Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 19
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and creating dialogues as well as cultural skills upon Japan and those of self-expressive skills. Also, we used textbooks (our major one is Genki Book 1), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs, gestures with 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, that can be done in that way.)
As one of new teaching methods, I found that making copies of lovely or funny pictures and Hiragana version cards that have the names or the words for the above picture cards. I thought of that idea while preparing for the student of my regular tutorial, who is a 5-year-old girls (who enjoys singing Japanese songs!). The use of such cards is similar to playing cards of “karuta”. You will see the pictures and words/names of the pictures and eventually start accommodating Hiragana letters into your Japanese linguistics box in your brains. You leave many picture cards and the word cards (i.e. the translations of the words) on the table in disorder. The learner will pick up the cards to make the matches of picture cards and the names/words of the cards that are written in Hiragana. He/she can connect the Hiragana letters with the words and pictures; it will be much more fun than reading Hiragana letters without any meanings of things or animated things of a civilization/our environment. It’ll be an effective way to learn Hiragana. The above 5 year-old learner seemed excited with those cards. I plan to use such a method for my Beginners 1 and Katakana version in Beginners 2.
Regarding Japanese economy, there were many delightful or positive news reported (esp. thanks to the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe’s brave, effective policies), including in a newspaper The Australian. I recently talked about that economic phenomenon in classes. The articles that report and comment upon such include the following. These are all from the above newspaper: (1) “Japan’s growth picks up steam”, (The Wall Street Journal), by W. Warnock, T. Mochizuki, 17.5.13, p. 20, (2) “No false dawn under Abe: Japan’s sun rising again”, R. Callick, 23.5.13, p. 24 (3) “Boost lending, BoJ tells banks”, T. Ito, 28.5.13, p. 22 (4) “Japan offers new opportunities” (in the Editorial of the newspaper), 29.5.13, p. 11.
In one of the above articles, it says PM Abe’s popularity reached 70% and also the Japanese share market has gone up 70% as well in the recent record! Amazing!
One of my current free-time reading is “Amerika –wa Nihon –no Fukkatsu –o Shitteiru”, written by an Emeritus Professor (at the University of Yale and University of Tokyo), Kooichi Hamada. He is around 76 years (and still writing books and thesis!). He was one of the advisors for PM Abe esp. in relation to increase the supply of Japanese money in order to stop deflation that has been causing the bad economy and ailing industries and society, and the Bank of Japan did not do much about that for the real solution for many years. Hamada is very outspoken and passionate about increase of money supply. He also comments: due to the impact of “Riiman-shokku” (the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers), all major countries increased the supply of money of their countries and only Japan did not; Japan suffered most among all the countries because of that.
Above Hamada reminds me of late Konosuke Matsushita (founder of Panasonic, previously National Panasonic) in many ways. Those amazing people’s talents, convictions, passion, vision, consistency in pursuing what they believe in, their almost universal values, etc are “immeasurable” for the past and future of Japan and Japanese international relations with the rest of the world. They are certainly the members of my heroes in my professionalism and personal life.
I also talked about and gave the info from website of INA Global, about the Japanese most successful newspaper Yomiuri-shimbun. Yomiuri newspaper (that began business in 1874) is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan but also the largest in the world. Its circulation is greater than that of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal combined! (INA Global Press: “Yomiuri Shimbun: The giant of the Japanese press”. Yomiuri reminds me of Toyota Motors in the world’s car manufacturing industries.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.6.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 18
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and creating dialogues as well as cultural skills and knowledge upon Japan. Also, we used textbooks (our major one is Genki Book 1), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs, gestures with 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, that was done in that way.)
As for use of flash cards to increase knowledge of vocab, sentences construction and script reading skills, for the recent few weeks, I have been using “Hantai-kotoba-kaado” (Kumon) that has many beautiful cards in Hiragana and Kanji (Chinese characters) with use of words that are commonly used nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each card has lovely, cute or funny pictures that indicate the words concerned. Each card has a word on one side and its antonym (word of the contrary meaning) on the back. The cards were very useful, interesting to use and helpful to make sentences and short dialogues.
A few times, I used exciting pictures from magazines, including MX magazine, e.g. picture of a beautiful white baby lion that is in the UK zoo. The class listened to my Japanese sentences or students said some sentences in reference to the report on the article. For example, “The baby lion’s mother is Kya.”, “The white baby lion is cute.”
