Hello!
My name is Karl Koisegg. I am originally from Austria, and I am a German teacher at Nanzan University. I am teaching German classes for the German department, to German major students as well as to students of other departments at the FLEC (Foreign Language Education Center)
When I did my master's degree in TESOL, I had a chance to do Action Research in my classroom. That has helped me to learn to understand how students react to various teaching methods. I focused on communicative language teaching (CLT), which means that I tried to raise my student's communicative ability, by using as much communicative activities in the classroom as possible. I also focused on communication strategies, to provide my students with tools that they can use in various situations, when they interact verbally with someone. (For example, asking someone to repeat their statement, asking follow up questions, asking the same question, pausing etc.) Another thing that I have learned was making the content of a textbook more applicable for speaking and real-life situations, so that students get more chances to use the language they learn, orally. In Japan, especially at junior high-school and high-school most English curriculums are based on grammar, and the focus is on not making mistakes and being grammatically correct. In CLT it is different. Students learn grammar through using the language, and making mistakes is seen as an important way to improve their language ability. As you can already guess by now, in my classes, students have many chances to speak. Many times, students work in pairs or small groups and talk, think, and learn from each other. In many of my lesson's students stand up, find a partner and practice what they have learned. I believe a good way to describe my lessons is "dynamic"! So lastly, I have a question to you. Can you learn how to play tennis by reading a book about it? Right, you need to actually play it! Think of learning a language the same way, the more you speak the better you get. That makes sense, doesn't it? Good luck to you and don't forget that it is necessary to make mistakes if you want to learn something.