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Hello I'm going to give you the secret to how to get kids to read, well in fact how to get teenagers interested in reading.
That sounds impossible right?
Maybe it is, but this week I had a pretty good week.
I introduced my new Hana Walker mysteries to the kids.
A mixed result, but there was some, a few victories and I'm going to talk about that.
By the way, I'm just attempting a new thing.
I'm recording with a video on my phone.
I'm just on a bike ride.
I'm just taking a break.
This is Tegeduma over there.
Beautiful Tegeduma and just before sunset.
So,
Yeah, there we are.
So anyway, yeah, giving them books was a tall order and I think they got terrified when they saw that these were 200-page books.
And there were a number of groups, I did it with four groups, and they were like high-level readers and low-level readers and they're using the same materials.
So what I worked out with the, even with both groups, I realized a lot of the kids, they're just not used to reading.
They just don't know how to even go about looking at a book.
You know, they may think of it as being like, you know, to extract information from like a, like a website or something.
The idea of actually, somebody with a very squeaky bike, the idea of actually reading a book for enjoyment,
and how do you do that?
I realized they didn't they wouldn't know how to do that in Japanese let alone in English so a lot of the first lesson using this book I'd assigned it as homework please read this short story it's a 10 page short story so like about 2,000 words in English and I go that's pretty tough right now I've written them with their graded English so they only use present tense and they only use tenses that the kids are supposed to be familiar with so it's not
Vocabulary is not too scary.
Every book has a little vocabulary glossary list with difficult words explained in easy English.
You know, about 30 words, 30 of the most difficult words explained in easy English.
Of course, they didn't know how to use that.
And it made me realize I had to go through the very basics.
So I went through it.
I showed them the book and I said, look at the back cover.
There's, let's read just the little, what's called a blurb.
And we read about who is Hannah Walker,
What does she do?
She solves mysteries.
She's 13.
Her dad's English.
Her mum's Japanese.
She's what they call a half.
But she's 100% her own person.
We talked about that.
And I explained the back of the book will tell you what's inside the main book.
There's a thing called the contents page.
And here it has all 12 stories and you can see how long each story is if you want to.
And you can zip forward and read other ones.
It's like an index, but at the front of the book and you can, instead of clicking on it, you just use your fingers.
So I did that, but I really wanted to say the main thing was I showed them, I mean it's terrible, you shouldn't have to explain a joke, but I showed them that there were some jokes in the book.
There's one point where Hannah Walker reads
Sorry, where Hannah Walker says, hey, what's up?
And the character goes, the character looks up at the ceiling and Hannah says, no, no, no.
And I said, and they all sort of looked stony faced at me.
I said, that's a joke.
And they go, eh?
I said, what does what's up mean?
And they went, dōshita no?
I said, you're right.
What happened when she said what's up to Takuma?
The character is called Takuma.
He looked up, right?
Do you think he understood?
No, he didn't.
I was like, right, it's a kind of joke.
Hannah knows it, you know the joke, but Takuma didn't.
And they're like, okay, it's not a very good joke, but they realized there was some hope that there was something more than just extracting information.
It was also a bit of humor.
My God, a bit of humor in a book that Japanese kids learn at school.
Can you imagine?
That was at the lowest level.
Now with the lowest level class I only got through three pages of a 12 or 13 page story in 40 minutes because it was hard going so okay lower my sights so that was alright.
The best I did was with a year one junior high school so they're 13 years old and we read the first story in the Hannah Walker collection called Hannah Walker and the Dead Flowers
in which somebody is killing some flowers there's a serial killer of flowers and there are three culprits and we work out if we read through the book and I and every time I would ask a question like who do you think did it and or how did the flowers die and you know as the clues come in they began to understand there are three suspects because they all have vinegar drinks and it's set up so that the flowers die from vinegar I'm not sure if that's actually true vinegar kills flowers but they do kill these particular flowers
So they all have vinegar drinks, or no, one has a diet vinegar drink, one has a octopus in vinegar, and another one has some pickles with lots of vinegar.
