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. Speaking practice sometimes used the use of the pictures, concepts or topics from the brochures of the Japan National Tourism Organizations, Jenta, Nichigo Press, Daily Telegraph etc.
My Pre-Intermediate 2 has been studying with Unit 6, Genki Book 1 (having finished learning the conjugation of i-adjectives and na-adjectives from the previous Unit and in Unit 6, verb, te-forms are especially important to master) and Kanji learning with use of the Kanji learning pages of the back of the text book.
The Pre-Intermediate 1 is studying late Unit 4 of the above book. Similar to the above class, that class is learning Kanji and its words with the use of back of the textbook.
Apart from the above teaching, as the assignments from SLS, I took interpreting role for 2 full days. The client was through Forum Group and the company concerned deals with technological products which save fuel in automobiles. Both the Australian clients and Japanese CEO who I had to do interpreting for were very easy to work with, passionate about their work, pleasant, open, intelligent/intellectual and well informed. So, I had a great time for the job indeed. (The Japanese CEO, in some way, reminded me of late Konosuke Matsushita who was the founder of Panasonic (previously National Panasonic). So lively, energetic, alert, broadly and in essence, humble minded and interested in many things of the world (and he had always full of smiles that creates energy to people around!) I said to someone that the gentleman was like the one of “forever young at heart”!
Regarding the news on Japan, I said the following things in classes. They are mostly from the NHK TV news (shown at SBS TV during the past 4 weeks) and Jenta magazine.
The Professor Amano Hiroshi (Nagoya Uni.), Prof. I. Akazaki and Prof. S. Nakamura received the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was the discover of blue LED. The blue LED can be used for many things and purposes. For example, traffic lights, vehicles, interior designs, medical equipment (e.g. thin tubes which are used to examine the human internal organs more deeply than past equipment), fishery (the light will go much deeper in the ocean) etc. It has more durability than lights used around the world in the past and it will save cost greatly in many industries. – In the past, Nagoya University received the donation of ¥14,0000,0000 out of the past Nobel Prize winning by one of the above professors. – What a wonderful story!
Today, a Japanese, beautiful and brilliant horse, Admire Rakti died with the heart attack after his great achievement at Caufield Cup in Melbourne and yesterday’s Melbourne Cup where he was the top favorite of punters among all the stayers. It was really sad. I hope the owner, trainer and jockey will not be totally disappointed (though they must have shattered for a while, after all the great expectation) and will keep having a great dream and come back again for the future race and make a Japanese horse run in Australian land.
Japanese Teacher, 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 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
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 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 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
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