Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing students’ own dialogues by pairs/groups.
My Pre-Intermediate 1 (that finished that level last week) worked with Unit 4, Genki Book 1 apart from Kanji learning with use of the Kanji learning pages located at the back of the above textbook. Also, for that class, I taught Japanese used for travel in Japan. Early in the course, I taught with some text for ordering foods at restaurants, currency exchange, buying train tickets, booking a hotel room (the text is originated from one I had edited for other organization of its online video course). Late month, I used with part of the material of other source and the situations of the language used were such as asking places or services at a hotel or ryokan, “Where is the bathroom?”, “Do you have room service?”, “I want to leave this in the safe?”, “Do you have more quiet room?” “I can’t turn on the heater.” etc. In that class, there was a student who had purchased the book which is for the preparation for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) 4-5. And I showed his book to the class. It appeared there are other students who are interested in the JLPT, so I said to the class that in future, including the next stage for them (if they will be enrolled), we might include learning time for Travel Japanese and the preparatory sessions of the JLPT with the agreement of all the participants of the class. That will be probably about 20~30% of the time to be spent of the 10 weeks’ course. All the students in that class seemed happy with that new element in the future course.
Apart from the above course, I weekly taught two students for their tutorials. One was for the JLPT N1 and the other was the JLPT N3. Both were lovely and very interesting students. One of them has to have a break due to his other commitments and the other will continue. To the former, I talked about my favorite and the Japanese, profoundly great business leader in the Modern Times, late Konosuke Matsushita, apart from other things on Japan. The student enjoyed and appreciated such information. Also, to my class/tutorials, I informed about the article of Escape, Sunday Telegraph, 20 July, ’14, pp. 28-29, “Bullet trains take the cake”. A big and fascinating article/report! It includes information that Japan celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Shinkansen that began running in 1964 prior to the Tokyo Olympics.
The above report says the first Shinkansen, the Tokaido Shinkan took 4 hours to run between Tokyo and Osaka when it started running. Currently its Nozomi (the super-high-speed) makes the journey in 2.5 hours. It is the world’s busiest high-speed rail line, carrying more than 150 million passengers a year! There are 3 types of trains on the line, i.e. Nozomi (fastest), Hikari and Kodama.
The above article says Japan developed SCMAGLEV. It states “It (SCMAGLEV) stands for Super Conductive Magnetic Levitation. The MLXI Maglev prototype on display holds the world speed record for rail vehicles at an astounding 581km/h.” “By 2025, Japan aims to put commercial maglev trains into operation, which could shorten the Tokyo-Osaka trip to one hour.” (- Sounds amazing!)
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.8.14
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing students’ own dialogues by pairs/groups. My Pre-Intermediate 1 has recently began Unit 4, Genki Book 1 apart from Kanji learning with use of the Kanji learning pages located at the back of the above textbook. We had a Japanese visitor to the class a few weeks ago. The Japanese young gentleman was staying at the home of one of the students of that class. We had great time with him while speaking in English and some Japanese. Also, in the above class, we practiced reading the names of many different Australian wine, “gooshuu-wain”, of which the names are written in Katakana. In addition, that exercise included how to express the prices of each bottle, name of colours and the Australian regional names that are famous for winery and sources of production of those kinds of wine. I used a Japanese advertisement for the above activity, which is from “Jenta”.
As for singing a Japanese song, the above class sang, “My Fingers” in Japanese over a few weeks. It is a cute and funny song. The words of the song include onomatopea written in Katakana, such as “wahahahaha” for a father’s laughing voice; “ohohohoho” of the mother’s laughing voice; “abubububu” for a baby’s voice.
Other student who I weekly tutor the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, N1 read and comprehend an article of Jenta, Sydney, “Aruki-sumaho: kiken desu.” (Use of smartphone while walking on a street is dangerous”). It is based on a scholar’s research. The article included many useful words and grammar for the above JLPT N1. Also, I used a Japanese article of a Japanese magazine “AERA” (31.3.2014, p.36-38). The title of the article is “Shigotoba –ga Toyota –ni Natta.” (My workplace became like one of Toyota.) Toyota is famous with its through way of use of office and equipment, i.e. resources. Any space, time to reach a certain equipment or place in the office/room, place to keep daily used equipment in a right and convenient place, training its new staff to know all of such so that staff’s energy, time, efficiency of the workplace etc will be the maximum. – A few years ago I read a book which talked about similar things, in Japanese. The book was written by a former Toyota executive. The book talked about many more things apart from the above technique of use of a workplace of Toyota. What was said in the book was just amazing.
