Asahikawa American English Conversation School
for January 2006
NOTE: The OBJECTIVE of this BLOG is to help my students with their study of English.
AND
For all of you, out there, around the world to;
SEE HOKKAIDO
2006 January 31 Tuesday.
I
almost can't believe it, but it is true. As I mentioned in my blog of
Thursday, January 26, the neon sign on the steak restaurant next door has been
slowly losing it's illuminated letters. When I looked out the window last
night, lo and behold, the neon sign had been completely repaired!!! Does
someone who works at the restaurant read this blog??? I doubt it,
but maybe so. Just a coincidence? Most likely. I
woke up this morning at about 5:00 and when I looked out of the window, I could
see that it had returned to a big white winter wonderland. The snow must have been falling all
night long. It was deep. How deep? It was so deep that I could
barely see my black van parked out in the parking lot. That's how deep is
was. I had to go to Asahikawa University this morning at 9:00 to
administer 2 final examinations to my students. When that was
finished at 12:00, I drove back to my classroom for some lunch and then straight
classes from 15:00 until 20:00. When all classes were finished
for the day, I had to sit down and correct all of the final exams that I gave
this morning. Then I had to fill out the attendance and final grade sheets
and send them by fax to two other teachers who are also teaching these same two
groups of students. When that was all finished at about 22:00, it
was time for dinner. What a day. The more time I spend with the
students in the classroom, and the less time I spend giving them paper tests and
doing other paper work, the better I like it. Lights out at 24:00.
2006 January 30 Monday.
Another rather warm day with the snow continuing
to melt, and the black asphalt showing on all major streets. First
order of business was to vacuum up the classroom floor and get every thing in
order for the coming week of lessons. After a good cleaning of the
classroom and then myself, it was off to the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会 for my first class
of the day at 13:30. Walking over there from my place was enjoyable
because it was not too cold and the sun was partly shining. I almost
detected the scent of spring in the air, but it was just my imagination.
Winter still has another 2 and a half months to go, and it won't begin turning
green again for at least 3 more months. Again today, various people
talked about various things. One lady talked about her nephew who has been
studying English in the USA,
Santa Barbara California to be exact. He came
back to Hokkaido for about two weeks during the winter vacation before new years
and has now gone back to the USA. He has decided to get his
TOEFL score up
high enough so he can get into Santa Barbara College and study Business Administration.
Go for it big guy! A whole new world will open up for you.
Another lady talked about her home stay girl from BN Illinois again this week.
It seems that this high school girl from the USA has many definite likes and
dislikes. And so does the home stay mother. The home stay mother would
like all of the foreign students that she knows to speak Japanese as much as
possible. I agree, that would be nice. But when two non-Japanese
people are speaking to each other, and they have a different native language, in
this case German and English, then they tend to speak to each other in English.
In fact, it is rather odd for a non-Japanese person to talk to any other non-Japanese
person in Japanese, unless that person speaks Japanese better than English.
Are you still with me? I am talking mostly about Anglos and other persons
from mainly European counties. Most people who are born and raised
in the USA cannot speak, read or write any other language well enough to
function on a daily basis in any other country. The lone exception being
those children born of recent immigrant parents who speak a different language
in the home. Therefore, the English only speaking Americans rely on
everyone else to speak English as well. An acceptable situation to some
people, but apparently not everyone. Another man gave a speech on
the importance of recycling and conservation. It sounded like he was running for
City Mayor or something like that. It was a rather well written speech,
but this particular gentleman hesitates too much when he speaks. I would
give him very high marks for accuracy, but rather low marks for fluency.
For linguists, the words fluency and accuracy have very specific meanings.
Fluency means that a person can talk non-stop and smoothly in a foreign
language, even though they make grammar and vocabulary mistakes along the way.
But still, their intended meaning in the context of the conversation is well
understood. This is the way I speak Japanese. I make mistakes,
but I don't stop to think about grammar rules and such while I am talking.
The other word, accuracy, means that everything the person says in a foreign
language is technically correct, but it takes them so long to say it that the
listener may become confused and lose track of the chain of thought that is
necessary for any long declaration. After that thoroughly
enjoyable class was finished, I hurried back to my classroom for straight classes
from 15:00 until 20:00. The 15:00 class today had a brother and
sister sit in on the lesson and see what Snowman's American English Classroom is
all about. They have had previous training at another Eikaiwa School and
were able to get into the flow immediately. With the two other regular
students that come every week at this time, we all had an enjoyable lesson using
90% English during the class to play games and take short quizzes. By the way, the photo at the top of
today's blog is of a new discovery that I made tonight at the super market next
door. It's a Micro-Brew made right here in Hokkaido. Noboribetsu 登別温泉 to be exact. I have never tried it before, so I did
so tonight. My reaction? Not too bad, but a bit
pricey at 350 yen per 350 ml. That's one yen per milliliter.
Makes sense, and it's easy to remember. This price includes the 5%
consumption tax (sales tax) that is the national standard in Japan.
I think this Noboribetsu Micro Brew deserves another chance at the taste test.
Maybe I will visit there during GW 2006 and check it out,
right there where the brew is made and fresh from the taps. Then I will
make up my mind as to how good this micro brew really is. Stay tuned,
more later.
2006 January 29 Sunday.
Another above freezing day and the snow continues to melt. With the annual Asahikawa Winter Festival coming up in less than two weeks, it would be nice for all concerned if it would get colder again, and quickly. This will most likely happen. The reason the annual winter festival is held in early February is because this is historically the coldest time of the year in Asahikawa. Over the past 100 years or so, the average temperature in February around here has been steadily increasing. No big surprise there. Overcast again today, and not interesting for a drive in the country. Onward projects! Onward!. But first, a very hot and very long rub a dub dub, in a very deep tub. You can call me tubby.
