日: 2020年5月2日

No Kids in the Park, Saturday Afternoon

Although today is a day of spring holiday so-called “Golden Week”, people are asked to stay home because of Corona virus pandemic. I went shopping by walk in this afternoon. On the way I just dropped by a small park.

00422

Might have sung Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park”? Nope. This is a small park in small town in northern part of Japan. There is no man selling ice cream. Even kids are not there because of Japan’s aging society.

 

00423

It was a little early for wisteria flowers to be full bloom.

 

00424

But actually the pink flowers of dogwood have gone already. I think the white one is also almost ended.

 

00425

I am not sure if this tap water is hygienically okay to drink or not. Anyway, I left the park and went to a supermarket to get food for my supper.

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on Apr.27, 2020

Date: April 27th on Monday, 2020 from 9:50 to 11:20 (10:50 – 12:20 in JST)

Course: Japanese Listening 2

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 69 slides

Numbers of Students: 27

25 students stayed with me from the start to the end. Two students were recorded their shorter participation  with 87 and 84 minutes.

Students’ Responses:

– Attendance Check : All the 27 students typed his/her attendance by themselves on BBS

– Quiz 1 : 25 students answered. This question was to choose the correct endings for each noun, Na-adjective, I-adjective, and verb predicate sentences for present-assertive.

– Quiz 2: All the 27 answered. Question was about a negative sentence of I-adjective predicate with “tasty (Oishii)”. It was an easy question but an important one in order to avoid confusion with negative sentences of Na-adjective predicate.

– Quiz 3: 22 students answered. The question was to ask about conjugations of auxiliary verb “-youda” with pointing out a similarity with Na-adjectives. It is still too early for the first grade students to learn the auxiliary verbs. So my purpose was not there. I wanted the students to know that Da turns to be Na for modifying a noun, and Da turns to be Ni for modifying a verb.

– Quiz at the End: 24 students typed their own sentences in which an adjective conjugated to modify a verb as an adverbial.

Teaching:

1: Review of sentences of comparison

– “Noun1” is more “Adjective” than “Noun2”

– Question: Which of the “Noun1” and “Noun2” is more “Adjective”?

– Answer: Noun is more Adjective.

2: Introduction of Adjectives’ conjugations to modify a verb

– I- and Na- adjectives modifies a verb “-suru” that is a transitive verb like “do” in English.

Homework Assignment:

– No Homework.

Issues and Problems:

Two things happen simultaneously in the section 17 of the textbook. One is adjectives’ conjugations to modify a verb as an adverbial. The second thing is that an attention needs to be paid the difference between the intransitive verb “Naru” and the transitive verb “Suru”. It seems that some students couldn’t get these basic concepts of Japanese grammar.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on Apr.27, 2020

Date: April 27th on Monday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 60 slides

Numbers of Students: 22 out of 28, Number of completely absent was 6

Fully attendant for 90min : 17

Shorter signing-in: 79*2, 67, 59 minutes, and the shortest was 19 seconds.

Responses onto the BBS:

– Attendance check by a student his/herself: 25. Of these, three students were recorded as completely absent by the system.

– 1st Quiz: 15 students responded. The quiz was to measure students’ understanding about the listenin material.

– 2nd Quiz:17 students responded. The question was to choose the correct use of the conditional conjunctive particle “-tara” and “-to”. When the students started typing their answers, they were referring to what the first and second students had typed on BBS. Actually those answers “B” were not correct. When about half students typed their erroneous answer “B”, then one student typed the correct answer “A”. Then the last half students typed “A”. It was a simple thing. Most of them didn’t think of answers by themselves. But I thought the student who typed “A” first thought of her answer herself. So I sent a message to praise her courage after the class.

– Attendance check at the end: 21 students responded. It is my fault that I left yesterday’s the-last-quiz unchanged because I have not enough time to check whole through my lengthy power-point slides. However, this quiz was also important to check participation of the students to online class, therefore I asked the students to type their answers.

Teaching: 

– Listening to a conversation between two part time job workers.

– Review and exercise of a little formal negation “-zuni”.

– Exercise of “-ba” and “-nara”

– Listening comprehension of conversation using “-ba” and “-nara”.

– Introduction of a conditional conjunctive particle “-to”.

Homework Assignment:

Since there would be 10 days by the next class, more homework was assigned than usual.

-1 : Small test of the section 13 of the textbook.

-2 : Completing three conversation scripts by filling words.

-3 : Listening and reading aloud the script of two part time job workers.

Issues and Problems:

I had two classes in the day. I didn’t have enough time to prepare for this class, although I started at 3 a.m. and worked by the start of the class at 9 a.m. (in Japan standard time). In order to fill the less teaching material of powerpoint slides, I inserted a listening material from Min’nano Nihongo. That was a conversation in the section 35, which uses the conditional conjunctive particles “-ba” and “-nara”. It, somehow, worked. If I were a seasoned teacher, I would have had enough teaching material that can kill the time. But  I am not. Until I have had enough stock of teaching material, my hard working style through the night will continue.