Hukt on Foniks...

...actually worked pretty damn well for me. I recently finished my second visit to one of my elementary schools (I've only been to the other one once so far, so this isn't a common activity), where I tried out a simple phonics activity for the 5th and 6th graders. It pretty well kicked ass, once I got the kinks straightened out. A few weekends ago I attended the JET mid-year conference in Akita City, where one of the presentations was an approach to phonics in the classroom. For those of you who have never had a reason to care...

phon·ics /ˈfɒnɪks or, for 2, ˈfoʊnɪks/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fon-iks] IPA Pronunciation: [ˈfɒnɪks]
– noun

1.	a method of teaching reading and spelling based upon the phonetic interpretation of ordinary spelling

2. the science of sound, or of spoken sounds

See, the Japanese language sort of has an alphabet like ours (well, it has 2 that resemble ours), but one big difference is that in Japanese each "letter" makes only one sound, and is also called by that sound. The concept of one letter having different sounds (i.e. 'a' as in apple, 'a' as in all, and 'a' as in aim) is completely foreign to the Japanese, so wrapping their minds around this idea is one of the first tasks to tackle in learning English. To further complicate the issue, most Japanese "letters" consist of a consonant and a vowel sound, and the Japanese have difficulty perceiving these two as separable. Thus, while the Japanese may see some connection between は (ha) and が (ga), they don't necessarily see the same connection that a native English speaker might.
So, my goal here was to introduce the idea that letters make sounds other than the name we call them by. When we see the letter A alone, we refer to it as 'a' as in aim. We acknowledge, though, that it can make other sounds, depending on the situation. The activity I used had me preparing a large number of note cards before the class, enough that each student could receive four cards (ideally with some to spare). Each card has a letter of the English alphabet on one side, and an example of each sound the letter makes on the opposite side. For examples, I use simple, tangible, photographable nouns. This way, I can show a picture in case the student is not familiar with the example word used. I do this because ideally in language classroom instruction, I believe teachers should use as little as possible of the students' native language. My goal is for students to become used to the idea of using the target language as much as possible in the classroom, so they think of it as a method of communication and not just a secret code to crack.

To begin, each student gets four cards. They all stand up and intermingle, approaching other students as they choose. They play rock-paper-scissors (jan-ken-pon in Japanese) and the loser displays the letter side of one of their cards to the winner. The winner must then correctly say the word or words written on the back of the card (another word that uses the same sound is also OK). Success means the winner gets to keep the card. Failure means that they surrender a card of their choice to their opponent. Both students then proceed on to another person and repeat. The obvious goal for the students is to collect as many cards as possible. In my experience so far, Japanese kids have a viciously competitive streak that fuels games like this very well. Students who run out of cards may come to a teacher to receive one more card (hence the spares).
Once my students have tackled the 26 letters of the alphabet, I'll add in more complicated sounds, such as 'th', 'sh', 'ight', etc.

So, all of that is a brief overview of a classroom activity here, and the thoughts/goals behind it. I unfortunately don't get to plan every activity my classes do in this same fashion, but I also have to admit that it's nice to have a textbook to fall back to on days when my brain is on autopilot. Yes, even if the textbook blows.