2006 January 28 Saturday.
Sometime around 10:00 while I was sitting in a tub full of very hot water, recharging my Japanese Fighting Spirit 大和魂, the telephone rang. I was not inclined to jump out of my wet cell and run over to the phone, so I just sat there and listened for a possible voice message left on my answering machine. It was The California Guy. My heart leaped with joy. "Could this be yet another RAW MUSIC day with the Sonoma Cue Ball?" It was not to be. As he continued to blabber quickly into the voice recording machine he said that he was unable to get together today being so soon before his return to the SONOMA DIET and we will get back together again when he comes back to Hokkaido. Bummer. It looks as though I am out of a job as a bass player again. I guess I'll just have to practice on my own. Outdoor temperatures were way up today. The snow was melting and the black asphalt was showing on all major roadways. Being overcast as well, it was not a nice day for a drive in the country. So, I stayed home. Always plenty to do around the classroom. In fact, it is an endless job. How many projects do I have on the back burner? Even I am not sure. Today, I'll pick one or two of them and continue or, more hopefully, finish one. But for now, this very deep tub of clear hot water is where it's at for me.
2006 January 27 Friday.
First order of business today, two classes back to back at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院 which is located right next door to the ever expanding ASAHIKAWA MEDICAL COLLEGE. From 9:00 until 12:10 with a 10 minute break in between, I and Seiji Ikeda Sensei taught the mostly bright eye-ed and bushy tailed future young workers in the the Japanese medical world, some useful English speaking, reading and writing. First of all I said "Happy New Year Everyone!" This is because I haven't seen them since mid-December when we broke for winter recess. Now I'm back. And so are they. We were both ready, and we both rocked it! It was very enjoyable. After those two lessons were finished at 12:10, I took a taxi back to my classroom to get ready for a private lesson from 13:30 until 14:30 with the two lovely ladies who come every week at this time. They were cheerful as usual and we reviewed some of the textbook pages that they had learned as well as engaged in free conversation for about 30 minutes. These two ladies are getting better and better at expressing their own thoughts and intentions in spoken English. That's what the rigorous training in memorizing pattern dialogues is meant to encourage. It works because many set expressions and set sentence patterns occur in everyday speech. If you know them well and can respond automatically, you are well on your way the mastery of a foreign language. These two ladies are getting there step by step, and doing a fine job of it. After that lesson, it was straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Tomorrow is another possible RAW MUSIC day with the California Guy. He will call me.
2006 January 26 Thursday.
Today
at about 16:00, the mother of two of my former students came to my classroom and
asked me to translate a letter that her oldest daughter had written in Japanese.
Her daughter will be leaving Asahikawa at the end of this month and going to New
Zealand for a 3 month study program sponsored by the
Fuji
Girls High School which she attends. The letter was basically a self
introduction. Even though this high school student could have written the
letter in English by herself, she wanted me to do it so that the meaning would
be clear and not create any misunderstandings. Therefore I gladly did it
for her. After all, first impressions are very important. This 3
month trip to NZ will be the very first time in her life that this student has
ever been outside of Japan. She will experience some culture shock as a
result. I think she will be able to handle it well. I am
looking forward to seeing her again when she comes back at the end of April.
This girl and her younger sister started coming to my classroom about 5 years
ago. As a result, they both like English very much. In fact, English
is her best subject in high school. I hope that she is not
neglecting her other studies. By the way, the photo on the left was
taken from an open window in my classroom tonight. I have been
watching with some amusement for the past year or so, the disintegration of the
neon sign on the steak restaurant next door. As you can see from the
big red sign at the top of the photo, the name of the restaurant is
Victoria. The neon sign used to say the same
thing. Now all it says is "oria".
I wonder which letter will be the next to go. Any guesses? I
will post another photo of this, if and when, the situation changes. Stay
tuned. Also, I wonder if anyone who works at the restaurant even knows
that the neon sign looks like this. Maybe they do, but don't have the
budget to fix it. That, I can understand.
2006 January 25 Wednesday.
It
started snowing again last night, and big time. But as darkness broke up
into the wave of a new dawn, the accumulated snow on my NOAH Road Meister began to
slowly melt and continued to do so all during the late morning and early
afternoon. Then at night it began to snow again. No big
surprise there. It's the middle of winter in Hokkaido. The photo on
the left is another one that I took last Sunday during our drive through Biei 美瑛
to ShiroGane Hot Spring Resort 白金温泉. It is much warmer to view it here in
cyberspace that it was to take the actual photograph outside on that day.
The outside temperature at that time was about -12 degrees C. Just how
cold is that? Well, before we left for the drive, I had just finished
taking a nice long hot bath. As such, my hair was still somewhat wet.
Nowadays, my hair is rather long and I tie it into a pony tail to kept it in
line. When I got back into my van after spending about 5 minutes
outside taking this and other photos, I discovered that my pony tail was frozen!
Just like an icicle つらら! Only five minutes! Maybe I
should call it a Ponycicle. It's a very good thing that the wind was not
blowing or the wind chill factor would have been almost unbearable.
