日: 2020年6月21日

A Solar Eclipse was Seen at 5 p.m. in Niigata , JAPAN.

I put a feeder in the garden. A sparrow comes every morning.

Another lily flower opened in the garden. It is good to cut the flowers to make the bulbs grow bigger.

A solar eclipse was seen today. The photo shows the shapes of the sun that is the lights coming through the paper screen of Japanese style “Shouji”. The paper is worn out and has got many holes. So I need to change the paper screen…if I have time to do so…

The reason why I write this blog is to make records about my activities as a Japanese teacher. So I don’t mind if people hardly visit this blog. Having said that, it is really amazing that only very few people come here these days….

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Composition) on June 20, 2020

Date: June 20th 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:

  –

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

  –       

  –

Class Activities:

Homework:

.

Issues and Problems:

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Composition) on June 19, 2020

Date: June 19th on Friday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

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:

  – 24 students input their attendances on BBS. However only 19 students sent me their compositions at the end of the class. Also several students replied to me in the interview session. Therefore the self-claiming attendance is not accurate measure to record students’ attendance. 

Class Activities:

 Three activities were done in the class.

 -1: To proofread and correct their paper about tourism of a particular prefecture of Japan. This was a task only in the first session.

 -2: To compose a description about 4-picture manga which was one of three that were drawn by the late Machiko Hasegawa. This was a task in the second session. Those compositions were sent in the form of JPEG to the teacher when the class was over. 

 -3: Each student was called by teacher one by one to video call. He/she was asked to read out part of his/her paper for 1 minutes and 30 seconds. The teacher gave a feedback for writing and/or speaking. Since these interview took time, this activity had been done all through the first and second sessions. So two activities were simultaneously ongoing; 3 and either of 1 or 2.  17 students could made interviews with me. 

Homework:

. – No HWA

Issues and Problems:

 On Tuesday 16th for class 1836 , I called each student one by one after I closed video conference. That took minutes only just to make a connection. So for this time, I was just keeping the video conference turned on, I called a student in that conference. This might have been a disturbance for other students to write their composition. However, I wanted to save the class time.   

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 19, 2020

Date: June 19th on Friday, 2020 from 13:40 to 15:10 (14:40 – 16:10 in JST)

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Video conference on DingTalk, BBS was also used supplementarily to show some pictures during the video conference. The teacher used Powerpoint on part of computer display. The PPT was a kind of aid for teacher to conduct the class and also for playing audio that was embedded to a slide.   

Numbers of Students:

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

 – At the end: 20 by asking a question

Class Activities:

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

 – The teacher asked the students many questions using the function of video conference. So the class activities were mush interactive.

Homework Assignment:

 – No HWA

Issues and Problems:

I asked the students whether or not he/she had the textbook there. This was the question that I made at the end of the class to check their attendance through the class time. The answer was surprise to me. None of them has it. They all left the textbook in the university dormitory. Until that time, I didn’t know that . Without knowing they didn’t have the textbook, I have already done most of the semester. I usually put all the pictures onto my PPT slides. Therefore the students hadn’t feel the necessity of textbook. So no one student told me that.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 17, 2020

Date: June 17th 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: Video conference on DingTalk, BBS was also used so that students could refer to during the video conference. Twelve images and three audio clips were presented on the BBS for the class 1837.

Numbers of Students: 24 out of 28. Four students were thought to be absent throughout the class

Class Activities:

-Causative sentences of the type that gives a permission.

–

Homework Assignment:

– No HA.

Issues and Problems:

Video conference was often stopped. It seems that much more capacity is needed on internet communication when we do video conference.

Interactive activities took more minutes than I thought. I think it is okay because I still have many hours to teach until the semester ends. How much I taught is not a matter. How much the students have learned is the matter.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on June 15, 2020

Date: June 15th 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 64 slides

Numbers of Students: 26 out of 28.

– Fully attendant for 90min : 21

– Shorter signing-in: 86, 47, and 26 seconds.

– Two students can be assumed their participation through the activities, although the system recorded no signing in.

Responses onto the BBS:

– Attendance check by a student his/herself: 26.

– 1st Quiz: 19 students responded.

– 2nd Quiz: 26 students responded.

– Attendance check at the end: 19 students responded.

