週7・特別ポスト - writing about places

Hello to all my students,

Image "Ancient Ruins In Delphi" courtesy of thephotoholic/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is a special post about writing. Today, I will show you some things on writing about places. 

Look at the picture above. What feelings do you get about the place in the picture? What adjectives (形容詞) do you think of when you see this place? 

Homework
Here is a homework activity for you. Look at these pictures. Choose one and write a paragraph of 4-5 sentences about it. 

See you next time!

週7 - ECA (Reading) I (Super A) - コロケーション

Hello to all my Super A reading students,

Image "Buy Tickets Words with fireworks" courtesy of Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How are you? Here is another word learning technique for you - seeing collocations.

Look at the picture above - buy tickets. "Buy" and "tickets" come together so often that we can think of them as a unit. This kind of unit is called a collocation - a word combination where one word often comes with another word in a pattern.

Ticket is a noun (名詞). Let's look at some more examples with ticket:

VERB [動詞] + ticket 

sell a ticket

lose a ticket

punch a ticket

give away a ticket

purchase a ticket

(purchase = 購入する)

ADJECTIVE [形容詞] + ticket 

cheap ticket(s)

expensive ticket(s)

affordable ticket(s)

discounted tickets

reasonably-priced ticket(s)
hard-to-get ticket(s)

Other NOUN + ticket

Movie ticket

Concert ticket

Parking ticket

Train (Subway) ticket

Dry cleaning ticket

Ticket + other NOUN
Ticket price

Ticket gate

Ticket sales

Ticket taker

Ticket collection

HOMEWORK ACTIVITY

Now look for collocations from the reading about acupuncture. Look for verbs (動詞), adjectives (形容詞), and other nouns (名詞) before or after these words in your reading: 

infection
acupuncture
needle(s)
treatment(s)

Make a list of them for yourself in your notes, and share in the class next week.

See you next time!

週6 - ECA (Speaking) I (W) - 比較対照

Hello to all my Ningenfukushi speaking students,

Image "Classic Porsche 959" courtesy of M-Pics/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How are you? Let's look at some basic comparing and contrasting (比較対照). First, let's look at comparatives (比較)！

In the picture above, we can say the sports car is fast (早い). But in the picture below, this old car is slow (遅い):

Image "Vintage Car" courtesy of Tom Clare/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So - you can say: 

The sports car is faster than the old car. 

The old car is slower than the sports car.

Now look at these pictures. What comparatives () talk about these pairs? Match these!

taller     shorter     newer     colder

longer     younger     hotter     older 

1.

The man is __________ than the woman.

The woman is __________ than the man.

2. 

The man in the black suit is __________ than the man in the blue suit. 

The man in the blue suit is __________ than the man in the black suit.

3. 

The church is __________ than the office building.

The office building is __________ than the church. 

4.

The beach is __________ than the mountains. 

The mountains are __________ than the beach. 

5. 

The flowered dress is __________ than the animal-print skirt.

The animal-print skirt is __________ than the flowered dress. 

Try these! See you next class!

Other photo credits: 1. "Senior Couple with Arms Crossed" (courtesy of stockimages) 2. "Two Businessmen Smiling" (courtesy of Ambro) 3. "Old Historical Church" (courtesy of Stuart Miles)/"Blue Sky And Office Building" (courtesy of Sura Nualpradid) 4. "Sunset Holiday" (courtesy of kenfotos)/"Denali National Park" (courtesy of Liz Noffsinger) 5. "Taking Leg Measurement" (courtesy of imagerymajestic)/"Legs of Young Woman" (courtesy of David Castillo Dominici)/All pictures from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

週6 - ECA (Speaking) I (W) - 買い物: フリーマーケット

Hello to my Ningenfukushi speaking students,

Image "Shop" courtesy of Dino De Luca/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How are you? I have a video for you. It's about two Japanese tourists in Frankfurt, Germany, at a flea market. 

Homework
Watch the video. How many things can you see in the video? Can you name them? Write down in your notebooks all the things in the flea market you see.

Uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to this video. This is strictly for educational use.

Have fun! See you in class!

週6 - ECA (Speaking) I (C & A) - 過去について: Hokkaido summer

Hello to all my Jido and Obei students,

How are you? I will tell you about my summer in Hokkaido in 2012 with my wife and her family. 

First, we went to Sapporo. 

We walked around Sapporo. This was me in front of the old Sapporo City Hall (元札幌市役所).

We went to Hokkaido University. This was me. This is the famous statue that says "Boys be ambitious" (ボイズ・ビ・アンビシャス). 

We took the train to Otaru. The man with the hat and backpack is my father-in-law (義理のお父さん). We walked around many places in Otaru!  

This is my wife. We were so hungry! She wanted to eat everything. We ate a lot of great food in Otaru. 

We drank some great beer in Otaru. This was a big glass!

We went back to Sapporo and walked around more. My wife got very hot and we sat down. We were tired, but happy!

