Advocacy

In this section we will look at ideas for increasing your profile in the school and the local community. Topics covered include :

1.Increasing enrolments in elective classes in the junior years

2.Subject selection - ideas for promoting your subject

3. Using data to plan a strategy for increasing enrolments

1.Increasing enrolments in elective classes in the junior years

There are a multitude of amazing things being done by language teachers every day – what other department runs overseas tours, speech contests, hosts students and volunteers from overseas and embraces new technology so quickly? We work very hard as language teachers so here is what I believe can help you sort out what works most effectively in your particular school environment.

At this time of year, the pressure is on for many of us to recruit students for our elective classes next year. Here are our top tips to make that happen. (Besides use our resources of course!)

1.Recognise the key principle that : All parents believe their kids are great; and if they’re not great yet, they want to know that their kids are on their way to greatness.

I am a parent and I feel this way too!

As such, every time we do an assessment task, we have a proforma email that we send directly to the parents that sounds like this :

Dear parent,

Just a quick email to let you know your son F received 90% in the recent Japanese exam. This placed him 1st in the class. A merit has been issued for this excellent achievement. Congratulations!

Regards,

Teacher X

I cut and paste the students name, score & rank and it takes about 7 minutes to do for the top 5-10. I am frequently rewarded for this with lovely return emails from parents that tell me how much their child enjoys the subject and my teaching. This makes me feel good too and gives me some much needed positive feedback for those hard days. But it also reinforces to the parents that they like me because I see in their child the specialness that they see.

2. Change the assessment task schedule.

Many schools have a policy of 3-5 assessment tasks – mine does. So you often end up with a half yearly, a yearly, a speaking & a culture task maybe.

We used to – but then we realised that this is working against our motto and even research.

"Boys complain it is difficult to see the extent they have improved

due to a lack of progress indicators "

Pavy, Sarah. Boys Learning Languages Babel, v41 n1 p4-11, 38 Jul 2006

If we give a year 8 student one listening test they may struggle as they do not use these skills very often in other subjects. Skills such as note-taking, focusing on key points, considering the likely layout of a text for where the information will occur eg question & answer, end or beginning of sentence may be lacking.

But if we give them a second test, often they will improve simply due to Pretest/post test effect – things are just easier the second time around. This may occur between the half yearly and the yearly – but it is too late for your campaign to win students. The choices are already made.

So we have 3 x 30 minute listening tests in term 1, 2 and 4. We call it a portfolio though to keep the administrators happy that it is only one task.

We record the scores each term of course but when we return the papers we write on them if the student has improved since the last test. Major improvements such as more than 10% are rewarded with a merit for example. Suddenly we have a new progress indicator for the students at all levels. And suddenly more of our class is on the track to greatness.

3.Create opportunities for the broader community to see that your students are on the way to greatness.

Try to participate in interschool contests where possible such as the MLTA's film festivals. We have run a successful interschool speech contest for 14 years. We will post details re how to do this in a separate post.

4.Consider your image in the school.

What image do your resources and textbook send to the students? Do they feel proud of their achievements as they flick through their book?

Where are your classrooms in the school? If they are in an isolated part of the school, create a display for your department and place it in a prominent part of the school.

Losing numbers to popular subjects like hospitality and food tech? We incorporated a pop-up restaurant task in our assessment schedule.

It is not easy getting them there - but the opportunities you are creating for your students will be amazing, so hang in there!

Manly Daily newspaper extract

2.Subject selection - ideas for promoting your subject

In Term 3 many teachers begin to worry about elective numbers and how to entice more students. I believe that Term 3 is a bit late though as the key things that will make the most difference need to be started well in advance.

I have already discussed on this site the importance of emailing parents (see 5 tips to improve student enrolments in the junior years).

The other 2 key areas I believe can make a difference are :

What will I get to do in the course?
What will I have to do in the course?

When developing a promotions strategy for you language course, it is a good idea to begin with these two questions that reflect the students’ perspective. “What will I get to do in the course?” refers to the fun learning experiences you have mapped out for the course at each year level. These should be fairly consistent so that they have rites of passage to go through and look forward to. For example, taiko drumming workshops, cooking or restaurant visits, visits by sister schools. These will be limited by your budget and your school administration’s view on out of class experiences. We try to have several one hour activities that can be held during the regular lessons. In Year 8 these include a Japanese birthday cake in term 1, an obento delivered in term 2, a taiko workshop in term 3 and a market day in term 4 (involving us steaming nikuman on site and hiring sumo wrestling suits).

