Don't forget to use your "the" properly.
I went to the park.
I went to the hospital.
I went to the library, the grocery store, the police station, the fish market, the Taiyaki shop...
All of the above places usually need a the. Don't leave it out!
but...
I went to school. I went to church. (no THE!)
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Get 'em while they're hot!
Sale!!
Maruzen's got cheap English books! Not in the normal English section, but by the entrance in the "bargain" section, on the left. There are a lot more than I expected- many many nice kids books. Some are only 500yen.
Check it out.
Maruzen's got cheap English books! Not in the normal English section, but by the entrance in the "bargain" section, on the left. There are a lot more than I expected- many many nice kids books. Some are only 500yen.
Check it out.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Why?
Why study English?
There are several reasons. Too many too list here. But one of the most important ones is...Opportunity. If you speak English you will have far far more opportunities in life that if you only speak Japanese.
Jobs. Maybe you have already have a full time job you love. But maybe you don’t. Maybe you are disgusted with your career options. Maybe you have a job, but aren’t happy with it. Maybe you don’t want to work for a traditional Japanese company. Young people these days do not want to work 14 hours a day, only to spend their evenings entertaining their boring elderly customers, or singing karaoke with their boss until 2 am on a Friday night. They’d rather spend time with friends, spouses, and children- like people in America or Europe. They want time to play sports or sit at home and relax. Some people are not happy being transferred all around Japan every few years- they want to be transferred to Australia, or America. Possibly you found a great company in Japan, but are hoping for travel opportunities. You want to attend conferences and seminars abroad. Maybe you want a promotion, but need English to get it. Maybe you just can’t find a job to begin with (the economy isn’t so good these days).
Friends and lovers. Japanese friends are lovely. But if you speak English you can make friends of other nationalities. People everywhere speak English. You can not only find lifelong buddies, you can learn about other cultures and customs. You can learn more about yourself and your own culture. Having a hard time finding a mate? Not satisfied with the girls or boys in your town? If you speak English, your options will quadruple. You can find a boyfriend or girlfriend anywhere in the world. About 127 million people speak Japanese. About 510 million people speak English.*
School. If you speak English well in high school, you can go to a foreign university. If you are not satisfied with your options in Japan, maybe you can find something more appealing abroad. Perhaps you want to go to an American university, with small classes, lots of hands on experience, and a broad range of choices. American schools are challenging, but fun and relaxed. Maybe you want to go to college in Europe and travel around or study new languages. If you speak English, you can do this- and more. If you graduate from a university abroad, it will look great on your resume if you decide to come back to Japan. A foreign school offers wonderful experiences and benefits that will change your life.
Japan is a wonderful country and Japanese is a wonderful language. But a lot of people are not satisfied with the options available here. They feel stifled or stuck in a dead end situation. They yearn for freedom and more choices. Especially small towns in rural areas don’t seem to offer much these days.
Study English, and your opportunities will be far greater.
*http://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm
There are several reasons. Too many too list here. But one of the most important ones is...Opportunity. If you speak English you will have far far more opportunities in life that if you only speak Japanese.
Jobs. Maybe you have already have a full time job you love. But maybe you don’t. Maybe you are disgusted with your career options. Maybe you have a job, but aren’t happy with it. Maybe you don’t want to work for a traditional Japanese company. Young people these days do not want to work 14 hours a day, only to spend their evenings entertaining their boring elderly customers, or singing karaoke with their boss until 2 am on a Friday night. They’d rather spend time with friends, spouses, and children- like people in America or Europe. They want time to play sports or sit at home and relax. Some people are not happy being transferred all around Japan every few years- they want to be transferred to Australia, or America. Possibly you found a great company in Japan, but are hoping for travel opportunities. You want to attend conferences and seminars abroad. Maybe you want a promotion, but need English to get it. Maybe you just can’t find a job to begin with (the economy isn’t so good these days).
