When Stevie Lim, 30, started singing ¡°Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes¡± with gestures, the first-graders at Minami Elementary School in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, started singing together and mimicking his movements.

As the assistant language teacher (ALT) from Britain started speeding up, the children¡¯s excitement boiled over, and some started screaming.

The children kept asking Lim questions in Japanese while gluing together a Christmas out of colored pieces of paper. The homeroom teacher and another assistant teacher ¡ª both Japanese ¡ª paid attention to each student¡¯s needs and helped Lim answer their questions using the simplest English words possible.