Homework
For our next class, bring some pictures of a holiday you had or a special place you went to, or a high school trip you took. Then, let's talk about our pictures in class. 

See you next class!

週5 - ECA (Survival English) - 中間プレゼンテーション: ポスターズについて

Hello Survival English students, 

Image "Blessed Water At Thai Wedding" courtesy of bigjom/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How are you? This post is to help you to think more about mid-term presentations (中間プレゼンテーション). I will show you some examples of poster presentations.

Guidelines (指導基準)
特別: We'll do our presentations in class in our 7th week, so this will be like an exam - so it's important to work with classmates you like! Your group can do a Power Point presentation, but if you want to do a poster presentation, this is what you need.

1) Your group will need one (1) A1-size sheet of poster paper. You can get this paper from a store that sells pens, paper and notebooks. One sheet costs 150 yen.　

2) Make the pictures big, to A4 size. Have 2-3 of these pictures on your posters.

Here are some examples of presentation posters. They come from a friend of mine who's a professor at Chuo University, in the law faculty (中央大学法学部). Look at these:



These posters come from my Chuo friend's students in one of his classes. Their topic was immigration (移住)- people from other countries moving to Japan, or Japanese moving to other countries. Here's another:

  

Take a look at these in detail. Make the pictures of the posters larger.
Look at these. Make the pictures of the posters bigger. You can get ideas about how you can design your presentation posters. I have some other examples of poster presentations I can show you too.

準備しましょう！Have fun!

週5 - ECA (Reading) I (Super A) - 意味ネットワーク

Hello to all my Super A reading students,

How are you? I will show you a word learning technique called semantic networking (意味ネットワーク). This is a useful method for you to make your own meaning of words in another way without a dictionary. 

Here's an example. Look at the five words in the picture above - cat, pet, fish, food, & people.

These words are not all connected, but some of the words have a kind of connection.

Now I found one connection, and wrote a simple sentence - cats like fish.

Now I found two more connections - cats make good pets, and fish make good pets.

Now I found two more connections to that - people like fish, and people keep pets. 

There are more connections - can you make them yourself? You can try this out with any group of words - so try this with some vocabulary from the next story we'll read in the textbook. 

Homework (for 5/20)

1. Read the next story in our textbook outside of class.

2. Select 5-7 words from the story. Choose words that are a little difficult for you. On a piece of notebook paper, write them in a pattern like in the example pictures. Then try to find connections with them and make your own sentences using them. 

Look at this blogpost as many times as you want to help yourself. Try it out - see how it works for you.

See you next time!

週4・5 - ECA (Speaking) I (W) - 過去について: Hokkaido summer

Hello to all my Ningenfukushi students,

How are you? Today I will tell you about my summer in Hokkaido in 2012 with my wife and her family. 

First, we went to Sapporo. 

We walked around Sapporo. This was me in front of the old Sapporo City Hall (元札幌市役所).

We went to Hokkaido University. This was me. The sign says "Boys be ambitious" (ボイズ・ビ・アンビシャス). 

We took the train to Otaru. The man with the hat and backpack is my father-in-law (義理お父さん). We walked around many places in Otaru!  

This is my wife. We were so hungry! She wanted to eat everything. We ate a lot of great food in Otaru. 

We drank some great beer in Otaru. This was a big glass!

We went back to Sapporo and walked around more. My wife got very hot and we sat down. We were tired, but happy!

Homework
For our next class, bring some pictures of a holiday you had or a special place you went to. Then, let's talk about our pictures in class. 

See you next class!

週4・5 - ECA (Speaking) I (All, C & A) - 日課

Hello to my All, Jido and Obei speaking students,

Image "Schedule In An Organizer" courtesy of Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How are you? Let's talk about routines (日課)! 

Activity
What order (順番) do you think this routine of different people should go in? 
this routine of different people should go in? 
Look at these pictures. What's the right order? When you're finished, write the order in your notebooks. 
person..." and so on.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.  

6.

7.

8.

9.

In the next class, try to talk about this routine. Have fun!

See you next class!

Photo credits: 1. "Business Meeting" (courtesy of Ambro) 2. "Adorable Couple Watching TV" (courtesy of imagerymajestic) 3. "Woman Asleep" 

Photo credits: 1. "Business Meeting" (courtesy of Ambro) 2. "Adorable Couple Watching TV" (courtesy of imagerymajestic) 3. "Woman Asleep" (courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti) 4. "A Cheeseburger Isolated" (courtesy of Grant Cochrane) 5. "Businessman Running With Briefcase" (courtesy of imagerymajestic) 6. "Drive" (courtesy of graur razvan ionut) 7. "Drinking Coffee" (courtesy of Ambro) 8. "Woman Cooking Pasta" (courtesy of imagerymajestic) 9. "Bedroom" (courtesy of winnond)/All pictures from FreeDigitalPhotos.net