This above magazine article of AERA was written by an executive trainer of QJT Solutions, who worked in Toyota for 40 years and he is “preaching” Toyota methods in many cities around Japan as an executive trainer. The article is fascinating, inspiring, able to apply the contexts to people’s any rooms, and so smart!
Also, I talked about the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Australia this month. The article, “Japan’s most powerful due to visit”, The Australian (2.7.2014, p. 22) reports that he will bring with him a business delegation whose companies market capitalization is almost equal to the gross domestic product of Denmark. The P.M. Abe will address in the Australian Parliament, Canberra for the first time in the history of the two nations, as the Japanese Prime Minister.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.7.14
Japanese Diary of Mrs. Toshiko Jackson – 5
Japanese Diary of Mrs. Toshiko Jackson – 4
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing students’ own dialogues by pairs/groups. As for the main textbooks and materials, the Beginner 1 usedTraining Manual and handouts for Hiragana acquisition. From Beginners 2 onwards, Genki Book 1 was used for the main textbook and handouts for vocab., sentence construction and Katakana acquisition.
Also, apart from Japanese magazines (e.g. Jenta, Nichigo Press), Japanese newspapers, The Australian (esp. for news/current affairs on Japan), Daily Telegraph (its travel magazines and pictures of cute animals etc to make sentences/application of grammar in Japanese) were used. At the end of courses of 10 weeks, the students have an exam or open-exam which included features of vocab., grammar, dialogues construction, translation and script.
Regarding Japan and its environment, I informed with use of the reports from NHK TV (SBS 1 and 2) which is broadcasted for 6 days/week, the Australian newspaper and Daily Telegraph. The topics concerned included were the sensational cherry blossoms in Japan, some wage rises in the medium and small sized enterprises in Japan (chuushoo-kigyoo) compared to wages in the past several years, 3% increase of sales tax (GST, shoohizei) begun early this month (and the Government is planning to make an economic rescue package to help business and consumers), North Korea’s two missiles launched to the Japan Sea when the P.M. Abe, US President Obama and the South Korean President were having the leaders’ talk during the G7 Summit in Hague, and the verdict of the International Court of Justice about the Japanese whaling in the Antarctic, Tetsuya Wakuda’s restaurant in Singapore, Waku Ghin which had been graded as No. 7 in S. Pellegrino Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, List 2014 and which costs $350/person for 10 courses (The Daily Telegraph, 30.3.14).
Japanese Diary of Mrs. Toshiko Jackson – 3
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing students’ own dialogues by pairs/groups. As for the main textbooks and materials, the Beginner 1 usedTraining Manual and other handouts for vocab, grammar etc. From Beginners 2 onwards, Genki Book 1 was used for the main textbook.
Also, apart from Japanese magazines (e.g. Jenta, Nichigo Press), Japanese newspapers, The Australian (esp. for news/current affairs on Japan), Daily Telegraph (its travel magazines and pictures of cute animals etc to make sentences/application of grammar in Japanese) were used. At the end of courses of 10 weeks, the students had an exam or open-exam which included features of vocab., grammar, dialogues construction, translation and script. – One of Beginners 1 classes did so well with dialogues making and performing, i.e. linguistically and in making creative/interesting contexts of the dialogues and performing them in the front of classroom, that was delightful.
In a lesson for a 6-year-old girl, I taught her shuuji (calligraphy) (more formal name is shodo) to practise Hiragana in caligraphy, learn vocab and enjoy the special, peaceful (mind/heart calming and clarifying activitity). Beforehand, I prepared small, pretty pictures which were cut out from magazines and flyers; in the lesson, I sticked them to the bottom corner of each white sheet so that her Hiragana writing of Japanese words in the middle of the sheets will reflect the pictures. The words/pictures included ones of Mt. Fuji (in front of big beautiful green tea leaves fields), cherry blossoms, sushi dish etc apart from her name. She enjoyed that activity. She has mastered stroke orders of many Hiragana letters, so her hiragana words in calligraphy was just like a native speaker’s calligraphy and very good. It was very worthwhile exercise. I plan to do similar activity with adult classes too once in a course. I recall that many years ago I taught shuuji as extra activity in a pilot program of Japanese course at a primary school in Melbourne for half a year. It had about 7 pupils (both boys and girls) in class. When the pupils were doing shuuji, the whole classroom was amazingly “so” quiet for about 20 minutes. Shuuji or calligraphy are good for any ages.