At Internet, you can see many articles on Japanese newspapers. About a month ago I saw gorgeous photos of “waves” of Japanese cherry blossoms in the middle of Tokyo, in Yomiuri newspaper (shimbun). However, the season was over and couldn’t show it to classes. And I found the inspiring article(s) of Japanese newspapers, so I reported that to classes. I believer such printed media has enormously contributed to Japanese democratization, world’s highest literacy rate and people’s life span, impressive peace and order in the society in the post modern times, their cherishing good, traditional values, practice and consistency, technological sophistication, communal attitude etc.
Related to the above topic, one of the article reports (from INA Globa Press Article, “Yomiuri Shimbun – The giant of the Japanese press”: “With more than 10 million copies sold everyday, Yomiuri Shimbun is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan, but also the largest in the world. The circulation of Yomiuri Shimbun is greater than that of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street combined. Around 50 million newspapers are sole each day in Japan, where 90% of the public reads newspapers. —– (in p. 7 of that article,) Yomiuri Shimbun was founded in 1874 (i.e. soon after the end of Edo Period and start of Meiji Period); Asahi Shimbun was in 1879; Mainichi Shimbun was in 1872 and Nikkei Shimbun was in 1876; Sankei Shimbun was in 1913.
The above first four newspapers are national newspapers and its circulation rates are all extremely high in the world’s standard. Also, there is an English newspaper, The Japan Times. All of Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi and Nikkei newspapers have English versions daily.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
3.5.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 18
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and creating dialogues as well as culturalskills and knowledge upon Japan. As usual, we used textbooks (our major one is Genki Book 1), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs etc.
A few high school students of the previous Beginners 2 and now in Pre-Intermediate 1, said they wish to learn the vocab related to colours and seasons. So, I used the book of FudekoReekie and taught such vocab and use of that as application exercises while also using colorful posters and pictures.
As for traditional culture and arts, I got many beautiful and comprehensive pamphlets etc from a Japanese travel agent located near to Kinokuniya, CBD. Showing them, I talked about Noh (Japanese ancient stage play), kyogen (funny talk/performance played during the intervals at Noh in Japan during the Ancient Time, Kabuki, exquisite sight of Mt Fuji and its surroundings, Japanese map with all the route of the bullet trains, Tokyo Disneyland, Universal Studio in Osaka, many gorgeous historical heritage of Kyoto and geisha/maiko of Gion (Kyoto), big and traditional festivals, Japan Rail Pass (e.g. for an adult, travelling anywhere in Japan by Japan Rail group that includes all bullet trains, its buses and ferry in Miyajima are all covered, e.g. 28,300-en for 7 days and for Ordinary Pass), very popular monkies’ hot spring in Nagano, etc.
Similarly, I informed my classes about an article in Jenta (8.3.13, p. 24). It is written by TeruGamoo who is an author of many books. He reports the recent report of “TorippuAdobaizaa” in Internet, i.e. which places/things are mostly popular for overseas tourists in Japan. The most popular one is Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum; No. 2 is Mori Art Museum in Hakone (Kanagawa prefecture). The rest and up to No. 10 include Miyajima in Hiroshima prefecture, Monkey Natural Park (them in hot spring in Nagano), skiing resort in Hokkaido, “Kinkakuji” (temple built in the early samurai period) in Kyoto, “Toodaiji” (temple) in Nara (the Ancient capital city of Japan). Also, the above author informs about “Gion-maruume” in Kyoto. They offer any clients of small groupslovely time of 45 minutes with their highly trained “maiko”. Those “maiko” entertain clients with beautiful traditional dance, performance of musical instruments and gorgeous/traditional tea. Thosepleasant and distinctive services popular with esp. female clients, the article says. The price of that service is reasonably approachable and 4800-en per person.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.4.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 17
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and performing dialogues or speech apart from cultural and social issues and concepts. As usual, we used textbooks, pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines (including cooking ones), CDs, videos, DVDs, songs etc.
As for performing their own dialogues, the class, Beginners 2, esp. James and Yvonne did very well. The dialogue was at a shop and the contents were funny or distinctive. And they used an apple for the play. James perfectly spoke the dialogue from his memory and Yvonne relatively well spoke from her memory. Well done.
