月: 2020年6月

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 28, 2020

Date: June 28th on Sunday, 2020 from 13:40 to 15:10 (14:40 – 16:10 in JST)

<This day was the day to have classes on Friday>

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Video conference on DingTalk.  Dingtalk’s BBS is also used to show the students some images.

Numbers of Students:

 – Attendance check by the students’ self-claimed input of “Shusseki” onto BBS : 21

 – Numbers of connections that the video conference window indicated: 21

 – Attendance check at the end of the class in the form of quiz: 17

Class Activities:

(1) Listening a conversation including passive and causative sentences.

   Audio was taken from the Chapter 13-2 of “Dekiru Nihongo (yellow)”

(2) Exercise to review passive and causative sentences

  Exercises were C2 on Sec.37 for passive sentences and B3 on Sec.48 for causative sentences. Both were from “Min’ano Nihongo II”

(3) Rote exercise of verb conjugation from Te-form to Causative-form+”te”

(4) Redo of sentences “Causative + Morau/Ageru/Kureru” 

(5) Practice of Causative Passive sentences

Homework Assignment:

– No HA.

Issues and Problems:

  I could ask questions to all students at least once. But time was short. I couldn’t finish what I prepared for today.

 Many students were absent. They might have lost his/her enthusiasm learn from me.

 But for the students who attended, I think I could make the class activities somewhat interactive. It was not as good as in real classroom, but I tried to do my best. Sometimes connection was unstable or with much noise. Online teaching is not so good as people are saying on TV.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Composition) on June 28, 2020

Date: June 28th on Sunday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Video conference on DingTalk. Several images were shown to the students through BBS of the class.

Numbers of Students:

  – Self-claming attendance on BBS by inputting “Shusseki”: 25

  – Attendances that were confirmed on the display of video conference: 25

  – Attendance check at the end of the class: 23 students input the designated alphabet onto BBS 

Class Activities:

 – One minutes speech and question-and-answer time for tourism of a certain prefecture in Japan. 21 students spoke and 20 questioned.

 – The students made their speeches in the reverse order of student number. A student who to make a question was assigned by the teacher in random manner in order to keep the students concentrate on other students’ speeches.

 – It was taught about how to make a question in a conference. Identify him/herself first, say some kind of praise to the presentation, and then start asking a question.

 Homework:

  – No HWA.

Issues and Problems:

  Most of the students have written the papers about a tourism issue of one particular prefecture in Japan. But some have not done yet. There are some students who have never submitted his/her draft. Those were not given the chance to make a speech today. Perhaps it was likely that those students had also prepared only for today’s 1-minute speech. It is an issue how the teacher would deal with such student and his/her opportunity to speak under the limited class time. 

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Composition) on June 27, 2020

Date: June 27th on Saturday, 2020 from 13:40 to 15:10 (14:40 – 16:10 in JST)

<This was a supplementary class that was done in irregular hours>

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Video conference on DingTalk, BBS of the class was also used simultaneously to show the students some pictures.

Numbers of Students:

  – Self-claming attendance on BBS by inputting “Shusseki”: 17

  – Attendances that were confirmed on the display of video conference: 18

Class Activities:

 – Composition: part of book was shown to the students and they wrote a short essay about their impressions. The article was page 52 -56 of “Iryou-no koto, motto shitte hoshii” by Mr.Jun’ichiro YAMAOKA, which was the No.637 book of “Iwanami Junior Shinso” series. This was about a terminally ill old lady who was brought back to her house for the last moment with her family. 

 – Reading aloud: A student was called online and asked to read part of his/her draft of paper about tourism of a particular prefecture in Japan. Usually it was 1 minutes 30 seconds.    

Homework:

  – Drafting a memo for 1 minutes speech that would be spoken in the next composition class.

Issues and Problems:

So two activities were being done simultaneously in this composition class. While most of the students were writing, one student was reading part of his/her paper. Since I knew that it took time to connect and disconnect a student one by one, I decided to call a student and to ask him/her to read under the condition that the video conference with everyone was going on. It should have been noisy for other students, but I didn’t want to waste time. Today I scolded some students whose attendance and attitude were not good. This must have created uncomfortable atmosphere for other students.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 24, 2020

Date: June 24th on Wednesday, 2020 from 15:30 to 17:00 (16:30 – 18:00 in JST)

<This was a supplementary class that was done in irregular hours>

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Streaming with slide show and Video conference both on DingTalk. The former was used mainly with 65 slides of PPT, the latter was used for short time in the middle of the class. Only one PNG image was uploaded onto BBS to show the students a script od a conversation between Park-san and Yamaguchi-san that came from “Dekiru Nihong” yellow book the chapter 13.