Teaching: 

– Causative sentences, issues of “-totte” v.s. “-taishite”,  and “V1-ta toorini V2”

Homework Assignment:

– Five students were asked to send a MP3 or M4A by Wednesday night. Those students were asked to record their own speaking of conversation between two part time job workers.

Issues and Problems:

This was the last time that I taught in the form of PPT slide show streaming. The following conversation classes for 1837 class were changed to be in the form of Video conference. This change happened because I had to do many supplementary classes in the last three weeks of this semester.

Online Teaching for Class 1836 (Composition) on June 16, 2020

Date: June 16th 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 also used but only on the teacher’s computer screen.

Numbers of Students: 28.

Students’ Responses:

 -1: Attendance check at the beginning: 26 students responded. One didn’t.

 -2: Submission of composition at the end of the class: 25 students sent me photographs of their composition on sheet of paper. Two students didn’t. 

Class Activities:

 -1: In the 1st session, the students were asked to proofread and revise the chapter of suggestion 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 mangas that were shown on BBS. The students were required to take a photo of their hand writing and send it to me.

Homework:

To write abstract, conclusion, and remarks for the paper.

Issues and Problems:

I sent comments on their composition to describe a manga one by one after the class.

Online Teaching for Class 1836 (Composition) on June 9, 2020

Date: June 9th on Tuesday, 2020 from 15:30 to 17:00 (16:30 – 18:00 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 58 slides

Numbers of Students: 28.

– 90 minutes attendance: 24 students

– One student was recorded as complete absent through the class time by the system. However, the student sent me the answers of 5-question quiz. Three students were recorded their shorter participation; 84, 83, and 79 minutes.

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

 -1: Attendance check at the beginning: 27 students responded. One came late.

 -2: Connection check in the middle of the class: 25 students responded to the question about stroke order of the kanji “必”.

  -3: Attendance check at the end: the answers of 5-question quiz were sent to me right after the class. 25 students sent. 8 student got the perfect scores of 5. But of the eight, two students sent their answers more than 20 minutes late. 

Teaching:

Review of 5-question quiz of the last class. Writing a research paper about tourism, and some grammatical issues from the textbook.

Homework:

To write abstract, conclusion, and remarks for the paper.

Issues and Problems:

< no time to write them right now>

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on June 18, 2020

Date: June 18th on Thursday, 2020

in 7th and 8th sessions from 15:30 to 17:00 (16:30 – 18:00 in JST)

Course: Japanese Listening 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. One image file was used supplementary  on BBS. I was looking at PPT slides during the class. The PPT slides were not shown to the students, shown only on my computer screen. Those PPT slides read the scripts and have embedded mp3 files to make it easy for me to play the audio.

Numbers of Students: 26: One student was absent.

Students’ Responses:

– Attendance Check : 24 students typed his/her attendance on BBS. One was absent through the class, and two came a little late.

– There was one incident in which a student didn’t answer to my calling. This resulted in reducing the score for grading.

Teaching:

– Redo of Exercise IV of the section in the textbook. The exercise includes the construction of  [Subject]-wa [Place]-ni arimasu/imasu which means an existence of someone/something.

– Rote exercise of Ta-form of verbs.

– Exercise I of section 24 in the textbook, which includes the use of abstract noun “tokoro” for two aspects on time sequence; one is just before, the other is right after.

– Introduction of “Tari, tari” construction.

– Exercise II, III, and IV

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

< I have no time to write them now>

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on June 17, 2020

Date: June 17th 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, Several slides of Powerpoint were used only on my computer display. 17 slides for 1-2session, 10 slides for 3-4 session. These PPT slides show me the scripts of listening materials and have embedded mp3 files so that made it easy for me to play the audio.

Numbers of Students: 27

–  24 students typed his/her attendance on BBS. Three seemed to come late.

Students’ Responses:

– Attendance Check : 25 students typed his/her attendance on BBS. One came late.

– There were two incidents in which a student didn’t answer to my calling

Teaching:

1-2 session: Redo Exercise III and IV of the section 23 in textbook.

New teaching; Exercise I of the section 24

3-4 session: Exercise II was skipped. Exercise III was done to learn “tari-tari construction”, and Exercise IV that was a story telling was listened to

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

– Due to the heavy work load, I changed my teaching style from PPT slideshow to video conference. This was the first time for me to use video conference for the class. So I did not make it well. I got some problems to be improved in this new style.

– It needs some consideration how to check the students attendance more exactly.