at this grade, some teachers are introducing English games, songs and other enjoyable oral communication activities. With a little creativity, teachers can bridge these two classes and introduce haiku as a motivational and productive EFL activity. When students find out that children their age in America, Britain, France and 20 other countries are also learning about haiku in their classrooms they can really become inspired.
Procedure
The brevity of haiku lends itself easily to a ten-minute chunk of a lesson plan, for example, warming up or winding down a lesson that is intended to teach the question "What is it?" and perhaps includes a game about insects, with a haiku. For example, try the following contest-winning poem with its third line missing, that was composed by a 9-year old boy in a grade 3 class in Fukushima (JAL Foundation, 1991, p. 8).
Example 2
Cast a magic spell
on a pansy and it becomes
______________
Read out the first two lines, modeling some wizardry theatrics if you like, and show the students three pictures used in the main lesson: perhaps a rabbit, an ant, and a butterfly. Ask the students, "What is it?" To make sure everyone realizes the answer to the trick, draw a quick picture of a pansy on the board to show how it can look like the wings of a butterfly. Show just one more haiku --to keep them keen again in tomorrow's lesson when the topic in your textbook may change to "This is a pen"-- such as the following one that a 9-year old Japanese girl placed on the Children's Square website www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~ryosuzu/childrensquare.html.
Example 3
_______________
in the flower garden
playing hide-and-seek
Read out the last two lines, and show three pictures of animals as possible answers while enunciating their names and asking, for example "a hippopotamus, a cockroach, and a ladybird, what is it?" The whole class will likely pronounce "a ladybird" gleefully, but be on the look-out for one creative child who might shout out "a bee" while pointing to a picture he drew showing the insect half-inside a flower. The reason why haiku works like magic for these reasoning tasks is because of its pithy form that uses a minimum of grammar, and contains just two images and one key word (usually a seasonally-referenced noun). For homework that evening, you could ask students to draw 3 pictures of insects they see on their way home. The next day you'll be simply amazed when they volunteer their own haiku images and say "This is a cicada, this is a mantis, this is a beetle," then ask you to review the magic grammatical formula: "Cast a spell, on a (leaf) and it becomes, a (mantis)."
Counting Syllables
Another ten-minute oral exercise involves helping students to listen to the syllable count of not just words, but phrases. This lesson serves as an early warning to help elementary students understand that English words are not pronounced like their katakana counterparts. And if they remember the lesson, by junior high school they'll fully understand why words are divided into syllables in their dictionaries and by senior high even figure out what diphthongs are. Haiku--because of its rhythm--is meant to be listened to. Although Japanese haiku generally follows a strict 5-7-5 syllable pattern that is easily discernable because each syllable is evenly stressed, English haiku comes in any number of syllables and stress count. English haiku written on three lines are usually read in three breaths. Don't emphasize spelling, but write down one haiku on the blackboard and read it aloud slowly for the class. Don't have them copy it, just ask them to listen carefully. The students will already know how to count the syllables of Japanese using their fingers; you can introduce them to counting syllables in English. I suggest using a haiku that has a number in it, such as the following traditional one composed by master Yosa Buson (1716-1783). I found it along with a haiku picture (haiga) and English translation, easily simplified to an English 5-7-5 syllables form, in a haiku picturebook for children (Nishimoto, 1998, p. 10 - 11). Ask students to sketch a picture of what they imagine the poem to be about with varying numbers of houses to show to their classmates.
Example 4
Sami dare ya taiga o mae ni ie ni ken
Heavy rains of spring
two houses stick together
rushing river bank
Remember, just introduce two haiku during a 10-minute lesson chunk if you want to keep your students eager past the next day. As you read it, ask the students to try counting the 12 syllables they hear in example 5 with their fingers. It is a striking haiku with a lingering message composed by a grade 10 student in Rochester, New York--perfect if in tomorrow's lesson you want to move from the counting of elephants to focus on global issues.
Example 5
Grand piano
in the spotlight
ivory keys
References
JAL Foundation. (1991). Haiku by the Children. JAL Foundation: Tokyo.
Nishimoto, K. (1998). Haiku Picturebook for Children; Haiku no Ehon. Heian: California.
Resources
As of April, 2002 English haiku can be found on some cans of ITO-EN green tea which is available from convenience stores.
There is haiku in every Wednesday edition of the International Herald Tribune Asahi Shimbun.
There are haiku websites at www.asahi.com/english/haiku and www.tecnet.or.jp/~haiku
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