In my last month’s Blog, I reported about the Tokyo Motor Show this month (Dec. ’13) and the major Japanese car makers’ models at the Show which were tiny electric cars, esp. all-electric tandem-seat three-wheelers. Recently I found an Japanese newspaper article (Nihon-keizai-shimbun, 21.10.13, p. 33, “Denki-jidoosha, ritoo –de koohasshin”) on the increasing sales of such electric car/vehicle (EV) esp. in small islands which are away from the major islands, such as Honshuu and Kyuushuu. The article informs great merits of use of such very small electric cars. (The articles particularly report about Nissan and Toyota’s models.) That is, the drivers can go through narrow roads with great versatility (compared to use of conventional cars), energy cost for driving such cars is less than half of the cost paid for driving fuel based, conventional cars.
Those EVs can’t be driven for a long distance. One EV can run for 299km at maximum after charging battery each time. Those EV have different models. Some of them can accommodate 4 people in the car; some others can 3, 2 or 1 person. Apart from individuals (including people who are older people), business groups, esp. those of tourism based ones, and public offices, like City Councils, bought or rented such EV and use them for business, tourism and daily life. There are even daily rental cars of such are increasingly used. e.g. in a small island near to Kagoshima prefecture (located the south of Kyuushuu Island) and an island near to Kagawa prefecture, they have rental EV cars especially for tourists. The latter’s rental EV cars cost ¥8400/day. For that, there are clients who wait for those cars as “kyanseru-machi” (waiting for the car cancelled by someone else). Another amazing and inspiring innovation for people’s better life and such society!
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
3.2.14
Japanese Diary of Mrs. Toshiko Jackson – 2
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing students’ own dialogues by pairs/groups. As for the main textbooks and materials, the Beginner 1 usedTraining Manual and other handouts for vocab, grammar etc. From Beginners 2 onwards, Genki Book 1 was used for the main textbook.
Also, apart from Japanese magazines (e.g. Jenta, Nichigo Press), Japanese newspapers, The Australian (esp. for news/current affairs on Japan), Daily Telegraph (its travel magazines and pictures of cute animals etc to make sentences/application of grammar in Japanese) were used. At the end of courses of 10 weeks, the students have an exam or open-exam which included features of vocab., grammar, dialogues construction, translation and script.
One of the pictures, which I used in class to make Japanese sentences with use of adjectives and verbs (esp. ones of the past tense), was the very cute and adorable picture of a baby elephant. The elephant had fallen off at a small muddy cliff in a town in India, survived and looked so relieved/marveled by himself! (Daily Telegraph, 19.2.14) It’d be fun and enjoyable to make descriptive sentences in Japanese about such picture and the positive and happy-ending amazing event.
As for Japan and its culture, international relationships making news, I informed to all students about the Exhibition of Sogetsu Ikebana School & Ceramic Art, ‘Clay to Flowers’ (www.mitsuoshoji.com.au and www.sogetsu-ikebana.org.au) at the Royal Botanic Garden, Macquaries Rd, Sydney. It is open from Sat. 1 Mar. to Sun. 16 Mar., daily 10am – 3pm. Free admission. It is a big exhibition. On 9 Mar., the Garden will hold its Autumn Festival. It will take place, celebrating together with the exhibition of the above Japanese, exquisite exhibition of the flower arrangement of Sogetsu-school and well known ceramics arts which are also used for the Japanese flower arrangement. Seeing such an exhibition will be great and inspiring experiences to understand Japanese arts, art and tradition culture. (I said to one of my wonderful students, who respects and loves Japan, “You might be able to see beautiful Japanese ladies in gorgeous kimono if you go there esp. on the 9th!”)
During the week of 24 Mar., one of the NHK Japanese News shows at SBS2 (11:05am~) reported Japan and the US has launched a satellite which will detect changes of rain, snow and the climate, around the whole globe. The US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy was at the location of the satellite launching on that day too. The satellite was built as the joint work with a Japanese well known university. The satellite will be useful for the future globe and for many good causes for the benefits of human race and environment.