Numbers of Students:

 – Attendance check by the students’ self-claimed input of “Shusseki” onto BBS : 23

 – Attendance check at the end of the class in the form of quiz: 18

Class Activities:

(1) The first 30 minutes

– Practice of conversation between two young ladies who were friends each other. The conversation included some causative sentences.

 – Speeches of the conversation above by two pairs on the video conference.

(2) The last 60 minutes

 – Review of some expressions that were learned in this semester. Those were sentences using auxiliary verbs for guess or hearsay.  

Homework Assignment:

– No HA.

Issues and Problems:

  There was a certain reason to review the expressions/construction that were learned in this semester at this point. It was amazing that my time scheduling of PPT slide progressed well along the time. 47 slides of 65 were used for this purpose. The biggest issue was whether or not it does really help the students remember such many numbers of Japanese expressions and constructions by presenting a long list of them all at once. I don’t think that was the best way. 

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on June 24, 2020

Date: June 24th on Wednesday, 2020

– 1st and 2nd sessions from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

– 3rd and 4th sessions from 9:50 to 11:20 (10:50 – 12:20 in JST)

Course: Japanese Listening 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. Powerpoint were also used only on the teacher’s computer display. 13 slides for 1-2session, 19 slides for 3-4 session. Some of these PPT slides were converted to be PNG image files and uploaded to the class BBS so that the students could refer to during the video conference style online class.

Numbers of Students: 27

–  All the 27 students participated the class. This was confirmed by both self-claiming attendance on BBS and the display on Video conference window. However one student didn’t input “Shusseki” for the self-claiming attendance onto BBS.

Class Activities:

1-2 session:

– Explanation about the alternative measures for the final examination.

– Redo of textbook exercise Mondai I and II of the section 25, that were using “V-ta houga ii”

3-4 session:

– Textbook exercise Mondai III and IV in the section 25.

– Introduction of the construction “V1-u toki, V2” and “V1-ta toki, V2” using the section 23 of Minnano Nihongo I

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

– The textbook is not designed for systematic learning. Especially it is lacking consideration for tense-aspect expressions. Each section deals with some major constructions, though, they are lacking a good organization for the better learning process of a huge structure of Japanese language. I think one thing I have to do is to teach from the important and also basic constructions. And then I will move onto a less important, less basic construction for the next. The textbook now we are using is missing such considerations. It seems to be more obvious for tense-aspect expressions. So I taught “V1-u toki/V1-ta toki, V2 shimasu” using Min’nano Nihongo I.

Online Teaching for Class 1836 (Composition) on June 23, 2020

Date: June 23rd on Tuesday, 2020 from 15:30 to 17:00 (16:30 – 18:00 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. BBS was supplementary used to show pictures that were materials for composition. Powerpoint was hardly used during the class today, it is used for generate PNG image files to be shown on BBS.

Numbers of Students:

  – Numbers of attendance by self-claiming onto BBS: 27 students left inputs of “Shusseki”

  – Numbers of attendance that was confirmed on the Video Conference window: 26 students were confirmed to be connected to the video conference.

Class Activities:

 -1: Materials for composition was given to the students at the beginning of the class. It was page53 -56 of “Iryouno koto, Motto shitte hoshii” by Mr. Junichiro YAMAOKA that was No.637 book of “Iwanami Junior Shinsho”. For the better understanding, a mp3 audio was also given to the students, which was recorded by the teacher’s voice.

 -2: The students wrote a short essay to describe his/her expressions to the above mentioned reading materials. The students were required to take a photo of their hand writing and send it to me just after the class.

 -3: Each student was called to the conference and asked to read part of his/her paper for one minute and thirty seconds. Teacher gave him/her advice on grammar and/or pronunciation.

Homework:

To draft a memo that will be read in 1-minute speech in the next class. The speech is about his/her paper about tourism of a particular prefecture of Japan.

Issues and Problems:

The composition material was a serious one from the book, which wrote about a terminally ill patient who was brought back to her house to spend the very last days of her life with her family in the long-lived house. The students’ submissions to me were delayed, even one day. Some students could not write essays probably because the article was a little hard to understand for the middle to low level students. 

Online Teaching for Class 1836 (Composition) on June 22, 2020

Date: June 22th on Monday, 2020 from 13:40 to 15:10 (14:40 – 16:10 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. BBS was supplementary used to show pictures that were materials for composition. Powerpoint was also used but only on the teacher’s computer screen.