Anyway, I had classes today from 15:00 until 20:00. After that it
was time for dinner and more work on school related stuff. Lights out at
24:00
2006 January 24 Tuesday.
Another very cold, clear and sunny day. Absolutely no snowfall since Sunday. I had two classes at Asahikawa University from 9:00 until 12:10. This was the last class of the semester. Next week is the final examination. I arrived at the university about 5 minutes late because of traffic conditions so I didn't bother to go to the office or the teacher's lounge before class. Again today, I gave the students a practice exam that is very similar to what will be on the final exam. I wrote questions on the blackboard using the 6W1H Interrogatives, and asked the students to try and write an answer to each and every question. Despite the fact that I was basically telling the students what would be on the final exam, some of them did not take any notes or try in any way to answer the questions. I was astounded. Ironically, some of the very best students in my classes are several members of the baseball team, who miss a lot of classes during the baseball season because of games that they must play in. I think it has to do with the fact that they are more disciplined than the average student who does not have any serious hobby. A good student is one that has a desire to learn what is being taught because they can see how it will be useful to them either now or in the future. In other words, they have a GOAL , an OBJECTIVE. Even though a lot of the baseball team members are not really that serious about learning to speak English, in and of itself, they still have the training experience to make it happen if they just put forth the effort. They can do this because as baseball players, they always have a GOAL. Win the game. Go to the national playoffs. Become Number One in Japan. That is a very specific and worthwhile goal to have. I consider this to be a valuable education, in and of itself. Maybe the most important. Set a goal, achieve it. Set another goal, reach it also. Do it again. etc. etc. That is why I give the baseball team members full credit for attendance when they bring me a document that shows they were absent from my class because of their baseball team activities. There are many things that a Japanese university student must learn and English is only a small part of it for many of them. I understand and respect this fact of life, so I give them as much leeway as I can in order that they may pass my class and get the 2 credits, out of many other credits, that they will need to officially graduate from Asahikawa University. Isn't that what it is really all about? Get that certificate. Get that diploma. Get that Master's Degree. Why stop there? Go for a PhD. I wish I could have, but I was a poor boy after I finished the 4 year Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Administration, Marketing with a minor in Japanese at Washington State University. I needed to get a full time job, and fast. So, I did. Then, I got my MA and PhD at REAL WORLD UNIVERSITY. A university where you learn: the people skills, the marketing techniques, feel at ease sales promotion, foreign language skills if you live in a foreign country. etc. etc. You learn these skills, and you learn 'em well because you know that it will make your life more enjoyable today, and into the future. In other words, you have a clear objective. A specific goal. That's the KEY. That is what gives birth to MOTIVATION. Some people call it the LOCOMOTION. Most recently, the loco-lotion (orange range). What ever you want to call it, it is the GET UP AND GO. the JUST DO IT approach to business. That's where it's at. Some people even call it MONKEY BUSINESS. 申年. 押し.
2006 January 23 Monday.
Another very cold day with temperatures in the -12 degrees range. It finally stopped snowing, at least for now. My first class of the day started at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. Almost everybody was there today. One man talked about the plight of African-Americans and the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960's and early 1970's. He seemed to have a tear in his eye as he spoke. When he was finished, I made the comment that "If I were a Black Man, I would probably want to live in Africa more than in the USA." Why am I living in Japan? So I won't forget how to speak, read and write the language! That's why. Another lady talked about winning some gifts as a result of the New Years Cards that she had received. Every New Years Card has a long number printed on it, and these numbers are used in a lottery to determine who gets what prizes. The most common prize seems to be a sheet of postage stamps. The top prize is something like a trip to Hawaii, our some other products that are of equal value. I have never won a prize in this way so I'm not really sure about the details of it. Another lady talked about the trials and tribulations of an American girl who is staying at her home for about a year. Not everybody can adjust to life in Japan. In general, I think it is harder for women than it is for men. That may be one reason that I am still here. When that class was finished at 14:40, I hurried back to my classroom for straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. After that, I had to compose and send some e-mail to Asahikawa University. One message in English and one in Japanese. All over a very unfortunate mis-understanding that resulted in a breakdown of communication. Sometimes, wars get started this way. Cooler heads must prevail. Lights out at 24:00.
2006 January 22 Sunday.
Just
like last week, the wife and I went for a drive along the back country roads
towards Biei 美瑛 and today, all the way to ShiroGane Hot Spring Resort 白金温泉.
The big difference today was that we left one hour earlier than last
Sunday. In other words, 15:00 instead of 16:00. Naturally, this made
a big difference in the amount of sunshine and the angle of the sunlight on this
also clear and windless day. I took about 90 photos today and most of them
turned out to be quite good. One of my favorites is located on the upper
left side of today's blog, and is very typical of the magical world that is
winter in Central Hokkaido . Again today, as with last week on Sunday,
there were very few cars on the back door roads to Biei. This means that
not only is driving more enjoyable, it is also faster and with a much lesser
chance of two cars having an accident. The outside temperature was about
-12 degrees C to about -16 degrees C by 18:30. Therefore I had to
work fast in order to take a lot of photos before my fingers became
uncomfortably frozen. Just being outside in the clean crisp air with
no wind, no falling snow and virtually no noise was like a walking meditation.
Just think of all the animals that must survive this harsh environment and
produce more offspring when the snow starts to melt. Winter is
especially hard on the deer in Hokkaido エゾシカ mainly because it is very hard for
them to find enough food. Food that is buried under meters of snow.
Most of them resort to eating the bark off of the trees. Every spring,
after the snow has melted off of the cycling roads and other backwoods forest
roads, I can observe many places where hungry deer have chewed off most of a
tree's bark from just above the snow line to about as high as they can stand and
stretch out their necks to get a bite to eat. Foxes also may have
a rough time of it as there are less prey animals running around in the deep snow.
Foxes in Hokkaido, the Red Fox キタキツネ to be exact, do not change colors during the
winter. They are very easy to see, even from long distances.
So are the deer for the same reasons. I didn't see any wildlife
today, but I did see some fox tracks in the snow here and there. Foxes travel
mostly as solo acts. You will see a group of adult foxes from time
to time, but mostly they are either traveling alone, or they are traveling with
their new family during the spring time. The wolf in Japan 日本狼, has
been extinct for many years. Anyway, today was a very nice and
relaxing drive into the pristine world of crystalline white with highlights and
shadows of every possible color and hue. Meditative and very refreshing.
