Hi everyone,皆さん、おげんきですか。

In my classes, apart from regular learning activities of speaking, reading, listening, writing and dialogues making/speaking with use of the course book, “Genki 1”, I used interesting flash cards that had letters and pictures (and with words) and other audio-video based materials and had singing activities. And one of the interesting books that I used was “Hatena? Hakken! Book” (Benesse Corp. Japan). It is an educational magazine for children who start the grade 1 in primary schools. I used some pages of that book for classes. The book is written in Hiragana and Katakana only and it has “many lovely pictures” that are interesting even for adults. The pages that I used for classes included the topics of “secrets of animals that we have in our life”, e.g. a cat, dog, hamster, turtle, rabbit, goldfish etc. That is about those animals’ behavior, emotions and functions that often people do not know or notice. Many plain forms of verbs were used in all of those pages.

Also, I talked about the following things with the handouts/copies of the information from the relevant sources.
1.    (Source: Nikkei newspaper, 25.1.12, p.1)
Japanese IT multinationals such as Fujitsu, NTT Communications, NEC etc are increasing investment to India that including a large number of job creations in India. Fujitsu will have 8000 experts in coming 2 years; NEC will have 100; Ntt Data will have 9000. Those firms previous major focus was China in the recent years, but that is shifting to focus in India. Also, NTT Com plans to establish a large data centre in Singapore soon this year and one in Hong Kong next year.

2.    (Source: the Japan Times Online, 28.2.12)
The most highly regarded (state-run) university in Japan, The University of Tokyo is opening its office in India. The same with a private university, Rutsumeikan University is taking the similar actions in India.

3.    I informed about a film “Zatoichi” (or “Zatooichi”) (2003) that was shown on SBS 1 on 29.2.12. That version of “Zatoichi” is different from old days’ version of “Zatoichi” played by Shintaro Katsu (well over a few decades ago). As for one made in 2003, Takeshi Kitano (“Beat” Takeshi) plays the hero, blind and brilliant swordsman in the setting of the samurai period (i.e. a few hundred years ago). Kitano also took directing, writing and co-editing roles for the film. That film is partly more westernized (than old days’ version) and has more lively elements that include great tap dance of young people wearing kimono. It is the excellent film that earned numerous awards both internationally and in Japan. I loved Zatoichi’s words when he said, “Mekura dakara, hito no kimochi ga motto wakarun da.” (= Because I am blind, I can perceive people’s feelings/mind better.) There are many interesting websites about the fascinating film. I hope you will enjoy visiting them.

– Toshiko Jackson (Japanese Language Teacher)