What do young Japanese boys want?

No, this is not some message from a sicko.

My friend is a single mother in Japan. She wants to get her children interested in learning English as they have little desire to do so at the moment. Strange that... I would have thought they would be all over English.

In any case, I'm visiting her in a few days. For the life of me, I'm having trouble thinking about what young Japanese boys (Ages 7 and 10) might want that would get them interested in learning English.

I'm currently staying in Tokyo. So, there is a lot of merchandising at my disposal if I know what to get and where to get it.

Textbooks are a final solution. Let's face it... no one wants textbooks except maybe their mother.

A computer would be nice (as they don't have one), but that might be too much for a gift.

Any thoughts?

Lacking any concrete motivators, it is most likely that they are too young to see English as anything other than a chore. Try giving them comic books, magazines, DVDs (you may need to worry about region coding), music CDs, things that young boys are usually interested in that just happen to involve using English.

the Tower Books/Records store in Shibuya has a huge selection of English language books & stuff on their...seventh floor? I think. A Japanese friend of mine recommended it as having the biggest selection. They have children's books as well.

Bob, are they Japanese? If so I agree with Tilt. English lessons don't start at school until they're in Junior high at age 12 and there is no necessity for them to learn English at the moment. What good is a language when you don't have to use it?

I am assuming you are a native English speaker, or at least you speak English better than Japanese. Then the least they might appreciate is YOU. You are the necessity for them to speak English.

I saw a TV documentary a while ago. A male conversation teacher came from the U.S. to a junior high school in Japan. What he did was, instead of using text books or the "Hello Mary. I am Tom." kind of dialogs, he went outside of the classroom with the students and ran around playing simple kids games, but using English as a comunication tool.

A few days later, he played a "gesture game" in class, telling the students to guess what he was doing while he stuck his hip out. One male student immediately raised his hand and said, "Taking a dump!" It was the very first time that this student ever said anything during English class.

Also, never correct their mistakes. They don't need it yet anyway. Let them learn that the point is to USE English. Grammar or spelling doesn't matter.

As for gifts, boys love things they can eat. Get them alphabet-shaped cookies or something. Hope you have fun!

The boys are half Japanese, but only speak Nihongo.

I'm very American with the vocabulary and speech patterns of a 5 year old.

Thank you for the advice everyone. I was thinking that they may be too young to get going... but when I was there age, I was already abosorbing all the Japanese culture I could get a hold of.

I guess I will try some easy videos and some text books for their mother. Maybe some music too? Throw in a few gundam models and I think I might make some progress.

Bob

I teach a boy who is ten. He like english but since his ten his mind wanders. Lats year when I was home in the U.S I bought some models for us to do together, all the instructions are in english. I made a deal with him study hard and concentrate and we can work on the model for the last 15 minutes. one of the models I got was made of heavy paper and you fold the pieces inserting tabs into slots. It doesn't take any glue so its not messy, when its finished it will be a 2 foot tall human skeleton made of paper. He loves this thing even giving it a name (Herman) after we finnished the skull.
As a side night this boy is also living in a single parent home with only his mother and he really seems to value the little bit of time we (I'm an adult male) spend working together on it.