The photos I took today are worthy of being made into a slide show with
background music BGM attached. I am rather busy nowadays with this school
year coming to an end and the preparations for the next school year at hand.
I must use my remaining time as wisely as possible. I have no time to
waste on people who have no clear idea of what they should be doing, and expect me to
constantly bend over backwards in order to help them out.
You know who I am talking about, and it is not the
California Guy. Don't waste any more of
my time. GET ORGANIZED!!! For
everybody's sake. THANKS.
2006 January 21 Saturday.
I
had a private lesson with a fashionable high school girl this morning at 11:00.
Today, she brought a homework assignment with her that she tried to do over the
winter vacation. She was able to do most of it herself, but there were
some questions to which she had no answer. The homework assignment had to
do with Comparatives 比較. English has a standard rule for making
comparative sentences which goes like this: big bigger
biggest. But it also has many exceptions to this rule such as:
good better best . Or how about:
bad worse worst. And
let's also consider this pattern: expensive
more
expensive most expensive. As you can see,
there are many possibilities. There was even one question that I couldn't
figure out for more than a minute. When I finally got it, I was a bit put
off that is was such an old and rather archaic sentence pattern. Technically
correct, but not very useful in today's world. When that lesson was
finished at 12:10, I took the photo on the left from my classroom window.
This car hasn't been used in about 3 days. That is how much snow has
fallen recently. Big fat flakes of powder snow, and lots of it.
2006 January 20 Friday.
No
classes until 13:30 so I used my free time to double check my syllabus for
Asahikawa University and send it off by e-mail.
At 13:30, the two lovely ladies that come every week at this time showed up with
their big smiles. Actually, this was our first meeting since the beginning
of winter vacation. They had stayed in Asahikawa the whole time as
had I. One of the lady's daughter and two of her young friends, went
to Okinawa yesterday. About 20 degrees C, they told me. Sounds good. Not too hot and not too cold. Certainly no snow. The photo on
the left was taken from an open window in the hallway leading to my classroom.
The snow overhang is rather interesting don't you think? Below this
roof area, is a small open courtyard where nobody ever walks around.
Therefore, no danger that anyone will get hurt by snow falling from here.
2006 January 19 Thursday.
No classes today until 15:00. I used my free time in the morning to work on a syllabus for my one and only remaining class at Asahikawa University. For the school year starting in April 2006, I decided to use a commercially available textbook 市販教科書 for the first time in many years. I will be using a textbook called Over the TOEIC Bridge TEST. Most people living in Japan and also many other non-English speaking countries know what TOEIC is. It is an acronym for the Test of English for International Communication. The TOEIC test is not a pass or fail exam like the Eiken 英検 but it gives you a score from as low as 10 to as high as 990. The bigger the number, the better your English is. This is not a BELL CURVE scoring strategy. It is a flat plane linear scale from the lowest to the highest. Like the slope of a pyramid. The TOEIC is a very useful measure of not only a person's current English Language Ability, but it can also be used to measure the progress of the student over the course of months or even years. Can you get a score of 990? I wonder if I could. I guess I'll just have to take the test and find out for myself. Maybe you should too. For more information about the TOEIC test, click here. At 18:00, I had a private lesson with the 2nd year junior high school student whom I wrote about in last week's blog for Thursday. As I mentioned in that posting, she will be going to Asahikawa's Sister-City in the USA for a 10 day home stay experience. Because she now has an immediate goal directly in front of her, and only 2 months away, she has the pedal to the medal, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, here I come, type of vibration. She can feel it and so can I. I can tell when a person is really pumped up and on a special mission. A mission that must be made possible. There is no mission impossible. Anything is possible. Anything. Provided that you are willing to lay your _________________ on the line. Fill in the missing word. Anyway, again today we used my original textbook American Homestay from the first dialogue on page one, up to the first dialogue on page two. She learns fast and she interjects her own original questions and comments into the script and does it spontaneously. This is a very good sign. It means that she has a very positive attitude towards acquiring the skills necessary to speak fluent and accurate English. I'm the coach. You are a tennis player. In Tennis LOVE means NOTHING. Let's Just Do It!!! Right now, this young lady only comes once a week for her training sessions. I think it would be better if she came 2 times a week before she goes to BN Illinois for ten days. I will ask her about that at our next lesson, next Thursday. I think it would make a very big difference in her level of spoken English. It would double the training time during the same two month period. Let's do it twice a week. After that lesson was finished at 19:00, I was ready to do other things. Maybe a big tall cold boy and some music on the machine would be the perfect end to yet another very good day. Pretty faces everywhere.
2006 January 18 Wednesday.
Today, I
got a very special treat.
One of my former students came back to visit my classroom this morning at 10:00 with
her husband and their 2 young daughters. I haven't met this former
student in about 7 years. The very first time I met her, she
was a student at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa
北海道立旭川高等看護学院 where I still teach English part time.
After she graduated from that school, she worked at a hospital for several years before she
decided to go visit the USA. San Francisco to be exact. She and
one of her classmates at 道看 (see photo on left) came to my classroom for a while in order to get ready for
their big adventure in California wine country. We rehearsed speaking
dialogues from some of my original textbooks for about 2 months, and
then they were ready to go. After they returned from that short trip
to the USA, they
continued coming to my classroom and improving their spoken English. Some time
later, one of the young ladies decided to go to New Zealand on a working-holiday-visa, and
work as an Au Pair (a kind of live-in baby sitter). We started using one
of my
original textbooks: American Hometstay English to get her ready for living
in the home of a New Zealand family with children. I also wrote a
Letter of Recommendation 推薦状 in English for her so that she could increase her
chances of getting the
Working-Holiday Visa and also have a job already lined up when she arrived in New Zealand.
