Bringing English & Cross-cultural Activities to Young Children

Kim Horne & Aya Asano - Izumi Chuo Kindergarten, Gifu

This was a dynamic meeting indeed! Kim and Aya are team teaching at a private kindergarten in the Gifu area. They showed us many simple, but useful ways to raise children's interest in English, especially by using chants, body movement and songs, etc.. The audience got involved, jumping up and down and doing everything from touching the back of our heads to colors on floor mat to air sword fighting (perhaps a take-off from air guitar).

Kim and Ayano also went through a lot of trial and error to develop an kindergarten exchange program with an American kindergarten in Kim's hometown. They used a cooking gloves with an attached photograph of the foreign exchange friends to promote the program.  Even at such a young age, the children could experience another culture and language. Kim's and Ayano's enthusiasm were infectious, and we learned a lot about how to help young learners start to learn a foreign language.

Presenter Biography

Kim Horne was born in the U.S., and has been crisscrossing cultures since infancy. She has a background in theatre and began teaching English to children & training teachers in Japan in 2000. She currently works at Izumi Chuo Kindergarten in Gifu City.
Aya Asano is Director of the Department of International English Education at Izumi Chuo Kindergarten, a private kindergarten that has been in operation in Gifu for the past 40 years.

ELECTIONS 2008

At the October meeting elections for Hamamatsu JALT's Executive committee were also held. All positions in the executive are decided each year in October by election. Below are listed the names of the new executive and their respective positions. Please feel free to email any of the executive with any JALT related queries.

• Dan Frost - President
• Jon Dujmovich - Programs
• David Stephens - Co-treasurer
• Caren Kida - Co-treasurer
• Adam Jenkins - Membership

If you feel that you can contribute to JALT by other means (eg. publicity) please mention it to any of the executive.