The above TV program also reported/showed (4 Mar.) that there are gorgeous cherry blossoms opened in many areas in Japan. One was in Shizuoka prefecture and for about 500 metres on a big road, beautiful sakura (cherry blossom) are in full bloom (when the winter of terrible and trouble-causing snow falls is finally coming to the end!) Amazing and peaceful sights indeed.
During this March, Chatswood Concourse (409 Victoria Ave, Chatswood, TEL: 9411 8144) is showing brilliant and beautiful anime films of Hayao Miyazaki. worldly renowned animation film producer, on Tuesdays night or from afternoon weekly. It is for public viewing and free of charge. You can check the website for the events too. All the films are in English (if the setting is in Japan, you will see many Japanese culture, environment, names and traditional things and value). Miyazaki’s works have been being used in the Japanese HSC in the NSW Education for years. I personally adore H. Miyazaki, Osamu Tezuka (his famous series of Astro Boy, Tetsuwan-atomu went to many countries in the world and touched many people and youths’ hearts and minds) and Akira Kurosawa (who shouldn’t be forgotten even in the world’s history of film making together with acting by great actor, Toshiro Mifune for many brilliant samurai movies; Kurosawa was once invited to the Hollywood, Academy Awards and received an Award). Those powerful, thoughtful, passionate, creative film producers’ influence to Japanese society (for its value, cohesiveness, increase of compassion, technology and science and knowledge upon the universe in case of Tezuka, respect for virtues etc) and to the rest of the world are immeasurable. – I don’t know “how many” of my past students (both youths and adults) during my 30 years’ teaching in Australia said to me when they came to my courses and talked about themselves, “I love Japanese anime!”
Another inspiring and intelligent comments were spoken by Rick Wallace, who was the newspaper The Australian’s Tokyo correspondent for 4 years until recently in his article, “Feeling blue: The fruity language quickly returned after four years working in polite Japan” (24.2.14, p.14). In the article, he said he hardly swore during 4 years’ stay in Japan and he had never swore with Japanese people. However, after returning to Australia, Wallace got back to swearing habit quickly (as his wife says that). He says it is normal that at his local post office in Australia, the employees swear on duty. He says even during commuting on train in Australia, some people talk on their mobile phones loudly and overbearingly while people in Japan behave very cooperatively with good manner and quietly on trains (Wallace says “sweet and blissful silence in Japan (i.e. Japanese trains). – I know what he is talking about. In my case, I can’t stand awfully noisy and rudely speaking people on the train and sometimes I move to the different carrier or seat esp. when I feel tired. Same with those who illegally keep their feet or shoes on the seat which is facing them. You don’t see such awful and immature behavior in Japan where if you left your belonging on a train and ring the station’s Lost & Found office, they keep your thing until you can come to pick it up. (That point was spoken on a weekend radio program in Sydney, “George and Paul”, esp. with Susan Kurosawa some months ago). Such reflects value and consistent practice of peace, order, respect to others and human decency in Japanese society.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
Japanese Diary of Mrs. Toshiko Jackson
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing dialogues. As for the main textbooks and materials, the Beginner 1 used Training Manual and other handouts for vocab, grammar etc. From Beginners 2 up to Pre-Intermediate 1 used Genki Book 1 was used.
Also, apart from Japanese magazines (e.g. Jenta, Nichigo Press), its beautiful cooking magazine, story books etc, I used Australian travel magazines esp. one of Sunday Telegraph and some newspaper articles which have useful or inspiring pictures or news, especially for practicing speaking about the situations of the pictures and events for use of a variety of grammar and application of vocab. groups in sentences. At the end of courses of 10 weeks, the students had an exam or open-exam which included features of vocab., grammar, dialogues construction, translation and script.
As for the recent news on Japan and its people, I informed the following apart from other things.
- An internationally highly known, British fashion model, Naomi Campbell donated AU$343,000 (¥3200,0000) to the Japan Consulate, Sydney to help the restoration of Fukushima and Miyagi, i.e. the Great East Japan Earthquake (11.3.11). The large fund comes from her charity event, “Fashion for Relief”. Campbell said Japan is an important country for her and she wishes to keep supporting for the cause and watching the recovery of Japan. (“Jenta Sydney”, 13.12.13) She had given other donation(s) too, including one right after the awful disaster in March, 2011. Marvelous news!