After she left for NZ, I got a post card from her a few times, and
then nothing for about 6 years. I send an original Happy Birthday post card to all of
current, and most of my former students each and every year on their birthdays, and even with that little extra effort, I
still didn't hear anything from her for a very long time. Finally, at the
very beginning of this year, I got a New Years Card from her. She told me
her e-mail address and said that she was in Asahikawa with her husband and two
daughters for about one month, and that she would like to visit me sometime before
they all go back to NZ at the end of January. I immediately sent an e-mail to
her expressing my hope that we could meet again after such a long time. Yesterday at about 17:00 she called me and we set up a meeting here in my
classroom at 10:00 for this morning. I was eagerly awaiting our meeting of
today. She, her husband and their two children came to my classroom at
exactly 10:00 this morning, and we spent about one hour together, talking mostly
in English and drinking cool green tea. Some of you reading this right now
may be thinking, "She went to NZ, met a blond-haired, blue-eyed Kiwi national there,
and got married into Caucasian Family" Not true. Her husband is a Japanese
Citizen from Yokohama. About 8 years ago, he went to NZ because he wanted
to get away from Japan and experience a new way of living. I also,
felt the same way, when I left the USA and came here to Hokkaido, to live and
work in Asahikawa about 16 years ago. I know now that I made the right
choice in my life, and I am sure that he did also. He is a very good
looking and exceptionally well mannered gentlemen. I very much enjoyed the
freedom to ask him many questions about Daily Life in NZ.
I have never been there before so, I am rather curious about lifestyles in that
country. Even though their children go to a kindergarten
or day
care school in NZ, they speak mostly Japanese at home. This is wonderful.
Learning two or more languages from birth is the ideal way to master several
languages. The oldest daughter is only 3 years old, and her younger sister
is only 1 year and 2 months old. Because both of the parents speak
Japanese in the home, that is now their primary language. As they get
older and move into the public school system, they will probably shift to
English as their primary language simply because most of their friends will be
speaking English everyday. Again, I think this is a wonderful thing.
Being born and raised bilingual, naturally. I am a bit envious because I
didn't start learning Japanese until I was already 20 years old! It's
better than starting later than 20 years old, but it is nowhere near as good as starting
from the time of birth. A truly global citizen must have at least 2
languages under their belt, and advantageously, 3 or 4 would be ideal.
Imagine the shear number of different people that you could communicate with
naturally and easily. At about 11:00 the family of four left my
classroom. As they were leaving, I invited them to come back and visit me again
some time. They are very good, down-to-earth people who say what they think
and feel. I like them all very much. Have a safe trip back to NZ!!!
Hope to see you again in a few years! I took some photos of the family today,
but I did not ask their permission to put the photos on this website, so I
didn't. However, the photograph you can see above
left was taken on July 22, 1999. The
very pretty young lady on the right side in the dark blue Yukata is the person
who came to my classroom with her family this morning. The pretty young lady on the left side in
her green Yukata is now married and working at the KitaSaiTo Hospital 北彩都病院
which
is right next door to the Asahikawa JR train station. I wonder how she is
doing these days? I haven't heard anything from her in about,...... how many
years???
2006 January 17 Tuesday.
Mr.
T. is Back! And this time he is pissed off.
I mentioned in my blog of last Tuesday that I waited around for my 15:00 lesson
with Mr. T., but that he didn't show up. I
thought to myself "He may be somewhere, traveling
around in the world. " I was right! Today
Mister T. came to class, and right on time.
He had been to Italy and Greece! How is that
for a winter vacation? He brought along his very slim and light weight 5
Mega Pixel digital camera with a big and easy to see flat screen display on the
back of it. He had taken more than 400 photos, some of them were very
nice, and some weren't so nice. I know what it is like, trying to take
good photos. My approach to the task is this: ALWAYS TAKE A LOT OF
PHOTOS, MORE PHOTOS THAN SEEMS NEEDED AT THAT TIME. CLICK AWAY!
Then, select only the best ones for publishing on a website. With a
digital camera and no need to make prints, it is a very economical way to
capture images from your daily life. I myself have never been to
Italy or Greece so I looked at the photos that Mr. T. had taken with much
interest. The photos of Greece were especially
interesting to me because of the many scenes with the blue
sea in the background. When I say the sea, I mean mostly the
Aegean Sea. That's
where Mr. T. went for several sailing adventures in motorized sightseeing ships.
And this is also why he came back to Hokkaido, pissed off. It
is a long story, but I will make it as brief as possible, while still retaining
the important points. Mister T. went on his Greek
Odyssey during the first week of January 2006. Sure, it's in the temperate
zone, but, it's not bathing suit weather by any means. Being
that the wind on the deck was rather cold, Mr. T. went inside the cabin of the
motor boat to warm up. It was there that he encountered a group of people,
from an un-named nation who were chattering loudly, and in general, making an
excessively noisy scene in the only remaining cabin of warmth.
Shittz Meister! Where are my smokes??? I
quit smoking. But, NO! I need a smoke now. Right now!
BIG TIME. Mister T. came back to Asahikawa pissed off because he
started smoking again. And all because of
those noisy yakkitty yak, human beings from another world. I have
experienced this exact same thing on several occasions both here and in the USA.
As well as other hotspots in Asia. Enough said about that clatter.
At 16:00, a new student named Tadashi came for his second
lesson in spoken American English. He did much better this week than last
week, and his mother sat at a different table and read a book during his lesson.
He was more animated today, and not as shy as before. Once he really gets
into it, he will do very well. I promise.
But,......... IF and ONLY IF he keeps at it for 3 or more years.
Don't just READ about IT. DO***IT. 習うより慣れろ。
Be like Justin Highfield, ride out the storm.
Find a new day. Step back from JT.
