Interview

Patrick Jackson

Patrick Jackson was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1967. He is the author of the "Potato Pals" series of books and teaching materials for young learners of English, illustrated by Rie Kimura and published by Oxford University Press. After nine years in Nagoya, Patrick still enjoys teaching learners of all ages and creating materials that he hopes make the experience enjoyable and easy for teachers, parents, and, of course, students.

Potato Pals information (OUP catalogue) Potato Pals sample pages (PDF files)

Patrick conducted this interview by e-mail with ELT News editor Mark McBennett in May 2005.

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ELT: First of all, I have to ask, why potatoes? Don't we Irish hear enough spud jokes as it is?
PJ: I know this well having gone to school in England for 5 years. Even my best friend there called me 'Spud' (I won't tell you what term my enemies used!). I believe that the equivalent in Japanese is 'imo' which is used hurtfully to describe someone unsophisticated and simple like myself. As Irishmen, I think we should stand up to this discrimination against humble root vegetables. What do you think Mark?

But seriously...the real story behind the Potato Pals began when I came to Japan from Ireland 9 years ago, clutching my hard-earned two-week TEFL certificate. The first and most burning issue was to find a job. Well, I opened the Japan Times and one advertisement jumped right out at me. "Potato Club Requires Teachers". Nothing had prepared me for this. Vegetables teaching English! What was going on here? I mean, I was prepared for a certain degree of culture shock in Japan but this was ridiculous! Anyway, having come from Ireland, famous for its potatoes, I thought "That's the job for me". Fortunately, it was. "Why potatoes?" I asked the owner. "Everybody loves them!" she said.

The school had foreigners teaching alongside Japanese assistants. Actually it was really the assistants that ran the show, dealing with running noses, toddlers who missed their mummies and anxious parents…all the usual day to day dramas of a children's English language school. I was lucky to be paired up with Rie Kimura, a gifted artist with a great talent for drawing potatoes! We worked together to produce readers and workbooks for our students. I would do horrible rough sketches which Rie turned into beautiful finished art. It was through this process that we developed our creative partnership, having lots of fun on the way. The books we produced during those four years became the 'seeds' of Potato Pals.

For those teachers who haven't seen Potato Pals, tell us a bit about the concept.
The concept is very simple. Potato Pals helps young learners to develop their communication skills by telling the story of the things they do in their own lives. The stars of the show are these 6 very cute potatoes, three potato boys and three potato girls. They are Buddy, Daisy, Nina, Dean, Joy and yes, you guessed it, Chip!

The world of the 6 Potato Pals mirrors the world of real kids. They do all the things our students do. They use all the things our students use and their world contains all the 'topics' such as colors, numbers and shapes that we teach. The fact that they are potatoes somehow makes it more fun for kids than if they were human children. Why? I don't know, but it works. More digestible perhaps!

The language is presented in 16-page readers which come in sets of 6 books with a CD of readings and some very catchy TPR songs by fellow Irishman, Brian Cullen. There are also Workbooks, a User's Guide and Picture Cards. The materials can be used in the classroom or at home but ideally, both. I'm always being asked by parents what they can do at home to help their kids learn and these materials are a response to that question as well as a reflection of what I felt would be most useful to the kids. Language that they can really use in a format that is accessible to teachers, parents and the students themselves.

And what exactly is a Memoricon? You coined the word yourself, right?
A Memoricon is a little picture cue representing a story sentence. They accumulate on the alternate pages of a Potato Pals reader and encourage the students to repeat and review the language of the previous pages. Students are able to read or sing the book through the Memoricons...in effect, speaking English through visual prompts. I did indeed coin the word and hopefully one day the word will return the favor and coin me!

Can you tell us the process up to the point where you first considered actually publishing Potato Pals?
The Potato Club is a school which believes in supporting teachers to develop their own materials and style of teaching rather than imposing one particular 'way'. We were given guidelines and suggestions as well as any help we ever needed but we were always encouraged to try new things and share our 'findings' at meetings with the other teachers. We were taking part in our own development as teachers as well as in the success of the school. This was teaching as a creative process. Teachers interested in making materials, developing the curriculum in various ways or working on the school's newsletter were even paid for the time they spent doing so.

Rie and I produced workbooks, readers, and cartoons which were used by our students. One summer, I showed these to my sister who suggested we send them to some publishers. There was nothing to lose so, with the help of a friend, I wrote a short proposal which was sent to the three biggest publishers of EFL materials. I really had no connections in the business so the proposals were completely unsolicited. I did however get down on my knees and pray that they might land on the right desk. Within a week we had been contacted by editors from OUP in New York. They invited us to meet them in Tokyo. You can imagine our excitement and delight when the books were favourably reviewed by teachers in the field and we were given a contract!

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