Overview

Ocean Star High School has 2 main parallel English programs:  (Oral) Communication and STEP (a national exam which has testing components of reading, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and listening).  Typically (though not always), Japanese teach STEP program classes while foreigners (native English speakers) teach English communication classes.  There is also a 3^rd program, TOEIC, which is only entered into by students who have passed the STEP level 2 exam.  The guidelines presented here are primarily concerned with the English Communication Program.  At Ocean Star High School, the following may be considered its overall goals:

1)                      Students will obtain the highest scores possible on the national STEP tests and individual university entrance exams;

2)                      students will communicate at a proficient level in their university interviews, in Japanese and English; and

3)          students will communicate at a competent level during their school visits and homestays in English-speaking countries such as America and Canada; and

4)           students will learn in a positive, cheerful environment which will foster a love of learning and using their English.     

While the STEP English Program focuses on grammar and standardized testing content, Ocean Star High School's English Communication Program primarily focuses on developing English conversation ability.  Most of the program is organized along the lines of common English usage as it is spoken (mostly informally) in North America.  The English Communication Program goals are:

(1)                   All students will gain greater confidence and enjoyment while they learn and use English. 

(2)                   First-year students should develop to at least a High-Beginner level in: Conversational English and Common Situation English, as well as in reading, and writing.

(3)                   Second-year students should develop to at least a Low-Intermediate level in: Conversational English and Common Situation English, as well as in reading, and writing.

(4)                   Advanced second-year students should develop to Low-Intermediate ability level in discussion and Mid-Intermediate ability level in short essay.  They will write 3 to 4 5-minute speeches or essays speech for Hokkaido area contests. These written texts will be well organized, interesting, and correct in form. These students will give an oral delivery of their speeches with proper pronunciation, stress, and intonation.

(5)                   Third-year students should develop to at least a Mid-Intermediate ability level in: Conversational English and Common Situation English, as well as in reading, and writing.

(6)                   Advanced third-year students should develop to Mid-Intermediate ability level in discussion and High-Intermediate ability level in short essay.

The core textbooks of this program are English Firsthand 1, Impact Intro, First Impact, High Impact, Impact Topics, Impact Issues,Impact Words and Phrases, and Topic Talk.  English Firsthand 1 textbook was chosen because of its well-organized, iand integrated language skills approach, and because its content is realistic and interesting.  It also has an audio CD.  The Impact textbooks were chosen for similar reasons, and in addition are available in a series of graduated textbook levels.  Impact Topics and Impact Issues are used for higher-level discussion-writing classes.  Topic Talk is used for supplemental Q&A speaking / listening practice.  Its strength is that it has target questions and answers which are authentic, and are arranged by topic.  Please keep in mind that there are 3 sets of questions per topic in Topic Talk: (1) set 1 [13 taped basic Q's & A's], (2) set 2 [10 inferential Q's & A's], and (3) set 3 [10 untaped extra basic Q's & A's].   Impact Words and Phrases is used for supplemental common expression speaking / listening practice.  Its target language is arranged by topic and situation.

English classes should be taught according to the ability level of the students, in order to allow all the students within a class to receive instruction which is neither too difficult nor too easy. Therefore English communication classes at SBHS are streamed in 3 levels. Classes designated as Alpha are considered the top one-third in ability, Beta as middle-third, and Gamma  as bottom-third.  Classes designated as Alpha  may typically be considered low-intermediate to advanced in ability, with Beta  high-beginner to low-intermediate, and Gamma as low-beginner to high-beginner. Nevertheless, it is still quite possible that the top one-third might be high-beginner to low-intermediate, or lower.  Therefore,  please keep in mind these levels when matching up textbooks with students and their classes.  Hence, such students should not just be given alpha highest level of textbooks and curriculum, but rather lower level ones instead.It is also quite possible that you, the teacher, might be wise to decide that while there should be 3 separate classes of students, 2 of them should use the same textbook because their differences in level are still somewhat similar.  Another alternate possibility to keep in mind is that the same group of second year students might use different levels of textbooks in their STEP and English Oral Communication classes (High Impact [level 2] in the ECC, Impact Issues [level 1] in the STEP).  For instance, the rationale for deciding such an arrangement could be that this particularly group of students is much better at reading and writing than at discussion, and need more conversational practice before they start a discussion class.

Classes designated with a 1 are considered first year classes, with 2 as second year, and 3 as third.  See the English Communication Program Overview below for more information about these classes.  In addition, third-year English classes are not mandatory and are taken as electives by students.  Therefore, the best English students may or may not be taking English classes during their third-year.  Finally, students may only take TOEIC classes if they have achieved at least a STEP 2 level.

English Communication Program Overview

The curriculum in greater detail for each class can be found for the following English Communication (EC) Classes in their respective Curriculum Schedules.  Please keep in mind that some years an alpha class might not have an ability level high enough to use High Impact and should use First Impact instead.   However, it is difficult to know your students levels before you start teaching them.  One possibility is to look at the entrance exams in order to determine this more accurately; another is to hold off ordering the books until you have had a few classes.  In any event, general information about EC Classes is given on the next few pages:

The approximate total classes for each school period are as follows:

The academic marking periods begin and end on the first day after the exam-related classes ended.  There are about  25 days in total throughout the year where classes will be canceled due to special events.  Most are listed above.  In connection with the above events, one-half day to 3 days of classes may be lost due to practice or preparation for them.   For more information about the school year schedule and other work related matters, see the Foreign Teacher Work Guidelines.

Grading and Evaluation

The present grade scale at SBHS is as follows

EXCELLENT        = 5        :            100 - 85

GOOD                = 4        :             84 - 70

SATISFACTORY = 3        :             69 40

POOR                  = 2        :             30 - 44

VERY POOR       = 1        :            0 - 29

You are allowed to raise or lower a student's grades a few points for borderline grade cases. At the end of each semester, you should look over the final English score grades for your students to see which are close to being either of 2 grades.  For example, a student who has an overall score of 84 (let's say she got a 95 in your own class) would get a grade of 4 (good).  However, you may elect to raise that student's score to 85 if you would like that student to receive a grade of 5 (excellent).  Therefore, you may add or subtract 1 or 2 percentage points from a student's overall grade to better reflect their achievement level.

In addition, grades of some of your English communication classes may be combined with the grades of STEP classes.  You should ask your Japanese colleagues about what the present practice for this is at the school.  The ratio percentage at which such scores are to be combined should also be discussed by the teachers involved, in order to make sure the rate is understood and agreed upon.  It would naturally be better if grades from such distinct type of classes were not combined at all.  Therefore, it might be advisable for you to lobby / request the administration to not simply combine all English classes into 1 English grade score.  Students will be more motivated and will understand their current progress (or lack of it) in the respective English areas if the scores are separated.