Numbers of Students:

 – At the beginning:

     – Self-claiming attendance by the means of input “Shusseki” onto BBS: 28

     – Attendance check using the video conference monitor: 26

– At the end by sending photos of composition:

Class Activities:

 -1: In the 1st session, the students were asked to proofread and revise the chapter of abstract, conclusions, and remarks in their paper.

 -2: Each student was called and read part of his/her paper. Teacher gave him/her advice.

-3: In the 2nd session, the students write a short essay to describe one of three poems about love. Those three poems were given to the student using BBS. The students were required to take a photo of their hand writing and send it to me when the class was over.

Homework:

No HWA

Issues and Problems:

Three poems about love were given to the students to write a short essay. The most popular one that was chosen by many students was “Aki no Seppun (A Kiss in Autumn)” by Ms.Masako Takiguchi. I think this poem is about love that was lost. Scattered white flowers of bushclover on a path, White ashes on a trail in the mountain, and wind blow coming through Japanese pampas grasses are all indicating the sadness of losing love. This is just my understanding. I feel sadness, emptiness, and a huge void in mind when I read this poem. Am I wrong? I don’t know. But it was interesting that most students thought this poem was romantic and beautiful with joy of love. Maybe it is natural that there is a difference about interpretations on the same poem between 20-year olds and a 50-year old.     

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on June 22, 2020

Date: June 22nd on Monday, 2020 from 9:50 to 11:20 (10:50 – 12:20 in JST)

Course: Japanese Listening 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. Eight images were used supplementary  on BBS so that a student could look at the images on smartphone simultaneously when watching the video conference. I was also looking at PPT slides during the class on my computer screen. These PPT slides were not shown to the students, but showed me the scripts and were used to play the audio by the embedded mp3 files onto the slides.

Numbers of Students:

– At the beginning:

– Self-claiming attendance by the means of input “Shusseki” onto BBS: 26

– Attendance check using the video conference monitor: 27

– At the end by answering the question that I gave them at the end of the class: 19

Class Activities:

– “V-ta hou-ga ii” and “V-nai hou-ga ii”.

– Exercise I and II of the section 25 in the textbook

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

< I have no time to write them now>

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 22, 2020

Date: June 22th on Monday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Video conference on DingTalk, BBS was also used supplementarily to show 14 pictures during the video conference.

Numbers of Students:

 – At the beginning:

   – Self-claiming attendance by the means of input “Shusseki” onto BBS: 26

   – Attendance check using the video conference monitor: 21

 – At the end by answering the question that I gave them at the end of the class: 19

Class Activities:

 – Review of introduction of Causative-Passive sentences using “Dekiru Nihongo” Chap.13

 _ Introduction of Causative-Give and Take sentences using the textbook

Homework Assignment:

 – No HWA

Issues and Problems:

LQ Laoshi Plays BACH on Electric Bass Again

My electric bass Ibanez SR500 has got a problem with its built-in amplifier. It doesn’t work to generate bass sounds but makes noise like the following audio recording. Probably you will regret hearing the sound. I bought this Ibanez bass in 2010, in Tokyo. It has been already ten years. Since 10 years are not short for a life of an electric circuit, I don’t think I can complain about this.

Noise sounds from pre-amplifier of SR500 (414kB)

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Electric Bass Ibanez SR500 that I bought in Tokyo Ten Years Ago

So I changed my main bass from Ibanez to Bacchus. The big difference between Ibanez and Bacchus is with or without the amplifier inside. Ibanez basses always have an active circuit which is a built-in amplifier, but Bacchus basically doesn’t have an active circuit inside of bass. I had an experience of using Ibanez for three years in past, I was always worry about troubles on active circuit. The pre-amplifier used 9-volt battery which also had a problem for availability in store. I want to say that I like passive pick-up for my bass. It is simple, no need to worry about battery and electric circuit.

I played the most famous piece from J. S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite, that is Prelude from Suite No.1.  I am not a good bassist, but I hope you enjoy it. The original cello version uses the open string of A near the end. I guess that the A-string of a cello is the highest. I also use the open A string for that part on my bass. But the A string on bass is the second lowest. So what is being played in high in the original is played in low in my version. Please do not complain about this. Because I know that many bassists have made much effort to play this A notes in high for this Bach Piece. If you play in low, actually it would be very easy. I admit my technique is poor but I am expecting that J.S.Bach in heaven might allow me to do so.

J. S. Bach, Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.1, Prelude in G major (2.70MB)

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Bass：WJB-330M YLW by Bacchus

Strings：D’Addario, Extra-Light of Balanced Tension

Amplifier:  Not a Bass Amplifier, but a cheap audio Amp.

No editing!