One of the books that I got excited and used in classes was “Raion –no Kazoku”. That is a beautiful and educational picture story book of a lion family (big family with many relatives!) that are in Fuji Safari Park). The whole book was made with pictures taken at the above large Park with the experts. All the lions shown are gorgeous. They look more neat, content and relaxed than lions in Africa or somewhere else. I said to my classes that those lions were ones of the luckiest lions in the world. I checked websites of Fuji Safari Park. There are many websites. The Park is in Shizuoka prefecture and about 2 hours taken from Tokyo. The huge park is right facing Mt Fuji and all those animals can enjoy exquisite Mt Fuji in daily life and are fed with well balanced food. (What great animal life!) One of the website, Images of Fuji Safari Park has “many” pictures of plenty of kinds of animals. If you like animals (like me), you will greatly enjoy them. The Park is open 24 hours/day. It has night time ride (about 50 minutes will be taken per course) and you can see the night time life of many animals. The Park is very scientific minded and there are many species of animals that are not heard in general. If you visit Japan, it will be one of excellent places to visit (seeing Mt Fuji and enjoying the Park in one package!) Last year the Park had 4 gorgeous lion cubs’ births. That took many Japanese people’s hearts.
In recent media, I heard the current Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe’s (the Liberal Democratic Party) earned 70% at the opinion poll. That is excellent. You have never seen such positive one in recent years among Japanese political leaders.
Related to a film, Japanese NHK TV news recently reported that the foreign film, Les Miserable earned the highest ticket sales (highest record) at cinemas in Japan, among foreign movies. Later, when I was watching “Late Show” of D. Letterman, Hugh Jackman was the guest speaker. He mentioned his trip to Japan. He said he climbed Mt Fuji with his son. (He said climbing the mountain takes two days.) When they almost reached the top, his son was asleep and Jackman had to carry his son to go to the top. What an amazing man and actor of young, challenging spirit! (I respect Jackman enormously as well as D. Day-Lewis!) I am sure there must be a big number of Jackman fans in Japan without a doubt.
There were a few delightful emails from previous students about my course and what they learned was very useful to their trips in Japan that included having learnt Hiragana script. That was very encouraging and nice to hear.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.3.13
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 16
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons included the usual kinds of activities to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, constructing and performing dialogues or speech apart from cultural, society-orientated, technology, industry, and travel in Japan.
As recent delightful news, several students, who took my Beginners 1 late last year, informed me their latest news by email. For example, they have been to Japan, greatly enjoyed Japan and could read and understand words that were written in Hiragana etc, and thanked our course (and will come back to our Japanese course this year). Very nice indeed.
In my recent teaching, apart from using the textbook, reference materials for vocab and grammar, video, DVD, flash cards for vocab, pictures and words esp. from Japanese cooking magazines, ads of shops (Harvey Norman or supermarkets to talk about prices of things) etc, I used the method of singing Japanese songs as before. I included some gestures for a few songs. Some adult learners are shy and they tend to hesitate at first, but I try to encourage to do gestures, eg. use of fingers for a song, “My Fingers” and “Cha-Cha-Cha with Toys” (“Omocha no cha, cha, cha”). For teaching a five-year-old girl every Sat., she is very good at singing and performing gestures (almost no fear!) and she enjoys colouring the pictures of the song sheets. Very active learning attitude. Including gestures in singing is very effective and human brains and emotions will be more effectively learning and acquiring the language and culture at the same time while singing. (I mentioned such a thing in my publication in “Australia Language Matter”(ANU) in the past, as one of teaching methods in Japanese and with its cultural concepts.
As for information related to Japanese society (and culture), I showed an article of recent Jenta, which had news of a tuna of an amazing price at Tsukiji Fishmarket, Tokyo, the world’s biggest fish market. Also, articles about Japanese politics, security issue/international relation, i.e dispute with China about the Senkaku Islands, etc. The sources/articles for are:
1. About the newly elected Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe of Liberal Democratic Party, www.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinz%C5%8D_Abe
2. About the Senkaku Island, dispute with China, (1) “China-Japan dispute has wide regional implications: Beijin would be wise to leave the Senkaku Islands alone”, The Australian, editorial, 10.12.12, p. 13. (2) ”Islands must not come between Japan and China: Beijin should take its claim to the ICJ (International Court of Justice), by Masahiro Kohara, Consul General of Japan, Sydney, The Australian, 3.1.13, p. 6 (in the article, Mr Kohara says Japan has spent the post-swar era as a peace-loving nation in line with its peaceful Constitution and has long been the world’s biggest Overseas Development Assistance donor to assist developing nations and in Asia, China was the biggest recipient of Japanese ODA. (3) “Peaceful way out for China and Japan”, by Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, originally article in The Wall Street Journal, The Australian, 7.1.13, p. 6. (4) “Manufacturing dreams won’t take us closer to Asia”, by David Uren (economic editor), 24.1.13, p. 10. It’s about future Australian major industries that should be sustained and strengthened for Australian international trade and its economy, in the article Uren says that til now, Japan was the source of the highest technology in Asia. – All of the above articles and comment seem impressive, sensible (for democratic and peaceful international relationships) and useful.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.2.13
Japanese Customary Ways
KNOWING HOW THINGS ARE DONE IN JAPAN WILL MAKE YOUR VISIT MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE.