Friends and lovers. Japanese friends are lovely. But if you speak English you can make friends of other nationalities. People everywhere speak English. You can not only find lifelong buddies, you can learn about other cultures and customs. You can learn more about yourself and your own culture. Having a hard time finding a mate? Not satisfied with the girls or boys in your town? If you speak English, your options will quadruple. You can find a boyfriend or girlfriend anywhere in the world. About 127 million people speak Japanese. About 510 million people speak English.*
School. If you speak English well in high school, you can go to a foreign university. If you are not satisfied with your options in Japan, maybe you can find something more appealing abroad. Perhaps you want to go to an American university, with small classes, lots of hands on experience, and a broad range of choices. American schools are challenging, but fun and relaxed. Maybe you want to go to college in Europe and travel around or study new languages. If you speak English, you can do this- and more. If you graduate from a university abroad, it will look great on your resume if you decide to come back to Japan. A foreign school offers wonderful experiences and benefits that will change your life.
Japan is a wonderful country and Japanese is a wonderful language. But a lot of people are not satisfied with the options available here. They feel stifled or stuck in a dead end situation. They yearn for freedom and more choices. Especially small towns in rural areas don’t seem to offer much these days.
Study English, and your opportunities will be far greater.
*http://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm
Junior High School Text Books: Inexcusably Morbid
Junior High English text books should be fun and entertaining, right? The reading sections should be interesting, and intended for young kids, RIGHT?!
Apparently not. I recently looked through a text book for junior high kids, and was highly disappointed in the chosen subject matter for the reading sections. Among the pages of grammar points, dialogues, and fill-in-the-blank exercises which make up most of this text, there are 3 passages for reading. The first was about....The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima and death. The second was about.... just death. Two out of three were about death!
There is no reason for this whatsoever. Hiroshima and bomb-dropping belong in history class! Or perhaps in a different kind of story where they can be properly discussed. But this was not even a historical passage. This was a sob-story (pure dramatized fiction) told from the point of view of A TREE. A tree under which two young people came to die. A young girl who comforted a little boy, and then died herself. This is not educating kids about history- if it was, I wouldn’t be so outraged. Kids should enjoy English. They should have fun stories to read. Something they want to talk about with their friends or teachers. Not bombs and death. This is sad. This is ridiculous. Kids do not like this stuff. Of course literature can be inspiring or beautiful and ALSO sad, violent, and depressing, but that is with a good plot and characters. That is for literature class. This text book “story” is not literature meant for pondering, philosophy, or literary critique in the way that kids read stories in their native language and then analyze it. This story is for teaching English. It should be FUN!
Story number two- the classic, “Freddy the Leaf.” Now, I like Freddy the Leaf. I read it as a kid with my mom. We cried. Great story to teach kids about life and death. Not a great story to teach kids English. It’s very sad. Out of all the fun, cool, interesting topics to choose from, why Freddy the Leaf?!
All this makes me wonder...who put this text book together?! I can only imagine- a bunch of old Japanese men. Perhaps war survivors themselves. Possibly very nice old guys. But they apparently know nothing about what kids these days enjoy. About what motivates them and makes them want to read more and study more. It’s really pathetic and unfortunate that kids have to study this when there are so many more interesting things out there.
And one more thing guys...take out the bit about the young girls waiting in line for the Shamisen concert. This is 2012!!!
Junior High English text books should be fun and entertaining, right? The reading sections should be interesting, and intended for young kids, RIGHT?!
Apparently not. I recently looked through a text book for junior high kids, and was highly disappointed in the chosen subject matter for the reading sections. Among the pages of grammar points, dialogues, and fill-in-the-blank exercises which make up most of this text, there are 3 passages for reading. The first was about....The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima and death. The second was about.... just death. Two out of three were about death!
