The 11th Day of the 11th month: a Day of Peace

Today is a special day. Today is Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day is a day of peace celebrated in Commonwealth countries including Canada and the United Kingdom. The symbol of Remembrance Day is the poppy. You can see a picture of a poppy below.

Photo by Sermoa

You can learn more about Remembrance Day by clicking the links below:

Posts about Remembrance Day on this blog
Remembrance Day on wikipedia

Give peace a chance!

Toyo Gakuen University Travel English Special Guest Maho Takahashi from Peace boat.

peace-boat-in-nyc
Originally uploaded by dandeluca

Today we are going to have a special lecture by Maho Takahashi of Peace boat. Maho-san will tell us about Global English. This is the second time that Maho-san has visited Togaku. You can see pictures of last year's visit. Click the link: http://mrstoutsblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/interest-based-english-travel-peace.html

Remembrance Day 2009

From Michael's Mash-Ups

Today is Remembrance Day. Every 11th of November in Canada we remember the terrible tragedy of war and we pray for peace. We also recite a poem called "In Flanders Fields".
Here's a beautiful video made by a teacher in Canada. Please pray for peace today.

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!