投稿者: liangzhilaoshi

What works and what doesn’t on the Teacher’s Desk

Today is the thirty-ninth day of the spring semester 2024 and is Friday when is the last day of a weekday. I have checked in this week, about the small console on the teacher’s desk. Other teachers bring USB memory to the classroom, and connect it to the small console on the teacher’s desk. In this way, teachers use the computer which is built in in the teacher’s desk. A USB memory is a small tiny device, light and easy to carry.

I don’t do as other teachers do. Every time I do the class, I bring my computer and connect not USB memory but two cables; one for visual data and one for audio data from my computer. The reason is that, if I use the built-in computer, Japanese letters are converted very ugly fonts because the built-in computer doesn’t have “Textbook font” of Japanese. And layout in a PPT slide is not displayed as I made by my computer. So, I cannot show what I want to show on the screen, if I use the built-in computer and USB memory.

Bringing my computer and two cables for visual and audio to the classroom, I connect these three things to the small console on the teacher’s desk. There are some jacks on aluminum plate on the teacher’s desk. The aluminum plate is thin. I worry about durability of the plate because the plate always bents every time I connect or remove plugs to jacks.

I use five classrooms. I have checked this week, about how to connect the cables.

1. Power from Outlet

If an outlet is there, that does not necessarily mean I can get electricity. That is what I wrote in a post before. In one classroom, the outlet on the teacher’s desk provides power. In three classrooms, although there are outlets on the teacher’s desk, they do not provide power. In One classroom, there is an outlet tap that is functioning, but the outlets on the tap is occupied by other devices. There is no outlet available for my computer.

For these four classrooms, I connect the power cable to the nearest outlet using an extension cable. I can connect to the outlet under the blackboard in three classrooms, but in one classroom, I need to lengthen the extension cable to the wall that is along the corridor. Students come through the door and almost hook or kick the cable by their foot. I need to say “Look out!” so often.

2. Cable for Visual Data

 I borrow a HDMI cable from teachers’ room. But it has problem of bad connection. So, it’s not the problem of a Jack on the console but of plug of the cable. For this reason, I prefer a VGA cable that is blue one to a HDMI cable. In one classroom out of five, the screen is very dark with VGA cable. I have to use HDMI cable for that classroom. Sometimes the display is shut down because of bad connection of HDMI, I have to tap several times the plug of HDMI. For other four classrooms, VGA cable works well.

Actually, I have got another problem with HDMI cable. That is the HDMI cable does not convey audio from my computer to the classroom system. I need to use another cable for audio because of this problem.

3. Cable for Audio Data

Since I had known the problem about audio, I brought an audio cable from Japan when I came back here in the end of February. The cable has the stereo plug of 3.5mm on one end and the monaural plug of 3.5mm on the other. I use this cable in three classrooms. There is no problem about bad connection between plug and jack. In one classroom, I don’t need the cable because it is conversation class in which I say everything. But in one class of listening course, the jack for microphone is of 6.5mm. The jack of my cable doesn’t fit because it is 3.5mm. In order to solve the problem, I made by myself a device of speaker and amplifier in the winter break and brought it. Now I am thinking about buying an adapter between 6.5mm and 3.5mm monaural jacks in summer break in Japan.

The things above may seem to be tiny things. But for me, it is important to teach effectively in classroom. And I think that the university has to supervise these kinds of outsourcing works that the university contracted. For example, a thorough inspection must be done before payment whether or not the contractor has completed the tasks with required quality and quantities as specified in the contract documents.

Is that so Difficult word? “Isogashii” means “Busy”

Today is the thirty-eighth day of the spring semester 2024. Since today is Thursday, I have three classes to teach, although I feel even one class is enough to make me exhausted these days. One teacher (of this country) asked me to introduce some literature about tense and aspect of Japanese. I don’t have any literature of research level about such linguistic issues. This morning, I made a photocopy from a book that I have. And I brought it to his office in lunch break. Since he wasn’t there, I passed my photocopy to other teacher who shared the office.

After two classes in the afternoon, I got back my room. And then I slept half an hour on my bed. Though it already turned to be dark outside, I went to the campus super market to buy some food. I met two male students there. They were the third-year students. I had taught them when they were the second-year students. I asked them in Japanese “Isogashii desuka?” It meant like “Are you guys busy these days?” To my surprise, they didn’t understand what I asked. The adjective “Isogashii” is a word to learn during the first year. It seemed as if they had already forgot Japanese. I felt it difficult to continue to communicate them, so I said good-bye to them. It looked like they were still talking each other about what the word “isogashii” was. It was a funny moment.

