This blog serves several purposes: Communicating with my students outside of the classroom, publishing my students' work, and it serves as a resource for both students and teachers.
Hello everyone, welcome back! I hope you enjoyed the holidays.
Last time we learned about formal and informal introductions, and how to make introductions better. We talked about stating your purpose too.
Today we are going to talk about effective openings. An effective opening grabs the audience's attention. It creates interestin your presentation. One way to create interest is to surprise your audience.
Look at the image on the left. Who are the people in the image? What do you think they have in common? I think the answers to these questions will surprise you....
Your second presentation will be a repeat of your first presentation. This time you must rewrite your introduction so that it is informal, has an effective opening, and it states the purpose of your presentation.
Enjoy!
Other Toyo Gakuen University teachers and students participated in the conference too. Andy Boon was one of the organisers. Daniel Beck did a great pecha kucha (ペチャクチャ) presentation. Hitomi Sakamoto-sensei, Clair Taylor, and Clare Murray attended the conference. Most importantly, Toyo Gakuen University students volunteered to help out at the conference. We were all very proud of them.
I was also delighted to see my friend Jennifer Ypantidis give a great presentation. We worked together at Kanto International High School.
There will be many more conferences at Toyo Gakuen University this year. Why don't you volunteer to help out at a conference? If you volunteer at a conference you will meet many kind and interesting people and you will have a great chance to practice speaking English.
Last night was a very special night. Last night I met some of my students from the Kanto International High SchoolStudy Abroad Class of 2008. We met at Gonpachi. Gonpachi is famous. Gonpachi was in the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill. It was so great to see them again. They are all adults now! Amazing! All of them speak English so well now too. I'm so proud of them. I was delighted to learn that some of them are studying linguistics now, and at least one wants to become a language teacher - a Japanese language teacher, but a language teacher none the less! Shall I say it again? I'M SO PROUD OF THEM. They are my reward!!! I'm also very grateful that we are still connected through Facebook and Twitter. When I was a student we didn't have social networks, so I've lost touch with most of my teachers and professors, and while I was in school and university we never developed learning networks. I'm much luckier than my teachers and professors were. Some of the fantastic work of the students in this class and the students in the other Kanto International High School Study Abroad classes can be seen by clicking this link: Kanto International H.S. Projects. If you are a teacher or student with a similar experience, please share. Please post a comment below.
Last week-end I met some new friends from the University of Windsor. The University of Windsor is my alma mater (母校の大学). I met Dr. Alan Wildeman, the new president of the University of Windsor, and I met two alumni (卒業生), Naoya and Maya. We had teppanyaki in Ikebukuro. Below is a video I made. Enjoy!
Bangladeshi cuisine is delicious. I love Bangladeshi food. Bangladeshi food is similar to Indian food. Many Bangladeshi dishes include curry. I love curry. You can read more about Bangladeshi cuisine. Click this link to read about Bangladeshi cuisine in English.Click here to read about Bangladeshi cuisine in Japanese.
Below is a picture of tiffin boxes. Tiffin means lunch. Tiffin boxes are delivered every day to Bangladeshi business men and school children. Bangladshis like hot meals.
You can see a picture of a typical restaurant in Dhaka below. My new friend Mithu brought us to this restaurant. We went to this restaurant for lunch during our tour of Dhaka. We ate curried chicken, curried mutton, stir-fried vegetables, and plain rice. Mitsu paid the bill on behalf of BELTA. We were very grateful to BELTA for this delicious lunch.
Our first dinner in Dhaka was also provided to us by BELTA. We had take-out from a restaurant in Dhaka called Boomers' Cafe. Boomers' Cafe is very popular with university students in Dhaka. You can see pictures of our meal below.
We ate delicious food at the BELTA/AIUB/THT Seminars too. For snacks we had samozas. Samozas are one of my favourite snacks. You can see a picture of some samozas below.
Here's a picture of the lunch we had during the seminars. It's like a Bangladeshi bento.
BELTA also treated us to a lovely meal at the Casablanca Restaurant in Dhaka. The meal was buffet style. You can see a picture of the buffet and some of the food we ate in the pictures below.
We went out to the country side. We went to American International University Bangladesh's resort. The resort is beautiful. We had a delicious lunch there. All the food we ate came from the resort. Many fruits and vegetables are grown at the resort, and some animals are raised for food too, including chickens and sheep. You can see some pictures of our lunch at the resort below.
We ate a delicious fruit called Jackfruit. Jackfruit is the national fruit of Bangladesh. You can see a picture of a Jackfruit tree below.
