Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Toyo Gakuen Students Talk About Music Genres

This is a voicethread slide show about music genres that I made with my students in the Music class at Toyo Gakuen University. The students looked at the pictures and clicked the links to find out some information about each genre. They also searched for videos on You Tube. Then they recorded their comments. Enjoy.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

A model language learner

We all need role models (模範的な人, 手本). Language learning role models are especially important. My friend Sanae is one of my language learning role models. I think she is a great role model. She studied English in Junior High School and Senior High School but she didn't learn English. She wasn't happy that she didn't learn English, so she made an effort to really learn English. Now her English is excellent. She has written books about learning English and she is an English teacher. Please visit her website to read her story. Her website is called Sanae's Place.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The First Day of School: Introductions

I teach my first classes of the 2008 academic year beginning tomorrow. I teach many first year students so I made this slide show in order to introduce myself. I made it using a website called voicethread. You can make your own slideshow with voicethread or you can comment on other people's slide shows.




Enjoy!

Monday, April 07, 2008

Back to School - The Toyo Gakuen University Barbeque

Today was the annual barbeque at Toyo Gakuen University. This is the first big event of the year. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good. So the barbeque was held in the gym.

The food and conversation were good. I enjoyed meeting my new students and I enjoyed seeing the students that I taught last year too.
Classes start tomorrow. Hurray!!

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Back to School - Shibaura Institute of Technology

The new academic year (学年) in Japan has begun. The academic year in Japan begins in April. Yesterday students at Shibaura Institute of Technology held an event in order to recruit new members to their various clubs. There are many clubs at Shibaura Institute of Technology. Some clubs are traditional Japanese clubs and some are international.

This picture is a picture of the kyuudou club (弓道). Kyuudou is Japanese archery.

Shibaura Institute of Technology has a baseball club too. Baseball is very popular in Japan.

Shibaura Institute of Technology also has an American football club.

The Shibaura Institute of Technology Jazz band is very good. I enjoyed listening to it play swing era Jazz.

The event also had a character walking around. Japanese people like characters very much.