- There was the Tokyo Motor Show this month (Dec. ’13). It was very successful, according to some websites’ reports. And, one of the major features of the exhibition that the major Japanese car makers showed were tiny cars. Their sizes are which four of such small cars will fit into the parking space of one’s average sedan! According to The Australian, 12.12.13, p. 12 (originally from The Wall Street Journal), Toyota’s i-Road was one of the attractions. It is the first of hundreds of the all-electric tandem-seat three-wheelers which Toyota will produce. The model will be in other countries/cities next year, e.g. in France, and it will be called Ha:Mo (it stands for “Harmounious Mobility”) for an urban car-sharing experiment. The 3-wheeled car, i-Road is narrow and tall. Its width is of a large motorcycle. Its maximum speed is 45km/h. (But in Japan, a 60km/h model will be available.) it uses two torque-rich 2.7 hp (2kW) in-wheel electric motors.
In addition, the above article in The Australian informs details about Honda Uni-Cub which is a smart looking penguin-styled small car which has Honda’s model, Omni Traction Drive System with automatic balance control, Honda MC-Beta and Nissan’s model, EV, the Leaf.
For more information and fascinating “Video Gallery” of the above Show, please see: http://www.tokyo-motorshow.com/en/gallery/video.html, Smart Mobility City 2013, “Kuruma Networking – Vehicles connecting with people’s lives and society”, (http://www.tokyo-motorshow.com/en/press_release/20131201.html). At the website, it says the Show had more models and vehicles for the exhibition than the Show in 2011 and the visitors satisfaction reached 90.1%.
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 22
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking/talking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing dialogues. As for the main textbooks and materials, the Beginner 1 used Training Manual and other handouts for vocab, grammar etc. From Beginners 2 up to Pre-Intermediate 2 used Genki Book 1 was used. The Intermediate 1 used Japanese for Busy People Book 2. Also, I used pictures (including those from tourism magazines of Daily Telegraph etc), many ads especially of Japanese magazines, e.g. Nichigo Press, Jenta, children’s story books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs etc. At the end of each class of 10 weeks, an exam was given (if the student wishes to have it as an open exam, it can be done in that way.) Late in each course, every class has to make a dialogue with partners with use of vocab. and grammar introduced in the latest unit introduced.
The Intermediate 1, who finished the course in the middle of last month, went to a Japanese restaurant, Sakae located near to our SLS, for dinner after the exam. In advance, I asked the waitresses to speak to our students in Japanese when we go there. We had a great time there, having lovely food and lots of chats. Unfortunately, the class can’t go on to the Intermediate 2. Three students out of that class were those in senior stages of secondary education. They are not taking Japanese course in their school subjects at the school. They are getting busy for the school and they stopped our Japanese course at this stage (likely for a while).
Regarding news about Japan, I informed my classes the following.
- There are wonderful or exciting Japanese films will come to Australia (its major cities) as the event of the 17th Japanese Film Festival. In Sydney, that will be shown at Events Cinemas, George St, from 14.11 – 24.11. Many films are award winning one domestically and even internationally. Very worthwhile to watch for both linguistically and culturally/human and society based learning. More info: www.japanesefilmfestival.net.
- There was the progressive Japan-Australia Summit Meeting in Brunei early last month. The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe and Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott had the talk about security, bilateral trade etc. And on the later day, the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited above PM Abe in Tokyo.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
2.11.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 21
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing dialogues. As for the main textbooks and materials, Beginner 1 used Training Manual and other handouts for vocab, grammar etc; from Beginners 2 up to Pre-Intermediate 2 used Genki Book 1; and Intermediate 1 began using Japanese for Busy People Book 2. Also, I used pictures, many ads (esp. of Japanese magazines, e.g. Nichigo Press, Jenta), children’s story books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs etc. At the end of each class of 10 weeks, an exam was given (if the student wishes to have it as an open exam, it can be done in that way.)
Late in each course, every class has to make a dialogue with partners with use of vocab. and grammar introduced in the latest unit introduced. Previous Beginners 2 and current Intermediate 1 did well and also some of the students memorized some parts for the performances.
The new class that began this week, Pre-Intermediate 1 has 4 students, who finished Beginners 2 last week, and 2 other students, who were in my course some time ago and had a break and came back to join the class. That was delightful.