“What will I have to do in the course?” refers to the classwork and assessment task schedule you have set up. Telling them they will do a yearly exam, a culture project and a few topic tests will probably not lure them in. Instead, look at what are the most popular subjects at your school and work that angle into your assessment/classwork experiences. For example, we have a Year 10 task where they run a pop-up restaurant cooking 3 Japanese dishes in 1 hour, creating a menu that explains the cultural background of the foods and ingredients and a TV commercial for their restaurant in Japanese with English subtitles so the “guests” can understand it. This worked well when we had smaller numbers but now we are going to develop it further to accommodate the large classes we are now getting. Next year I want to tap into the business studies popularity and invite grandparents of the students or other elderly relatives to come to a paid charity lunch. The students will be on two teams and will aim to raise the most money for a charity of their choice. Their guests can donate an amount they feel the meal was worth. This will be run as part of a theme on ろうじんのひ.

You have designed a fantastic new schedule of learning and assessment experiences – now what?

When you promote the course, it can be beneficial to hone in on how the course (rather than the language) will benefit the students. Below is an example from our school’s promotion site (minus the photos and names of course).

“There are many reasons why you should consider taking Japanese in Stage 5. The video above from our ex-school captain and Dux, XXX will introduce his personal perspective of why this was a great move for him. (Video clip of a successful person using language).

The important thing to remember though is that taking Japanese is designed to enhance who you are and add on to the skills you have in other areas. It does not mean you want to be a translator or a diplomat, necessarily (although that is possible too!).

The course will improve you in the following ways :

1.Improve your ability to speak in public

After you have learnt how to give a speech in a second language, public speaking fears will disappear in contrast. You will learn about the importance of pronunciation, eye contact, body language and volume when delivering to an audience via the Year 9 Senpai-Kohai Cup assessment task and the Year 10 Tokimeki Cup Assessment. Pictured above is Year 10 student XXX who won 1st prize this year at the Tokimeki Cup contest and who received a personal letter from Prime Minister Abbott congratulating him on this!

2. Learn how to win that job or scholarship.

The application process for the Odawara exchange involves a written application and formal interview at Manly Council by a panel of 3. This interview also requires you to give a self-introduction in Japanese. You will learn how to "sell yourself" in both the written and live part of the application process. These skills are valuable as you prepare to apply for part-time jobs or other scholarship opportunities in the community. Pictured below are the 6 Year 9 students who participated in this year's exchange program.

3.Prepare yourself for a global future.

65% of the jobs you will be involved in in the future are not even invented yet! The changing pace of technology and globalisation means that you will need to be flexible, creative and able to work with people from all around the world. As you study Japanese culture, you will become more aware of your own culture and how your cultural background has influenced the way you see the world. Eg Children in Japan draw the sun as a red circle, in Australia as yellow or orange. Your tolerance for difference will improve as your perception changes from seeing things as being "backwards/wrong" to being merely different or varied. You will also become far more aware of the commonalities that we share too.

3. Using data to plan a strategy for increasing enrolments

We aim to attract 20-25% of our classes in the 100 hour course, to guarantee a Stage 5 class. If your school has multiple languages this will be harder as you may only have 1-2 classes in Year 8 from which to recruit a Year 9 class. Regardless of whether you managed to get an elective class or not, term 3 is the most important time of year as it is the perfect time to plan for next year’s direction. So what do you need to do now to ensure long term success and growth?

1. Befriend the administrative assistant who enters the students’ elective choices and ask to see how many students picked your subject prior to the final lines being established. This will let you know how successful you were attracting students prior to other factors (such as line clashes, students leaving the school etc) taint the results. Last year we lost 5 students due to this in the final roll but we at least knew that we were moving in the right direction.

2. Keep a record of how your department is going regarding electives across several years, and annotate factors that may have impacted your numbers both positively (eg changing textbooks or purchasing new resources) and negatively (eg teachers on leave, new subject being offered in competition etc). You are aiming for a steady increase.

3. Now get access to what students picked for their other electives. What are the most popular subjects in your school? This is valuable information as it can provide you with an overview of trends in your school community. For example in my boys’ school, commerce/business studies and PASS/sport based subjects are popular. You then need to consider what aspects of these popular subjects can you tap into, to enhance your course. For example this year it reminded me to include sport based incursions such as kendo or karate lessons in our Stage 5 program. Another year we included a pop-up restaurant assessment task in the schedule to benefit from “MasterChef fever” in the local community.

4. Start planning your assessment and incursion/excursion activities for next year with this data in mind. Often it is just a matter of tweaking what you already do to better market your course. We know what we do is awesome but unfortunately many parents and students don’t realise this until it is too late.

5. Don’t let it wear you down. What you do is incredible. You just need to ensure more people realise this through reflective practice, use of date and strategic planning. Good luck!

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