The flowers die from vinegar, Hannah Walker discovers.
So there's three suspects.
And so I did what all good authors do, and they put a hook at the end of a chapter.
A hook is like a plot point where you don't know what's going to happen next, and the only way to find out is to read on.
typically you have a question so I put in there literally a question Hannah Walker said I know who the killer is do you and I posed that to the class and they all started debating admittedly in Japanese their English wasn't good enough to debate it in English yet but they were all debating oh well who's the killer could it be Takuma who's you know who has the
Who has the opportunity, the motive, and who has the means, and you know, all that stuff.
And they were debating it about who was killing the flowers.
And I was like, thank you, Jesus.
Without me explaining it, I mean, I explained what was going on, but without me explaining that this is how you can enjoy literature, they were enjoying literature.
I'm not saying my books are literature, but you know,
They were realising that, oh, you have to interpret the book as a reader and actually that's where the enjoyment of reading fiction is.
You have to imagine, well, why would somebody want to kill the flowers?
Who doesn't like vinegar?
Who is the killer of the flowers?
How to get teens to read books in English How to get teens to read books in English
But in introducing this character, Hannah Walker says, oh, let me introduce you.
And it's a bit of a way for them to practice introductions.
And she says, yes, hello.
I am Isabella.
I come from Brazil.
I speak Portuguese and a little English.
And I love samba dancing.
And of course, she's beautiful.
She meets some of the other characters.
And one of the characters is called Haruto.
He's a sporty guy.
And everybody else is introducing themselves to Isabella.
But Haruto gets a red face.
and doesn't say anything and runs off.
And I said, why do you think that happened?
And they're like, I don't know.
I said, well, think about it.
Is Isabella good looking?
Yes, we know that she's beautiful.
She's good at dancing.
She's tall.
She has blonde hair.
I can't remember.
And so we established that.
Ah, she's beautiful.
And Harator had red face and he ran off.
And then one of the girls said, does
Harato likes Isabella?
Yeah, probably.
He does, right?
You get a red face if you like a girl and they all laugh.
And suddenly they were engaged in the story and then I said, why did Aiko not, why was she not nice to Isabella?
And they're like, I don't know.
Does Aiko like Harato?
Yeah, maybe he does.
She does.
She's jealous.
By showing and not telling, you can work out people's motivations in fiction.
Anyway, we managed to get through the whole story.
No, we didn't get through the whole story of that one.
We got through the whole first chapter.
But, you know, takeaways from this are you have to really spell it out with the kids and show... I know it's a show, don't tell, but you have to show them why it's enjoyable and
and this is what you are allowed to do with fiction in putting your own interpretation and in fact once you start doing that it's really fun!
So that was a revelation.
Now when this video goes out on Friday they should still be free on Amazon.
If you type in Hannah Walker and the foreign student and Hannah Walker and the dead flowers they should be free on Amazon to download as a Kindle.
Have a look at it see if you like it.
If you do
you might consider using it in your class and all the book all the stories are available as short stories individual short stories for about i think it's 99 yen on kindle or the cheapest i could get it i think and still make a modicum of profit was like nine nine hundred yen something like that or you can just buy the um the collection of all 12 stories good for a one year the hannah walker
Yes, I'm promoting my own books.
They make great Christmas presents too.
But I really think they are good.
And even if you don't use my books, please use some books, something that, you know, if we don't try and engage kids in reading,
How can we expect them to read?
There's so many other, quote unquote, better things to be doing.
I like riding your bike around this lake, which is what I'm going to do now.
There it is.
Look at this beautiful sky.
The sun is just sitting behind me.
OK, I'm going to finish my cafe latte in a can and get back to the grind.
I've got Santa coming tomorrow, so I've got to get the place all grottified.
Santa's coming all the way from Reno, Nevada.
Okay, Merry Christmas and all that jazz.
See you.
Have a good weekend.
Bye.
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