The Japan Foundation kindly gave me many video tapes of its library for my teaching (since many daytime schools do not use VCR and borrow such tapes from the Foundation any more). Those tapes include a language teaching (long) series though they are a kind of old ones but the quality of the contents is excellent including the language taught and ways it is taught and presented throughout the series; it is one of my favorites from time when I often used them at a big TAFE in Melbourne. Also, they included many video tapes of children’s, Japanese, well known and beautiful or cute fairy tale stories in Japanese. They are all wonderful resources for teaching the Japanese language (both polite forms and plain forms), culture and values.
Regarding news on Japan, I informed my classes the following.
- (The Australian, 12.9.13, p. 25, originally an article from The Wall Street Journal): The Prime Minister Shinzo Aze’s economic policy (i.e. Abenomikkusu) has been working for Japanese economy, share market and business sectors very well. And the government will raise the sales tax, i.e. from 5% to 8% from April next year. The current economy is growing at an annualized pace of 3.8% from the figure a month ago. That is much bigger percentage than the US and Eurozone. A senior politician and the former Finance Minister, Mr Takeshi Noda commented to The Wall Street Journal that the package will probably include corporate tax relief steps that are aimed at spurring investment as well as raising salaries.
- (The Australian, 12.9.13, p. 16): There is (was) Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom at beautiful and educational Cowra Japanese Garden Festival on 28-29 September for the 24 year’s annual event. There are (were) many activities taken place for the visitors, such as traditional tea ceremony, ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement), calligraphy, bonsai, kite flying and marshal arts. (Reported by Susan Kurosawa)
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.10.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 20
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included practices to develop skills of speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, and constructing/performing diaglouges. Also, we used textbooks (Beginner 1 uses Training Manual and other handouts vocab, grammar etc, other levels use Genki Bk 1 for the main textbook), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs etc. At the end of each class of 10 weeks, an exam was given (if the student wishes to have it as an open exam, it can be done in that way.)
As for the textbook, the current Pre-Intermediate 2, who will finish the course this week and will likely continue and take Intermediate 1, will use Unit 1 of “Japanese for Busy People, Book 2” this week as a trial. If the class feels happy to use it for in Intermediate 1, we will use that book in that course as the major textbook. The reasons of that change of the main textbook are: “Genki Book 1” is (very) slow in teaching the linguistic contents esp. for those who finished Beginners’ stages and conjugations of verbs and adjectives and who can read/write Hiragana and Katakana; it has too many paragraphs in English for explanations on grammar/language use; topics and situations of each Main Dialogue of that book are for university students rather than adults and working people (one student of that class said the same comment about that book, who taught English in Japan for some years and who is very keen student in the above class). (However, we have 3 students in that class who are lovely and diligent high school students who do not take Japanese at their daytime school!)
In my classes during the recent weeks, I talked about a film “Wolverine: Samurai” since it is highly talked about and the sales of tickets around the world are reportedly an amazing extent. The film shootings of that film were heavily in Japan. Apart from Australian media, Japanese magazines in Australia reported the details about the film. Apart from having Japanese actors and actresses in the film, the places appeared in the film included the famous Buddhist temple in Tokyo, bullet train, pachinko parlor (for a short time!). And Hugh Jackman (who must be fond of Japan and many things of its culture) played amazingly in the film. In a movie magazine, Empire (Aug. ‘13), he said Japan has the history of (maintaining and practicing) family, code and honour. (I totally agree.) Also, he said at recent “Late Show with David Letterman”, he went and bathed in onsen (hot spring) in Japan. (He also climbed Mt Fuji with his son around earlier this year.)
In the above film, a very popular and highly recognized Japanese actor, Sanada Hiroyuki plays the big role. He appeared in “The Last Samurai” played by Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe some years ago. Also, it is reported that Sanada began learning Shorinji Kempo (self-defense and training) since around the age of 11. And Sanada is a long time friend of Jackie Chan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroyuki_Sanada). Sanada will play in the coming new film, “47 Ronin” (Hollywood film). This trend is the new phenomenon going in the recent years, which we never saw to this extent from Japan/its people in the past, Japanese actors and actresses are taking important/active roles bravely and creatively in Hollywood movies. That seems very interesting and hopefully good for Japan and its relationships with the international community.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.8.13
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