The Language Teacher

"Good morning!"

"Guddo mo-ningu!"

So begin my Thursday mornings at a public special nursing care facility (tokubetsu yougo rojin ho-mu) in Yokohama. In the year and a half that I have been volunteering as an English teacher at this home, I have grown close to a group of about twenty elderly residents and a number of very committed professionals and fellow volunteers. I have been granted a glimpse of the challenges of an aging society, have broadened my teaching style, and increased my capability. I would like to share my experience in this article to encourage readers to seek out similar opportunities in their communities.

Lesson Structure

I have been working with the home's physical therapist to present my English lesson during physical therapy time. The residents are largely Alzheimer's patients, so my twenty to thirty minutes after calisthenics is just enough for their attention spans.

I use large drawings, stuffed animals, and sometimes special stickers for holidays. I also occasionally borrow the large pictures from the New Crown series (Mori, 1995) to illustrate hobbies or sports. Since both vision and hearing ability decline with age, I try not to rely entirely on either by engaging as many senses as possible.

I have one basic lesson plan that I use every time with variations. The regular elements create a sense of security and also create automatic successes to counterbalance the occasional failures inevitable in learning new things. Since the short term memory capability of the elderly is limited, the plan is repetitive, but each time I try to add a few new points of interest. It is exciting for both me and the class when a person who had never participated suddenly calls out "Cloudy!" on a cloudy day.

My plan is as follows:

1. Greetings: "Good morning." "How are you?" "I'm fine."
2. Hello song: A simple song where "Hello, hello, hello, hello." is sung on a rising scale and "Nice to see you." is sung on a falling one.
3. "How's the weather?" I have pictures illustrating sunny, rainy, windy, snowy, stormy, and cloudy, which I review after we have established the day's weather.
4. Counting: We count to ten, sticking out fingers instead of folding them in Japanese-style, then count backwards.
5. Animals: I pass around stuffed animals, a monkey, a sheep, a rabbit, and a zebra. Each person says the name and passes it on. Touching the animals adds a tactile dimension to the learning process. We also compare the sounds animals make in both English and Japanese. For example, a pig says oink instead of bu-bu, and a cow says moo instead of mo. This always brings laughs and looks of disbelief.
6. Song: "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes." sung very slowly.
7. Some culture-related aspect, such as food, a holiday, or a place from a picture calendar which I talk about in English and then in Japanese.
8. Questions from students and staff.
9. Good-bye song: "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, see you next week." sung to the same tune as the hello song.

Skills Needed

For the foreign volunteer some Japanese language ability is helpful but not essential. I have worked with several Japanese volunteers whose English is excellent thereby eliminating my need to use Japanese.

A sense of humor is very important in the presentation of the lesson as is a willingness to depart from the plan in response to student needs. These skills, enhanced by teaching the elderly, will in turn enhance the volunteer's other teaching settings.

Benefits to Teachers and Students

Since working with elderly people requires us to adapt our teaching to learner needs, I have started to rethink my approach to teaching in other settings. For example, my lessons with junior and senior high school students have become more multi-sensory. I am more responsive to the students' contributions having gained the flexibility to follow their interests in creating a lesson.

Volunteering is a refreshing change of pace which at the same time confirms the commitment teachers feel to their profession. While I love volunteering with elderly people, I am also glad that I am working in a school with young people. I can enjoy my young students' energy and occasional restlessness more now that I teach a totally different kind of student once a week.

Students can also gain a new perspective on learning by volunteering as teachers. Institutions could be approached to allow high school and college students to volunteer for course credit, as their experiences would be relevant to studies of teaching and learning, aging, social services, medicine, and counseling.

Accept the Invitation to Volunteer

Although starting a volunteer project takes time and effort, the investment of time and energy required at the start is well returned by the personal connections formed with the elderly, the staff, and other volunteers. After the initial preparations are made, the weekly burden is little more than the time spent actually volunteering. Volunteering is rewarding personally and professionally: It offers us each a chance to give something back to the community in which we live or work in a way that strengthens our own professional skills. While I would be gratified to see more people working with the elderly, those readers who find going to nursing homes difficult could create a similar volunteer project which better suited their interests. I truly hope that many readers will be inspired to look into opportunities to volunteer their talents in their communities.

References and Further Reading

Freed, A. (1993). The changing worlds of older women in Japan. Manchester, CT: Knowledge, Ideas & Trends, Inc.

Gray-Davidson, F. (1996). The Alzheimer's sourcebook for caregivers. Los Angeles, CA: Lowell House.

林洋子(1997).「高齢者福祉情報：あしたは私も高齢者」（青葉区版）老いを考える会.

森住衛(1995). New crown English series. 東京：三省堂.