東洋学園大学 Travel English 2008 Semester 2 - Last class!

Photo of departure lounge at Sunvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok Thailand by Mark Oh.

Today is the last class. The next time we meet will be the final exam. The final exam is on the nineth of January. The final exam covers units 2,3,4,5,7,9,12,14,15,16, and 20. Please click here to practice the final exam: Passport Online tests. Merry Christmas!

東洋学園大学 Annual Christmas Party in the English Lounge

Yesterday was a special day at Toyo Gakuen University. It was the annual Christmas Party. It was fun.

Cara taught students and teachers how to decorate gingerbead men. Many students enjoyed decorating gingerbread men.

Trang taught students and teachers how to make Christmas cards. Everyone made beautiful cards.

There was food including: sandwiches, cookies, Japanese Christmas cake and German Christmas cake. Also, Cara made humus. It was delicious. Humus is Middle Eastern food. It's not traditional Christmas food but it's healthy and delicious.

Mr Hardy was the Bingo caller again this year. He did a fine job. There were other games too.

There was a performance of Amazing Grace by Toyo Gakuen's gospel choir too. The highlight of the party was the raffle. Nobu won the iPod. Congratulations Nobu!

東洋学園大学 Interest-based English - Homestay English Final Exam Study Guide

Image by Pragmagraphr

The final exam is on the fourteenth of January. Click this link for information about the final exam: Homestay English Final Exam Study Guide. Click here to practice the vocabulary: TGU IE12 Homestay Final Exam 2008 List.

Don't forget to finish your Christmas in Tarragona tasks.

東洋学園大学 Interest-based English - Travel: Peace Boat and Global English Special Presentation

Today Takahashi Maho and Chris Massey from Peace Boat gave a special presentation in the Travel English class. The topic was Global English. We learned some interesting things including:

• There are about 2,000,000,000 English speakers in the world
• There are only about 400,000,000 native speakers of English in the world
• Only about 10% of all the English spoken in the world is between native speakers
• There is no "correct" English

We learned that the following sentences were correct in some countries:

• I went play in the park. (Hawaiian English)
  
• I am understanding it. (Indian English)
  
• Him will do it. (Jamaican English)
• Yous are amazing! (American English)
  
• This book you want or not? (Singaporean English)

The lessons we learned were:

• There is no correct English
  
• We should be proud of our accent
• Global English belongs to everyone

Toyo Gakuen University Interest-based English - Travel: Peace Boat is coming

Peace Boat at dock #5836, originally uploaded by Nemo's great uncle.

Tomorrow we will have some special guests in our class. Takahashi Maho and Chris Massey from Peace Boat are coming. Peace Boat is an NGO. The Peace Boat sails three times a year. The Peace Boat travels around the world. Maho-san will talk about Peace Boat's GET programme. GET means Global English Training. She will also talk about where the Peace Boat goes and what the people on the Peace Boat do.
It's going to be great!

Toyo Gakuen University Interest-based English 12 Music: Project 2 Lesson 2

Today we are going to get started on our second project. Click here to see your assignment: http://mrstoutsblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/toyo-gakuen-university-interest-based_26.html

Here are some links to help you:
Nippop.com
Wikipedia in English
Wikipedia in Japanese
Google

Your powerpoint must be finished by the fourteenth of January.

Toyo Gakuen University Homestay English: Christmas in Tarragona

Flickr image by malouette

Today we are going to learn about Christmas in Tarragona, a city in Northern Spain. We are going to watch slideshows by students in one of our International Sister Classes. They are students at a school called IES Collblanc.
Please do the following:

• Open the lecture folder
• Save the file called "Tarragona" to your personal folder (自分のふぉフォルダー)
• Click the link: TARRAGONA & CHRISTMAS
• Log in to Student Showcase
  
• Watch the slideshows.
• Do the tasks on your tasksheet.
  
• Write a comment about the slideshows. Include:
• Your first name (名前)
  
• Thank you
• Your impression of Tarragona (～の［に対する］印象｛いんしょう｝を述べる)
  
• Your impression of Christmas in Tarragona

Enjoy!!