2006 January 16 Monday.
My first class of the day was at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. This was our first class together since the Xmas Party on December 19, 2005. You can see a photo gallery of that day's event by clicking here. Today, one lady told us about a traffic accident that she had very recently. Fortunately, she was not injured, but the back door on the right side of her car was crushed in. For those of you who may not know it, the steering wheel in Japanese cars is also on the right side of the car. In other words, this fortunate lady could have been injured or maybe even killed if the other car had struck her about 1 meter more towards the front. Despite this fact, she was a bit angry that she would have to pay about 10% of the repair cost to her car. In Japan, if both cars are moving when an accident happens, both persons MUST SHARE a percentage of the blame. I was in a similar situation about 7 or 8 years ago. The other person was clearly at fault 100% but since my car was not completely stopped at a red light or parked along the road, I too had to pay some money towards the repair of my car. It turned out to be about 40,000 yen out of my pocket. That's the law. A least I didn't get injured or killed in the deal. Life goes on. After that class was finished at 14:40, I rushed back to my classroom for lessons from 15:00 until 20:00.
2006 January 15 Sunday.
A
very clear and sunny day. Also very cold. At about 16:00 the wife
and I went for a drive to Biei 美瑛 using the back roads. Most people take
Route 237 which starts at an intersection not far from my classroom and
goes straight through Biei, Kami Furano, Naka Furano, Furano, changes its name
to Route 38, goes thru Yamabe near 太陽の里 then changes its name back to Route 237
and continues south passing by Lake Kanayama and into the Hidaka District 日高支庁
where it ends at the Pacific Ocean 太平洋 southeast of Tomakomai. Today,
however we didn't go that far. We went to Biei but we got off of Route 237
early and turned onto Route 452 at the intersection near 聖和 elementary school.
From that point on we were all alone except for the very few other cars also on
these back country roads that lead to the central area of Biei Town. I
call this route the Back Door to Biei. It is a beautiful drive in any
season. Today it was a winter wonderland of pristine virgin powder snow in
all directions with the Taisetsu Mountain range clearly visible in the distance.
I took about 25 photos of the scenery and had hoped to make a relaxing slideshow
with BGM, but most of the photos didn't turn out that well. Maybe the best
photo of the day is the one on the upper left of today's blog. Even this
photo doesn't really capture the feeling of standing outside in -12 degrees C
and breathing in the crisply fresh and delicious air. The evening glow
just after sunset was truly magnificent. I wonder if the slideshow with
BGM is worth making or not. It will only take about an hour to do it.
What to do? What to do?
2006 January 14 Saturday.
No classes today but I had to make a final exam for my students at Asahikawa University. We used a rather basic textbook that I wrote myself entitled "Using Interrogatives" ザ6W1Hの疑問詞 in other words; What, When, Who, Why, How and Which. The first page of this textbook starts off with the simple "What is your name?" and goes on from there. We only used the first 7 pages of this textbook, which seemed to be enough for most of the students and much more than enough for some of them. The test will be a list of questions using these words. Some of the questions are exactly the same as in the textbook, others are slightly different. They can bring an English/Japanese dictionary to the test, so if they see a new word, they can look it up and hopefully answer the question. Also, I had to start working on a syllabus for my one and only オンリーワン class for the next school year starting in April. Every year, this school is getting fewer and fewer new students. Therefore, they need less classes and less teachers. In their heyday, I had as many as 4 classes and as few as 2. This coming year, I have only one. It's a good thing for me that this is not my only source of income from teaching, or I would be in a very bad shape indeed. Diversify. After working on that stuff for a few hours, I spent the remainder of the day taking hot baths, watching nature, science and history shows on Sky Perfect TV plus I did a little research on the internet. At about midnight, a TV show came on with the latest TOP 10 countdown for Japanese Popular Music (J-Pops) so my wife and I watched it as I played along on the electric bass guitar, unplugged. Some of the songs I liked, others where not to my liking. A few of them were complete trash in my opinion. Lights out at 26:00
2006 January 13 Friday.
Friday
the 13th!!! Oh no! No problem. It's just another work
day for me. Surprisingly, most of my students showed up today. Only
the 16:00 class with 4 elementary school students didn't come. A
slightly busy but mostly relaxing day. In yesterday's blog, I talked about
exchange students and homestay programs. That reminds me of
another graduate of Snowman's American English Family
Classroom スノーマン米会話. This young lady is now a senior at a very good
university on the east coast of the USA and will graduate this spring.
According to her blog, she would like to find a job in NYC. I first
met her when she was still in junior high school. She came to my
classroom for training in spoken American English. She learned very fast.
During her second year of high school, she spent one year in New Zealand.
Of course when she came back to Asahikawa, her spoken English was much much
better than ever before. When she finished high school she was
accepted at a very good university in the state of Connecticut. You
can't get much more Yankee than that! Good choice. We exchange New
Year's Cards 年賀状 every year, and this year on her card she wrote a web link for
her blog. So, I took a look at it. Very interesting to read and lots
of cool photos. I wish more of my students and former students would keep
a blog. I do! A not too surprising thing
about her blog is that,...... It is written in Japanese!!! No
problem for me, I can read it. The point is, when keeping a diary, your
native language always seems to be the best one to use, doesn't it.
Hey! This blog is written in English, isn't it? (a one point
lesson in tag questions). After my last lesson was finished at
20:00, I got out an audio CD of 50 bass guitar lessons and used it to improve my
bass playing for about 2 hours. I didn't even bother to look at the
textbook. Why bother? Music is aural. If you can't play by
ear, you really can't play at all. I learned some new scales and rhythms
tonight. A very good lesson indeed.