Japanese often gets a bad rap for being expensive, awkward for foreign travellers and populated by inscrutable people who speak an incomprehensible language. The reality is that it is one of the friendliest and easiest countries to travel around. Even Japanese culture doesn’t have to be a problem as long as you remember two things. First: relax. Most Japanese don’t expect foreigners to know all the ins and outs of their customs and they tend to be extraordinarily patient when we slip up. Second: respect. This is the essence of all things Japanese and enables 127 million people to live together in country of New Zealand. The following are a few tips to ease the culture shock.
Shoe-ing off
Most shops and hotels don’t require you to take off your shoes; most temples, homes and traditional restaurants do. If in doubt, look for the telltale rows of shoes out the front and the slippers you’re supposed to wear instead.
Toilets
Japanese toilets are one of the wonders of the manmade world. Even public conveniences in airports have buttons for flushing sounds, music or birdsong(to reduce embarrassment), bidet functions, hair dryers and inseat heating with instruction usually in Japanese only, so be careful what you press.
Bathing rules
Whatever you do, don’t wash yourself in a public bath (onsen). Japanese baths are for soaking after you have showered (while sitting down on a small wooden or plastic stool). Many hotels in tourist and mountain areas have in-house hot-spring baths and cotton robe, slippers are supplied. Many guests even dine at the hotel restaurant, go gift shopping in the lobby and wander outside the hotel in their bathwear.
No tipping
It’s not usual to tip in Japan and people can feel offended if you offer them money for something they may have intended as a friendly gesture such as helping with your bags of hailing a taxi for you. Instead of tipping at the restaurant, say “gochisosama desita” (thank you for a lovely meal) when leaving.
Bow, don’t blow
If you have to point at something or someone, use your whole hand (finger point is considered offensive). Bowing is generally preferred over shaking hands as a greeting. And if you have a cold, niff, don’t blow, blowing your nose in public is regarded as the height of bad manners.
Beer Behaviour
Beer (biru) I the most popular drink in Japan. If you find yourself drinking with the locals, wait until everyone has a full glass before saying “kampa”(cheers). It’s not the done thing to fill your own glass – let your companions do it for you, as you fill their glasses in return. And when you had enough, leave your glass full. Keep drinking and your Japanese hosts will just keep topping it up.
You talkin’ to me?
Harmony is everything in Japan and, as a result, the Japanese seem to genuinely appreciate the slightest effort foreigners make to communicate in their language. Even if you get it horribly wrong, a few words or phrases will go a long way towards making your trip to Japan a happy one.
Arigato (thank you)
Hai (yes, though technically “that’s right”)
Iie (no)
Oishii (delicious)
Sumimasen (excuse me)
Onegai shimasu (please)
Sayonara (goodbye)
Gomen nasai (sorry).
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 15
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons included the usual kinds of activities that aim to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, constructing and performing dialoguesor speech apart from cultural, society-orientated and technology related aspects on Japan.
Apart from use of songs that included a few songs sung by late Kyuu Sakamoto, I informed the details of a few Japanese films shown at The Japanese Film Festivals (Sydney), such as “Postcard”, “The Floating Castle” and “The Terminal Trust”. All of them and many other films shown are national (and international award winning films). This year, 40 films were shown in Sydney and Melbourne for the 16th Japanese yearly Film Festival. According to Nichigo Press’ report, 40 films are the 2nd biggest number for this year’s festival around the world. All the movies have English subtitles.
The above 3 films, which I watched, were excellent and very meaningful. It was like having been to a Japanese teachers’ Refresher Course! I spoke about the films to most of my classes.
In addition, as for cultural, technological and society related topics and news, I informed most of my classes the following. In particular, the articles on Smart House and Smart Community are inspiring and impressive contents to know.