Splashed Black Toner and Water Supply Stop

Today is the thirty-seventh day of the spring semester 2024. I went to the administrative building in the morning. I wanted to print answer sheets for a quiz that I would assign in the class tomorrow. When I got to the teacher’s room, one teacher (of this country) was cleaning a toner cartridge with paper tissue. He said he shook the toner cartridge. I saw the toner, or black powder were splashed everywhere; inside and around the cartridge, inside printer, and the table.

At a glance, I got to know that I couldn’t use that printer today. It seemed like that toner cartridge was not a genuine product. Every time I use the printer, I get dirty printed matters with a lot of black spots. I worry that it will be a huge problem when teachers submit the original papers of the final examination because of the bad quality of toner cartridge. I told this issue to the chief. But I am not sure if or not the problem will be solved by the 11th week when is the deadline for submission. Since I needed at least one copy of quiz answer sheets, I went to the international exchange room and asked for a help. I got one sheet of the paper and made 13 photocopies in another room. That was my morning hours today.

I had been just making PPT slides for tomorrow class all afternoon. In the evening, water supply stopped for a while. Luckily enough, I had already finished cooking my supper when water stopped. Though I wanted to wash my hands before eating, I ate my supper without washing. I also ate green beans heated by microwave, not with QP mayonnaise from Japan but vinegar I bought here. Since I have eaten all the green beans that I bought last Saturday, the next time I can eat green beans will be coming Saturday. The water supply resumed after supper, so, I didn’t have any problem for washing dishes. I think we have to be thankful if the those basic supplies of lifeline function.

Handwashing White Shirts with “Utamaro”

Today is the thirty-sixth day of the spring semester 2024. I have one class before noon. That is for the first-year students. I made them “chorus repeat” before the pair activity of the day. Their voice in Japanese sounded good, but I thought that good students speak loudly, and no-so-good students speak in small voice. When they said an I-adjective predicate in past-negative, I could hear that some voices saying “Oishiikunakkata”. It must be “Oishikunakatta”. It may seem to be a small difference in written alphabet, but for the ears of native speaker, it is very different. “Oishiiku” has two possibilities; the one is that a student doesn’t understand conjugation of I-adjectives, the other is that a student has tendency to elongate vowels.

Usually, I cannot do anything in Tuesday afternoon because I keep working through the weekend. Today, too, I didn’t want to do anything, But, before taking nap, I handwashed two white shirts. There is a washing machine in my room. The university provides the machines to foreign teachers. The machine has the major German company’s name on top. And it amazingly uses less water comparing to washing machines of Japanese companies. Probably the design philosophy must be quite different between German and Japanese electric appliances manufactures. But one thing is common to both; washing machines cannot get rid of dirt on the collar of white shirts. I mean the inside of collar that neck touches. That is the part that can be most dirty on a white shirt, and the second is inside of cuff.

If I wash white shirts only by washing machine, collar and cuffs continue to be dirty. There is a good way; handwashing. I brought a soap from Japan, which is exclusively for handwashing. Its name is “Utamaro” having green color and nice fragrance. In this afternoon, I washed white shirts by my hands using “Utamaro”. I’d say it’s fun because I can do what a washing machine can’t. Of course I couldn’t make it perfectly white, but dirty collar and cuffs did amazingly become white.

Not only white shirts, I handwashed a cotton hat recently. “Utamaro” made a little old and dirty hat clean. The hat is light and has bright color suitable to the spring season. Walking outside with that hat on my head makes me feel good. So, if I had time to do so,,,,,,

Pair Activities in Conversation Class

Today is the thirty-fifth day of the spring semester 2024. I have three classes; the two for the second-year students and the one for the first -year students. I made my students do a pair-work in the latter that is conversation course. Actually, this activity is a kind of preparation for the final examination. I told this to the students so that they would do the activity seriously. Now it is the one-third point of the semester. I am planning the same activity at the two-third point.

The procedure of the activity is as follows;

1. Teacher’s explanation

2. Collecting students’ mobile phones

3. Showing a rough script that has many blanks

4. Drafting a script by students

5. Returning mobile phones

6. Recording conversation by the pairs

7. Sending the audio data to the teacher

The reason to do “2.” is to stop students’ use of translation software on mobile phone.

