Hi everyone,皆さん、おげんきですか
My Japanese group lessons and tutorials had regular activities of speaking, reading, listening, writing and (esp. in group lessons) making and performing dialogues with use of the course book, “Genki 1” and its Workbook apart from handouts from other sources for language teaching. Also, I used flash cards, “Hantai-kotoba-kaado” (publisher: Kumon-shuppan). The cards are from the Japan Foundation. The cards are for teaching many i-adjectives and nouns that are pairs and for learning antonyms. The pictures of the cards are all attractive and can be funny. Very valuable resource to use in class for vocab. Increase, practice of making affirmative or negative sentences, past tense etc.

The class of Intermediate 1 has been learning Kanji script gradually with use of “Kanji-no Hon” (by K. Aitchson, 2001, MacMillan). The students of that class tend to be very keen and it is a nice class. There are those who like to know more Kanji and write new Kanji out of their initiative that is very pleasant.

Related to Japanese culture, heritages, great travelling places etc, I show a “great” dvd, “Pilot Guides – Tokyo” (Tokyo City Guide) presented by very talented, exciting, highly experienced and travelled, intelligent, humorous, very open-minded and internationally well known (awards winning) British presenter, Ian Wright (who loves many things of Japan and Tokyo). The dvd covers not only Tokyo’s major fascinating places but also other parts of Japan, including the northern Japan for Nebuta Festival where Ian Wright participated in the fabulous festival activity, Mt Fuji that he climbing with a Japanese friend and show many details of the very special experiences. (I climbed Mt Fuji twice; climbing that absolutely beautiful mountain is really special joy and experiences as people, including all the non-Japanese in that dvd said.)

As for culture, society, technology, tourism, economy, business etc in Japan, there were many exciting news (the Japanese/Japan is such an exciting country!). (I have been teaching this language and culture in this country for over 27 years, but still I am amazed at them; they are such “thinkers, doers and inventors”!) I talked about the following news etc and gave handouts.

1. Recent Jenta Sydney (Japanese magazine that has English articles in parts)
Jenta reported many exciting news from Japan with beautiful photos, including photos of sakura, abundant cherry blossoms in many places of Japan including Fukushima prefecture!  The magazine (27.4.12) reports a happy glorious old gentleman Jiroemon Kimura who is 115 years old that is the oldest age for a man in the world and in Japan. He has 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren! He lives in Kyoto. Amazing.

2. Also the above magazine reports related to Gundam robot statue that is 18-meter-tall and located in front of the DiverCity Tokyo Plaza. They opened the new entertainment facility Mobile Suit Gundam. Information can be available in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean there.

3. Jenta magazines also recently continued informing about many famous and great onsen (Japanese hot springs) with details. I recommend anyone to read them if they are interested in onsen.

4. Jenta (13.4.12) also report about very famous Kiyomizu-temple in Kyoto, which is lit up by some 500 lights. That looks really gorgeous. Also, the magazine shows the photo of “Samurai warriors festival” in Yamanashi prefecture (my hometown was in that prefecture). The festival is made yearly and many people, esp. men are clad as feudal-era. (My late father, who was a company executive, had participated in such a parade a long time ago.) They wear real helmets that honorable samurai used to wear for formal occasions and walk through streets. This time, at the festival, 1061 people clad as the warriors and went on the parade to honor the feudal lord Takeda Shingen, a 16th century daimyo (feudal lord). The event was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest-ever gathering of samurai.

5. Ichiro Suzuki, who is very famous and great baseball player of Japan and the US (the Seattle Mariners).

6. Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune (and Tatsuya Nakadai). They are all amazing people who immeasurably influenced the Japanese and international film industries and Japanese society, community and social standard.

– Toshiko Jackson (Japanese Teacher)