From Daily Yomiuri Online:
An article of “Toyota Group to develop0 smart house complexes” (Oct. 6, 12)
“Toyota comes 10th in global brand rankings” (Oct. 4, 12)
From Jiji Press:
“Honda’s hybrid car sales top 1 mil. Units” (Oct. 16. 12)
From Pike Research’s website:
“Japan’s Smart Community Program Spreads Globally” by Andy Bae (Dec. 11, 01)
“Smart House in Japan by Andy Bae (Feb. 10, 11)
MX Magazine:
An article about 81-year-old Hirokazu Kanazawa. He is one of the rare holders of the 10thdan black belt, i.e. the highest honour in karate. (20.11.12)
The Japanese festival of “shichi-go-san” (3, 5 and 7 year-old-children’s yearly festival in November) and the beautiful photo of 3 children who are wearing gorgeous kimono for the celebration and visiting Meiji Jingu (famous shrine in Tokyo)
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.12.12
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 14
(Blog writing)
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons included the usual kinds of activities that aim to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, constructing and performing dialoguesor speech apart from cultural, society-orientated about Japan.
In terms of script learning, I requested a couple of Beginners 1 classes to make Hiragana-based flash cards. The cards could be each letter based or word based and they could have pictures too, depending on the students’ preferences. Most of the students of one of the classes made flash cards with great creativity, diligence, neatness and beauty on top of linguistic value. That was very appreciated and delightful.
As for singing Japanese songs for language and culture learning and making one’s tongue and mouth getting ready for Japanese (foreign) language learning, I introduced a few new songs in addition to the children’s songs that I had taught in the past this year.
The new songs are (late) Kyuu(or Kyu) Sakamoto’s “Ue –o MuiteArukoo”. Its English translation is “Sukiyaki” that does not have any relation in meaning, according to a website, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj3zg_kyu-sakamoto-sukiyaki_music. The website has Romaji translation of the famous song, which is internationally very well known, having become a Number 1 music hit on the charts in America many years ago. In Australia too, I occasionally heard it on the major radio station (3MP?, which is the music station) in Melbourne. The website has English translation too.
Also I taught aboveKyuu Sakamoto’s other song with CD (one from Japan Foundation), “Tomodachi” (“Friends”) with my English translation and word-processed Japanese script version. Kyuu Sakamoto was extremely popular when he was alive and active in singing and performing in entertainment. Sadly, he died due to an aircraft clash in 1985. Above both songs are very compassion and warmth promoting/creating ones for any anyone and esp. for those who are lonely or hurt/sad. The latter one is also very positive, broad visions creating, and enriching humanities.
There are “many” of such songs among Japanese popular songs that always touch and help people’s life, emotions, relationships, positive attitudes, sensitivity toward small ones or fragile ones (including creatures other than humans), and communal attitude and value in Japan.
Pertaining to technology, international relations concerned, I informed my classes about the article, “Japan ties ‘key to growth’” by Rick Wallace, The Australian (8.10.12, pp. 19-20). A very good article to read.Also, with that newspaper’s magazine, “Motor Show”, I talked about Japanese car manufactures’ active participations to the Motor Show at Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre last month (19-28 October). Out of about 24 car makers there, 8 are Japanese companies. Very exciting news.
In the recent Jenta magazine, it says that over 270,000 people climbed Mt Fuji during July and August this year. That was 30,000 more people than last year’s same period.
That is delightful news too.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
2.11.12
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 13
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons included the usual kinds of activities that aim to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing and making and performing dialogues. Apart from the usual course book, Genki 1, I used A First Couse in Japanese (by FudekoReekie),Busy People Book 2 in particular. And I used handouts with use of a such language textbooks and others to teach time, words for days of the week, months, dates, names of the products commonly shown at department stores and other shops, foods etc. That also enforced learning use of Hiragana for all classes, and for Beginners 2, Katakana scripts, and some simple Kanji for Pre-Intermediate 1. For keen and hard working Pre-Intermediate 1 class, we did some pages for Kanji learning with use of “Koko-Seikatsu: Kanji Work Book”.
(As I normally ask nearly every class sometime during the courses,) all classes of group lessons made dialogues by pairs or group later in the 10 weeks’ courses (normally about 8 sentences per person) with use of grammar and vocabulary of the unit(s) taught and language taught from the handouts. That practice was very useful and stimulating for students. Also, that will create new interactions among the students and expressions of their own interest and thoughts while using Japanese language.