The activity was done at the end of the class. Time was only 30 minutes. I have got some knowledge for the testing procedure through this pair activities of conversation. Today, I don’t have time to write about the result, and I haven’t evaluated 14 audio data yet. I will listen to the audio data and use them as individualized instruction for each pair and each student.

Friday Classes on Sunday

Today is the thirty-fourth day of the spring semester 2024. Today is not weekend for me, but a working day. I taught one class in the morning. Actually. After the class, I went to the teacher’s room to print quiz answer sheets. I came back my room a little after 10 o’clock. I had been working in my room to make PPT slides for tomorrow class. Probably I took a nap from 2 to 3 in the afternoon. Then I made a test for the first-year students. Its purpose is to measure how students learned from my instruction in the first one third of this semester. I needed to print the test paper, but it was already 5 p.m. when I finished making it. I decided to print it tomorrow morning. I cooked my supper from 6 to 7 p.m. Tonight, too, I ate green beans for my supper but not with mayonnaise but with vinegar that I bought yesterday. Mayonnaise is the best, but vinegar is not so bad.

Green Beans, 2 minutes 40 seconds in Microwave

These days, I eat green beans in every supper. Green beans are called in Japan “Ingen” because green beans were said to have been brought by Zen-master Ingen. I think that the best way is to boil and eat them with mayonnaise. But the difficult part of cooking is boiling. If you boil green beans too long, they become too soft. If you boil them too short, they are still hard to chew. It is difficult to control boiling minutes when you are cooking other menus simultaneously. I had often boiled green beans many minutes and made them too soft in the past.

My solution is to heat them by microwave. I set the heating time to be 2 minutes and 40 seconds. So far, I think this heating time is the best. Tonight too, I cooked green beans with microwave and ate them with mayonnaise.

My new concern is that now the mayonnaise is almost running out. I brought a small amount of QP mayonnaise from Japan. I should have brought it more, but I can do nothing about it now. I would like to say loudly that it is a sheer precious happiness if you can eat your salad and/or boiled vegetables with mayonnaise.

Always with Passport

Today is the thirty-second day of the spring semester 2024, and happens to be the second day of spring holidays. Still, I continue to work. I recorded my voice to make it part of the final examination for the listening course. There are two problems with recording; noise and reverberation. Of course, these must be minimized for the listening materials in the exam.

If I could record by the built-in microphone of my computer, it would make editing easier. But a certain level of noise is recorded in this way. The noise comes from the fan to cool down the computer. It is impossible to stop the fan during recording. I think I should have brought the noise cancelling microphone that I had used in my on-line classes during the pandemic. In order to record with less noise, I recorded by my mobile phone. The mobile phone doesn’t have a fan to cool. Probably sound quality is not so good. And I have to change the audio data format from m4a to mp3 when transferring from mobile phone to my computer.

The next problem is reverberation. My room has concrete walls. The walls make reverberation on my voice with echo. This problem also didn’t happen when I was in Japan, because there was no concrete wall in my room of traditional Japanese house. What I did in this morning was that I recorded my voice under the futon. On the bed, I put the futon on me, or I’d say I got into under the futon. Reading a book with a flashlight, I recorded my voice with a mobile phone. I felt less oxygen.

I always try to solve these technical issues that I get while working. No one knows it, no increase of salary because of it.

I finished recording and editing by 10 a.m., though it was just about 10 percent of recordings for the entire examination. Then I started making the PPT presentation for Sunday class. Of course, Sunday is usually weekend, but today (Friday)’s classes were rescheduled on Sunday. Thursday classes were not rescheduled, they were simply cancelled. I have three classes on Thursday and one class on Friday. So, no-rescheduling Thursday and rescheduling only Friday do help me.

I didn’t take a lunch, and I went outside in the afternoon. I wanted to go shopping in the grocery store where I go every Saturday. Today is Friday, one day earlier, but I wanted to go there because it is not good for my health if I just stay in my room all day. When I got to the campus gate, still I was inside, I remembered I didn’t bring my passport. If a foreigner doesn’t carry his/her passport, it will result in punishment. I have hardly seen any police officers on the way to that grocery store so far. I don’t think it is likely to be asked ID card by police officers. Having said that, I worried the worst case. So, I gave up going outside campus.