2006 January 12 Thursday.
The third day of classes since the end of my winter vacation. Again today, only about half of the students showed up because they are still on their own winter vacations until next week. One of the students who came today had some BIG NEWS. She told me that she had been selected to go visit Asahikawa's sister city of Bloomington-Normal Illinois for a 10 day home stay starting in the 3rd week of March this year. She is one of only nine, 2nd year junior high school students to be selected. She was very happy indeed. When I heard this good news, I decided to start using my original textbook American Homestay which I have used over the years with several other students who have gone to an English speaking country for both short and extended stays. All of them have made good use of the words and phrases contained therein to have a smooth time of it. I even wrote an essay about one such girl who was in this exact same situation about 8 years ago. The essay is titled Job Satisfaction and you can read it now by clicking here. The girl who will be going this March has been coming to my classroom for about 3 years now. She is a very serious student and tries to speak English spontaneously as much as possible. I know she will have a very good time in BN and come back to Asahikawa even more enthusiastic about learning how to speak English than ever before. We have about 2 months to get her ready for the big adventure. I mentioned above that the textbook is called American Homestay because it is a continuing dialogue from the first meeting at the airport, through daily life at the home and school and then back to the airport again to say goodbye. This textbook uses very polite expressions 丁寧語 as spoken by the exchange student to the host family members. This helps to create a very good first impression. I know this young lady will be able to learn and use these valuable expressions also. We started using this textbook today.
2006 January 11 Wednesday.
Second
day of classes after my winter vacation. About half of the students showed
up today. Most other schools are still on winter vacation and the students
are still relaxing at home enjoying the few days they have left to take it easy.
See you next week! The photo on the left is of a snow removal operation in
progress at about 2:00 a.m. As you can see, the illumination is very
bright. My guess is that they are using LP gas or atomized liquid white
gasoline to fuel this very effective lamp. Compared to last year, there
isn't so much snow on the ground, but these crews are scheduled to periodically
do their runs so they do 'em despite the low volume of snow to be removed today.
And, I must say that this city does a very good job of keeping the roads clear
of heavy snow and allowing drivers to get around quite easily. I certainly
have no complaints. It is however a very expensive operation as you
might well imagine.
2006 January 10 Tuesday.
Hello everybody and welcome back to English lessons!!! Hello??? The 15:00 lesson was a no show. Maybe Mr. T. is traveling somewhere in the world. See you next week. At 16:00 a new student and his mother came to my classroom for the first time. We used flash cards for various communication games and activities. He seemed to enjoy the lesson. So did I and his mother. She sat right there at the same table and played along with my presentation. All went well. He will start weekly lessons next week. Here we go! I can show you how to speak real American English. If that is what you really want to learn. Next class was at 18:00 with a mother and her two daughters. Again this time we read some books borrowed from the Asahikawa City Central Library. They have a fairly good collection of children's books in English. Also some in Korean and Chinese. This family has lived in the USA for about 3 years so they all speak English very well. The objective here is to prevent the two young daughters from forgetting what they have already learnt while living in America. Use it or lose it. And it doesn't take long. When that lesson was finished at 19:00 I got a phone call from the next lesson's student saying that she couldn't come today. The high school girl didn't show up either. I think she is still on vacation. As are most other schools. Tomorrow may be another slow day.
2006 January 9 Monday.
Today is a National Holiday in Japan known as the
Coming of Age Day Ceremony 成人式. In Japan, when a person becomes 20 years
old, they are considered to be an adult. Therefore, those young people who
have turned 20 years old during the past year between this date last year and today, are able to attend one of the Coming of Age Day Ceremonies in their
village, town or city. The young ladies dress up in a beautiful
formal
kimono 振袖 and the young men wear either a traditional Haori Hakama, or a
business suit. They may hear a speech from the mayor of the city and other
VIPs telling them that they are now expected to contribute to society in a
responsible manner etc. etc. After the ceremony is finished, many young
people will go to a bar or a restaurant and have a big party. For me,
today was the last day of my winter vacation. I spent about 4 hours with
the California Guy and Ken Chan at Ken Chan's house playing music. Me on
the electric bass, Cal on the folk guitar, and Ken on the piano. Later on
after we had all eaten a delicious lunch prepared by Ken's wife, Ken's two daughters sat down and played a couple
of piano songs that they are practicing for their next recital. I must say
that their level of piano playing is very high. They were playing some
very difficult songs. After all of that was finished, I drove back home to
pick up my wife and all of the New Year's decorations so that we could go burn
them at the Kamikawa Shrine どんど焼き. Which is kind of a shame because some
of the decorations were really pretty.
2006 January 8 Sunday.
A job
that never ends. Cleaning up, throwing away old stuff that you don't need
any more, rearranging all the rest of the the stuff that you want to keep.
Not even Mr. Clean can help me with this job. I need to make all of the
decisions by myself. After all, it is my stuff.
2006 January 7 Saturday.
First
order of business today, get started on scanning the many print photos that I
have been given by many other people over the years who have taken my picture
while I was either teaching classes or doing other things. As I was doing
so, at about 10:30, I got a phone call from the California Guy (see image on
left). He wanted me to come over to the house in Tomisawa and play the
bass guitar. Let's see, the last time we met on Wednesday (see below) we
decided to get together again on Monday at Ken Chan's house. Besides, I
was right in the middle of my photo scanning project so I told him that he would
have to "play with himself". I should have said "play by himself" but the
first expression has a more nasty nuance to it, so I used it instead. See
ya on Monday! Anyway, I spent the rest of the day scanning a lot of
photographs into my PC. Not difficult, but it takes time.
Finally at about 21:00 I had finished. Unfortunately, all of the scanned
photos were of different sizes so I had to resize them all to 600 X 440 pixels
for the long ones and 440 X 600 pixels for the tall ones. They have to all
be the same size so that they will download fast on the internet.