Here are some pictures of a Jackfruit that was opened up. It has a mild taste. It is delicious. Jackfruit is used for many kinds of food in Bangladesh. The seeds are roasted. The skin is given to sheep. The sheep love the Jackfruit skin.
We also had some delicious Bangladeshi sweets and some yoghurt.
The last night I was in Bangladesh I went for dinner at the home of Dr. Faheem Hasan Shahed. We had a wonderful home cooked meal. It was delicious.
What do you think? Have you ever tried Bangladshi cuisine? Please leave a comment.
Dhaka is one of the most interesting cities that I have ever visited. Dhaka has so many sights, sounds, and smells. Dhaka is always on the move. Sometimes it seems rather chaotic (てんやわんやの). Dhaka is very crowded. There are many traffic jams in Dhaka. It often takes a very long time to go just a short distance.
One of Dhaka's nicknames is the City of Rickshaws. You can see a picture of some cycle rickshaws below. According to Wikipedia, about 400,000 rickshaws run in Dhaka every day.
The green taxi in the photo below is known as a "CNG" in Dhaka. "CNG" stands for compressed natural gas. CNGs are more environmentally friendly than vehicles using gasoline. I took a ride in a CNG. They are very small. I'm too big for CNGs. It wsn't comfortable, but it was a good experience.
There are many kinds of vehicles on the streets of Dhaka. As well as rickshaws and CNGs, there are cars, trucks, wooden carts, and so on. Sometimes these vehicles are people powered, like cycle rickshaws, and wooden carts.
Another important mode of transportation in Dhaka is the boat. There are many boats on the Buriganga River.
Next time, I'll write about the food in Bangladesh.
I went to Bangladesh. I went to Bangladesh with a group called Teachers Helping Teachers. This was my third trip with Teachers Helping Teachers. I have been to Teachers Helping Teachers seminars in Laos and the Philippines. You can see Bangladesh on the map below.
Bangladesh is surrounded by India. It shares a small border with Myanmar too. I stayed in the capital city of Bangladesh. The capital city of bangladesh is called Dhaka. You can see Dhaka on the map below.
I arrived in Dhaka very late. I arrived in Dhaka after one in the morning. I got through customs and immigration easily. I was met by Dr. Patrick Dougherty, the President of Teachers Helping Teachers, and a member of the Aristocrat Inn's staff. You can see a picture of the Aristocrat Inn below.
I stayed in a standard room at the Aristocrat Inn. It was twenty-five U.S. dollars per night. You can see a picture of my room below.
My first day in Dhaka I went on a short tour. First I visted Curzon Hall. You can see a picture of Curozn Hall below.
My new friend Mithu is in the picture below. He was my guide on the tour of Dhaka City. He is very knowledgeable. He is a very good guide.
After I visted Curzon Hall, I visited Labagh Fort. You can see a picture of Labagh Fort below.
Then I visited a Hindu Temple.
I saw a beautiful dragonfly at the temple.
The next place we went was the Buriganga River. We took a short boat ride. It was very interesting.
Next, we visited a palace called Ahsan Manzil. We met many friendly Bangladeshis there. All of them wanted to take a picture with us. We felt like stars! In the picture below, I'm with Ann and Cherie. Ann and Cherie are also members of Teachers Helping Teachers. Ann is from New Orleans in the United States. Cherie is from New Zealand.
After our visit to the palace we went shopping. I bought some Bangladeshi crafts for my wife. I bought a bag, a table cloth, some pillow cases, and some lunch mats for her. When we were finished shopping, we went back to the hotel. I was very tired, but I had a great first day in Dhaka.
The next day the BELTA/AIUB/THT Seminars started. The Seminars lasted three days. I led three workshops. The participants were fantastic. They were enthusiastic. They were very active participants. They had great ideas. They were very kind. I think they all must be great teachers. You can see a video clip of the workshop I lead on project-based language learning below. Unfortunately, the quality of the video isn't very good. Enjoy!
This year the Japan Association of Language Teaching (全国語学教育学会) Computer Assisted Language Learning Special Interest Group (CALL コンピューター支援言語学習) conference is at Toyo Gakuen University's Hongo campus in Tokyo. Many Toyo Gakuen teachers and students are working at the conference this year. I am making a presentation. I will present some projects done by my students and I at the Nagareyama campus. You can see my presentation below.
I will post pictures and video from the conference soon. I hope to see you there.
Today is the first day of classes. Today is the first time we will meet. I made a slideshow about me. Please watch the slideshow. Click this link: http://mrstoutsblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-day-of-school-introductions.html Watch the slideshow. Answer the questions on the handout. Next, here are some websites we will use this year:
