How to Make an Awesome English Board

Anything that requires creativity is quite intimidating for me. Needless to say, that includes English Boards.

Back in April, I started my ALT job in Japan. I was a bit bummed by the dryness of class, and the lack of decorations in the classroom. Although it was a scary endeavor, I decided to make an English board, or rather wall in my case. (My junior high school has an English room, so I have the freedom to decorate the entire back wall.) I wanted to do something to help get the kids more interested in English.

I started by trying to search online for examples, but I was unable to find many examples that I liked, or a guide. So here is mine!

Here is a piece of my wall that I made for the Fourth of July!

1. Decide on your theme

This is the most important step and I recommend that you talk to your JTE about it. My JTE wanted information about the 3 ALTs at my school on the back. So that is what I went with. I also decided that I wanted to make space for a tongue twister. Additionally, I am putting some information about holidays on one of the side walls.

2. Print Pictures and Writing

Unless you have super good drawing skills and neat handwriting, I recommend printing everything. Be sure that your font doesn’t use the fancy “a”s. Make sure you take your students level of English into consideration. (If you want to use a difficult word, I suggest making a little hint to the side, or writing the katakana pronunciation above it.)

I think hint flaps are just the cutest things! Plus the students love having something they can touch!

3. Just get started

It doesn’t matter if you can only put a little up at a time. I actually prefer doing mine that way. Each day when my students come into class, they have one or two things that they can take a look at. My JTE actually has them read it out loud together at the beginning of class. Plus, I can add more advanced grammar as the year goes on.

4. Creativity

Don’t worry if you are not the most artistic person ever. My trick is to print everything out, use a paper cutter, and glue everything on top of colored squares. It makes everything look fancy, and it is not super difficult!

I hope these tips help. My board is still a work in progress, but I hope it has given you some ideas and insight. (As a side note, my English room is only used for 1st years, so I target their language level.)

Good Luck!