There is no reason for this whatsoever. Hiroshima and bomb-dropping belong in history class! Or perhaps in a different kind of story where they can be properly discussed. But this was not even a historical passage. This was a sob-story (pure dramatized fiction) told from the point of view of A TREE. A tree under which two young people came to die. A young girl who comforted a little boy, and then died herself. This is not educating kids about history- if it was, I wouldn’t be so outraged. Kids should enjoy English. They should have fun stories to read. Something they want to talk about with their friends or teachers. Not bombs and death. This is sad. This is ridiculous. Kids do not like this stuff. Of course literature can be inspiring or beautiful and ALSO sad, violent, and depressing, but that is with a good plot and characters. That is for literature class. This text book “story” is not literature meant for pondering, philosophy, or literary critique in the way that kids read stories in their native language and then analyze it. This story is for teaching English. It should be FUN!
Story number two- the classic, “Freddy the Leaf.” Now, I like Freddy the Leaf. I read it as a kid with my mom. We cried. Great story to teach kids about life and death. Not a great story to teach kids English. It’s very sad. Out of all the fun, cool, interesting topics to choose from, why Freddy the Leaf?!
All this makes me wonder...who put this text book together?! I can only imagine- a bunch of old Japanese men. Perhaps war survivors themselves. Possibly very nice old guys. But they apparently know nothing about what kids these days enjoy. About what motivates them and makes them want to read more and study more. It’s really pathetic and unfortunate that kids have to study this when there are so many more interesting things out there.
And one more thing guys...take out the bit about the young girls waiting in line for the Shamisen concert. This is 2012!!!
Sendai Koffee
Come to Sendai Koffee
We're having fun!!
*group lessons on Thursdays at 7:00. *2500yen (includes one drink)
*beginner/intermediate level English
We talk. We study grammar, vocabulary, and more from the text book. And then we talk some more!
Join us!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Nice Idea
My student (Japanese) and her husband (also Japanese) are low level English speakers. But...once a week they have "English day." They speak only English to each other on that day. No Japanese allowed. Even though it is difficult, they try hard to communicate.
Impressive!!
Impressive!!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Teachers?
Today I learned...
Many junior high English teachers...
Don’t speak English?
Can’t speak English?
Refuse to speak English?
That’s...
Shocking.
Appalling.
Outrageous.
If they can’t speak English, they shouldn’t be teaching. There are plenty of people in this country, both Japanese and foreign who are fluent in English and can teach. Someone (with board of education connections, but no longer teaching) told me today that many teachers do not want to speak English in class. Don’t want to?! And I asked him if the teachers ask questions to the students in English. He said “No. Never.” He laughed, as if they would never think to ask a question in English.
And I asked him if the teachers give explanations in English. Again, he said, “No.”
I was thoroughly disgusted. Thankfully my acquaintance is working to improve the situation.These teachers are educators. It is their responsibility to...
＊speak as much English as possible
＊not only teach grammar, but to converse and to question- in English
＊make class interesting and fun
＊insist that the text book they use is actually useful and contains correct, natural, up-to-date English
If they don’t do at least these things, then they are a disgrace to the profession.
hmph.
Many junior high English teachers...
Don’t speak English?
Can’t speak English?
Refuse to speak English?
That’s...
Shocking.
Appalling.
Outrageous.
If they can’t speak English, they shouldn’t be teaching. There are plenty of people in this country, both Japanese and foreign who are fluent in English and can teach. Someone (with board of education connections, but no longer teaching) told me today that many teachers do not want to speak English in class. Don’t want to?! And I asked him if the teachers ask questions to the students in English. He said “No. Never.” He laughed, as if they would never think to ask a question in English.
And I asked him if the teachers give explanations in English. Again, he said, “No.”
I was thoroughly disgusted. Thankfully my acquaintance is working to improve the situation.These teachers are educators. It is their responsibility to...
＊speak as much English as possible
＊not only teach grammar, but to converse and to question- in English
＊make class interesting and fun
＊insist that the text book they use is actually useful and contains correct, natural, up-to-date English
If they don’t do at least these things, then they are a disgrace to the profession.
hmph.
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