I taught/asked classes to sing 4 ~ 5 Japanese songs as before, at the start of each lesson. That seemed creating students’ opening their minds instead of being quiet and helping them/class be better prepared for Japanese language/linguistic learning and cultural experiences. I also regard such activityas experiences of feeling a universal perspective and such value since most of the songs sung have sensitivity and compassion to nature and living things and such positive or common healthy thoughts about human life and function.
One of the recently taught songs, i.e. “Song of Crickets” (Koorogi no uta) is beautiful, relaxingand peaceful in the concepts and onomatopoeia used was distinctive. Its English version and onomatopoeia in English was distinctive too. The music of the song was composed by Yasushi Akutagawa, who is a highly known composer and conductor and the music in the CD was recorded impressively with use of occasional insects (crickets’) sound. Those songs were sung with use of the handout written in Hiragana.
- Also, I informed the majority of my students about the following websites related to Japanese culture, Mt Fuji and Hiragana practice. They are the following.
- Yomiuri online newspaper shows about 40 video clips with stories about a variety of cute, beautiful animals in Japanese, taken by Japanese animal lovers. Amazing,funny and adorable collection. It is at: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/stream/m_pet/pet021.htm. Titled “BuumuPetto” in Japanese. They can be seen on mobile phones too.
- The website, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/adv/fujisan/gallery.htm shows amazing inspiring collection of Mt Fuji. They are excellent photos taken by brilliant photographers.
- The website, http://www.guidetojapanese.org/pdf/hiragana_trace_sheet.pdf was informed by one of my past students. It has the sheet for Hiragana practice etc. It’ll be good to be used by Beginners’ students.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.10.12
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 12
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes and lessons include the usual kinds of activities that aim to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing and making and performing dialogues. Apart from the usual course book, Genki 1, I used A First Couse in Japanese (by Fudeko Reekie) and Busy People Book 2 for vocabulary concerned with time, days/dates, months and sentences that have those words. Among those, a couple of pages of Japanese for Busy People, Bk 2, pp. 60-61 are one of my favorite. They list the phrases that are commonly spoken in everyday life with the cute/friendly/neat pictures with. And they have a many different verbs used in the sentences. Their contexts are more of adults’ life, but they can be used for school students too. Especially the phrases such as “Uchi de nonbirishimasu.” (=I’ll have relaxing time at home), “Tomodachi to oshaberi o shimasu.” (=I’ll chat with my friend) are my favorite ones. I used many Japanese textbooks in the past (and did research for my academic study, but it seemed some phrases, which are commonly spoken in Japanese people’s daily life, are not in many textbooks unless the linguistic level is high. I think listing the above phrases is desirable.
Also, some of useful pages used in my classes (including tutorials or class that had students who were going to Japan soon) were: a list of many kinds of products at a department store that was on p. 136, A First Course in Japanese. The names of all sorts of products commonly seen at big department stores in Japan are written in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. They were very useful that is for making sentences.
Similarly, I taught dialogues at a restaurant, in some classes. That is with p. 158 and 159, of the above mentioned book. They are dialogues between a waitress/waiter and customers who wish to order food and drinks and dialogue that is spoken after the meal and for paying the bill at the restaurant. Those will be useful for people who are going to Japan for trips or for living in Japan.
In addition, I taught how to ask or answer about the departure time and arrival time of trains/bullet trains with use of the Jikoku-hyo (Train-timetable of the JTB).
Magazine Jentahad interesting articles/news and I referred to that in classes. One of them was “Enjoying Mt. Fuji”, 27 July, 12, p. 4. It talked about Mt Fuji, , surrounding of it, well known Fuji-Q Highland where I had worked for part time jobs at the skating centre and swimming pool. The above very big amusement park has fascinating facilities and not far from Tokyo.
I taught 4 ~ 5 Japanese songs to most of classes. Most of them are well known children’s songs and they have many plain forms, “many” word of onomatopoeia, sensitivity and emotions for nature or living things etc. And I think singing such songs in relaxing or uplifting music of cd with use of Hiragana based handouts is useful.
Also, I talked about the famous statue of Chuuken-hachiko that is in front of Shibuya Station, Tokyo. It was reported in The Japan Times (17.6.12, P.11). An “amazing” dog that passed away in 1935 (he saw his statue well before his death.) He was a bit similar to the Red Dog, the famous dog in Australia that was portrayed in the movie.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
4.9.12
Latest Comments