Instead of going back the same way, I turned to the campus cafeteria. It was afternoon and already late for lunch, but I ordered “Ramen”. I can usually get a discount for teachers in that noodle shop. But the guy there told me something that I could not understand. Probably he said that the card reader for teacher didn’t work, so I had to pay by students’ card reader. I put my card on students’ card reader and paid normal charge without discount. I just wanted “Ramen”, but he charged me “Beef ramen”. Of course, the latter’s price was higher. But what I got by the different price was just two or three of very small pieces of beef. It was already 2:30 in the afternoon and noodle was much in volume. I didn’t cook my supper tonight.

On the way to my room, I bought 12 litter of bottled water. I slept in late afternoon for two hours. The long hours of nap mean that I was tired. By 10 p.m. I completed PPT slides and other preparation for Sunday class. I started another PPT making for Monday class, but I gave up continuing work tonight.

I checked the pedometer on my mobile phone. Today I walked 3982 steps that are not enough for healthy daily life. Steps a day should be more than 8000. Actually, I feel I am losing my muscle on my body because I have been working all the time, sitting at desk for these five years. I want my body get my muscle back and healthy life style.

Working in Spring Holidays, while my Students are Having Fun

Today is the thirty-first day of the spring semester 2024, if I count days correctly. This Thursday and Friday are holidays here. This is a good chance for me to prepare for the final examination. Usually, I make questions and answer sheets during winter or summer breaks before the semesters. But there were a lot of documentation tasks in the winter break, I could not make materials for the final examination of this spring semester. The question-and-answer sheets are required to submit to the university in the 11th week of the semester. So, now is the time to prepare for it in addition to daily preparation for ongoing classes.

I haven’t been outside today. I thought I’d better to walk outside for my physical and mental health, but I missed a chance in afternoon. When I looked at “Moments” of Wechat, I found many photo images in which many students were having fun. Some of them were in sightseeing spots, some were even in abroad.

I have been making questions and answers for the examination of the listening course all day today. I wanted to write “Your Laoshi is hard working even in holidays” on Dingtalk. But it has nothing to do with my students. So, I didn’t write a such complaint on where the students could see. Now I am writing my complaint here.

Good-bye to the Fourth-year Students

From the year 2020, I have been using Dingtalk. It is a kind of Social Networking Service. A user can communicate with members such as sending messages and talking on videophone. Dingtalk seems to be a suitable platform for company managing. Thanks to such trait that it works well for an organization like a company, it is also good for me as a teacher to carry out on-line teaching. Now I teach students in classroom. On-line teaching is no longer needed. But I still use Dingtalk. And I have made new groups of the second-year and first-year students’ groups to communicate with them. It is useful for me to give instructions, homework assignments, and feedback.

I make one group for one class. There are two classes in one grade, so, two Dingtalk groups for one grade. Counting the years, I’ve just found that the current first-year students are of the seventh year, or the seventh grade. Under the condition that I use Dingtalk, I can register up to 500 students in my group. So, if I keep the groups and continue to have all the students, someday, the number of members is going to reach the upper limit and not be able to register a new member. Besides, many students stop visiting my group after his/her graduation. Therefore, I delete the groups of fourth-year students at the beginning of April every year. Although the graduation ceremony is in June or July, I am a Japanese, April 1st is the starting day of a new school year.

Today is April 3rd, I don’t have any class, so I implemented the deletions of fourth-year students’ groups. There are still students who frequently visit the upper group of my Dingtalk organization. Some are important person who represent the class. I moved such students to another group for alumni. To be honest, selecting a student to move is depending on my preference to some extent. I glanced the name list and decided who to move and who to delete. But there are several students whom I could not make decision easily to keep or delete. One student was excellent and communicated more often than other students. I was at a loss about her. The last message was on December 2022, that meant there was no communication in 2023. I sent the last message to say good-bye and QR code to rejoin my group.

Finishing moving some students from the fourth-year students’ group to the alumni group, I deleted the groups of two classes. In most case, there will be no communication with students after their graduation. Even if I keep them in the alumni group, four fifth don’t come to see the messages. It is sad to say, but relationships between students and a teacher don’t last long. But there are also students, one fifth in the alumni group, who come to see my messages. I want to continue to communicate with them.

I finished these things in morning hours. And I found that that student has read my last message. Dingtalk has a function that displays if a message you sent has been read or unread. There had been no direct communication with her more than a year, but she opened my message at once. I regret what I have done. I should have added her into the alumni group. That was a thing that I could do with two or three clicks. On the contrary, if I delete her, I should have done it without saying anything. Perhaps leaving the last message simply hurt her feeling. I am really sorry for her.