Fortunately for me, I have Macromedia Fireworks MX (newest version is
Fireworks 8) which has batch processing functions that can resize a group of
photos within seconds. So I used it. However I had to run the batch
processing twice, once for the long photos and once for the tall photos.
Then, I had to erase the ones that came out distorted, and combine the good ones
into one folder. Finally, I started creating the web page for the
Teacher's Scrapbook. This project will continue tomorrow.
2006 January 6 Friday.
Another
day cleaning up around the classroom and living area. Today is the first
garbage collection day since about a week ago. Today we can throw out
burnable garbage. So, I rounded up all the paper stuff I could find that I
didn't need and hauled it out to the garbage station. It's amazing how
many beautiful, full-color pamphlets and brochures I had picked up for things such
as DVD recorders, digital cameras and other electronic products that I never
purchased. I know that these type of advertising materials are expensive
to produce and distribute. But, none the less, I don't need them anymore.
Maybe I never did need them, I just wanted to look at them and dream about all
the cool things I could do with them. Plus lots of other types of waste
paper and combustible trash were available for disposal. As I was
looking around the classroom for more stuff to throw away, I noticed that I had
a rather large collection of printed photos that other people had taken of me
and my students at many different times and locations. I decided to scan
them into my PC and make a new digital photo album called "Teacher's Scrapbook".
I will start tomorrow.
2006 January 5 Thursday.
Another
day of cleaning up BIG TIME. Today, the main focus was the bathing room,
sink and toilet area. First, I needed to scrub the floors until they were almost
beautiful, then I had to clean off all the other stuff that had about 365 days
worth of dust and grime plastered onto their outside surface areas. It's a
hot, dirty and wet job, but somebody has to do it. Next time, I'll call
Mr. Clean.
2006 January 4 Wednesday.
Another Raw Music Day. Two days in a row.
That's a first. Today, we didn't do our jam session at the house in
Tomisawa, but at another much larger house near the center of the city.
The guy who owns this house, is also the owner of a metal fabrication business
that is in a different location not too far from the
Asahiyama Zoo. This guy, whom we call Ken Chan, has known the
California Guy for more than 15 years and they have played music, as well as
gone camping together many times with their families. Ken Chan has a big black grand piano in his house and he knows how
to play it very well. With Ken Chan on the keyboard, the California Guy on
rhythm guitar and main vocals, and me on the electric bass, we played some
country folk and honky tonk music. I have to admit, it sounded pretty damn
good. Having a piano to play along with for a bass guitar player is heaven.
Later we did a jazz number with just the two of us. During my life I have
played the piano, the classical guitar, the folk guitar, the electric guitar,
the harmonica, and the electric bass guitar. I have to say that among all
of those instruments, I like playing the electric bass guitar the best.
Not only is it relatively easy to play, but it sets the bottom line for the rest
of the band unless you have a drummer. Then the drummer sets the basic beat
for all members. For me, the bass guitar is sort of like a combination of
a guitar and drum set all rolled up into one. I really love to play the
bass guitar. I also brought along my electric six string guitar, a
Fender
Telecaster. All ash body and a one piece maple neck. Natural wood color.
It looks exactly like the one in the photo above left. A beautiful instrument with that twangy Nashville sound so easy to make.
However, since I can't play the six string and the four string bass at the same
time, the music sounded a bit hollow without the bass. I guess I'll
leave the six-string at home next time.
2006 January 3 Tuesday.
Raw
Music Day. Me and the California Guy rehearsed about 18 songs today, most
of them very tight. I spent most of my bass playing time with my mind on automatic
while gazing out the window at the snow scene and a Bohemian Waxwing
キレンジャク feeding on some bird seed by the window. This bird
is called Kirenjaku in Japanese. It is the official bird of Asahikawa
City. They are big, aggressive and beautiful. I hope I too, can take a
good photo of one sometime.
2006 January 2 Monday.
During
these first few days of the new year, many people make their
First Visit to A Shinto Shrine of the New Year
初詣. I have done it before, but I haven't done it every year.
It's rather cold outside as you might well imagine. The photo on the
left was taken at a Shinto Shrine during a season of no snow, or maybe somewhere
else, outside of Hokkaido. It is in fact, the daughter of two of my
students. Her name is written in the upper right corner of the photo.
How do you read it??? I know two different ways of reading these Kanji,
because there is another little girl who comes to my classroom whose name is
written the same way, but is pronounced differently. That's
the Japanese language for ya! Ya gotta remember a whole lot of stuff just
to be able to read and write. It takes many years. The cute
little girl in the photo is just getting started with her journey on the road to
literacy. The literacy rate in Japan is about 99%. Which means, if
you really try to learn it, it can be done.
2006 January 1 Sunday
Happy New
Year Everybody!!! 2006 is the Year of the dog. Check out my
annual New Years Card 年賀状 for this year. I borrowed a friends dog for the
photo op. He made a good pose. Thanks DENZEL!!! A very
cold but relaxing day. My wife and I went to her mother's and aunt's house
in Chuwa. My wife's older sister, her husband and their two boys (my
nephews) also gathered there. Unfortunately, my wife's younger sister who
lives in Tokyo couldn't come this year because she could not get a very long
vacation from her job. Hope to see you next year Yuki! Anyway,
after a big dinner of traditional Japanese new year's foods お節料理, all of it hand made
by Ikuko's mother, and very delicious, my wife, her older sister and her husband
and I drove over the big AEON shopping center in my van to get some drinks and
snacks for the long night ahead. When we got back home, the two young boys
went to bed upstairs and the four of us sat around drinking wine and eating
snacks such as cheese, crackers and other stuff. I fell asleep at about
26:00 but the three other family members stayed up later until about 28:00.
We do the same thing every year at this time. It's a family tradition.
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