投稿者: liangzhilaoshi

Strawberry in the Garden: So Sour

Several photographs that I took on Sunday.

Nothing has to do with the black bird, but you know, the new writing system of wordpress is not easy to use. Do I need to got used to this? I am not sure how I can insert HTML code by hand?

And the response of the system is a little slow.

I want the old writing system to back. This is quite difficult to handle.

I forgot to attach this photo onto the initial version of this post.

Okay this is today’s photo that was taken in the garden.

Many of strawberry was already eaten by ants.

Taste? It was just sour. The quality was not that good,, you know, not as good as strawberry on the shelves of grocery store. But strawberry is strawberry.

Uh…, it is quite difficult to continue to write. Let me stop writing. It seems that it will take a time for me to be acquainted to the new system. To be old sometimes means that it would be difficult to learn a new thing.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on Jun.1, 2020

Date: June 1st 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 57 slides

Numbers of Students: 23 out of 28. 5 students were recorded as completely absent.

Fully attendant for 90min : 17

Shorter signing-in: 85, 77, 35, 7, and 1 minutes.

Responses onto the BBS:

– Attendance check by a student his/herself: 25. However, three of the 25 were recorded as completely absent by the system. One student came late and stayed shorter times.

– 1st Quiz: 17 students responded. This was simply to ask two particles to make a passive sentence.

– 2nd Quiz: 18 students responded. This was to measure how well the students understand the conversation of Min’nano Nihongo section 37.

– 3rd Quiz: 21 students responded. This was to measure if or not the students understand a conjunctive particle “-noni” that indicated surprise and/or disappointment. No student got the right answer.

– Attendance check at the end: 20 students responded. This was to distinguish a passive sentence and honorable sentence with both using “reru/rareru”.

Teaching: 

– Review of passive sentences. The four types were discussed with rote exercise ogf passive form of verbs.

-Many activities including passive sentences and conjunctive particle “-noni”.

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

– Three 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:

<No time to write about it, right now>

Online Teaching for Class 1939 (Listening) on Jun. 1, 2020

Date: June 1 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 63 slides

Numbers of Students: 27

26 students stayed with me from the start to the end. One student was recorded for his?her? shorter watching that was 80 minutes.

Students’ Responses:

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

– Connection Check: 26 students answered. Quiz during the class was used to be done on BBS before. But quiz was done in the form of so-called “5-question quiz” in this class as done in the composition class for the second grade students. BBS was used only once during the class in order to check the connection between me and the students.

Teaching:

1: Basics of Japanese grammar

– Adjectives and intransitive verbs that can be used in “Wa-ga construction” in order to avoid a terrible fossilization of misunderstanding that the first particle is “-wa” and the second “-ga”.

2: Review of the last class

– Review of “V-nai de kudasai” and listening exercise using textbook material.

3: Exercise III and IV of the section 21 of the textbook

– Paying attentions to the difference between Intransitive verbs and transitive verbs.

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

– I was ill-prepared for Exercise IV of the section 21. And it was not good to skip Exercise III on the way but to come back to it again because of poor time control.

 

I Forgot to Bring a Face Mask but Went into Supermarket.

I have been just in home and doing online teaching things for so long. The only chance for me to go outside world is to take a walk or go to nearby supermarket. Last Sunday, I wanted to do both, but I forgot a face mask. So I just took a walk and went back to my house without going shopping. Today, too, I wanted to take a walk and go shopping.

Before leaving home, I took photos of green fruits in the garden.

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This is a Silver berry that is one of three hanging. I don’t think this will be good to eat. It will probably be ornamental accessory in the room.

 

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I reduced the number of apple “Kougyoku”. Only three remain hanging on the tree because the tree is too small to grow many apples.

 

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Peaches are becoming bigger and bigger. When it comes to reduce the number, I actually reduced too many for peach trees. But it would be okay because the number is not an issue for gardening in a small places. Anyway I left home for a walk after taking these photos.

 

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Flowers on road side.

 

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While I was taking photos, a farmer lady talked to me, saying I should take a good picture of Mountain Yahiko.

 

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So this is Mountain Yahiko. I would like to erase the utility poles and electric cables.

 

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Flowers just by the asphalt pavement.

 

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This is a kind of ornamental flowers, however, it still looks like a wild plant. Many people don’t think this is ornamental. But actually I like these kind of natural plants rather than plants that got too much improvement.

 

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Many people don’t like them. But they are also doing their best to survive.

Taking pictures by my digital camera, and then I went to a supermarket. I looked at people’s faces. And I realized that I forgot to bring a face mask. I thought I should get out of there. But I wanted to buy some food for my supper. I continued shopping with talking by myself “Sumimasen (I am sorry)”, but in that situation, it would have been better not to speak anything if I don’t put a mask on my face.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Conversation) on May 29, 2020

Date: May 29th on Friday, 2020 from 13:40 to 15:10 (14:40 – 16:10 in JST)

Course: Japanese Conversation 4

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 59 slides

Numbers of Students: 25 of 28, 3 were recorded as completely absent by the system.

Fully attendant for 90min : 21

Shorter signing-in: 12, 7, 2 minutes, and 29 seconds. Those who were recorded for their short participation sometimes sent 5-question quiz answer. Probably they are running other applications on their computer while the online class is ongoing.

Responses onto the BBS:

– Attendance check by a student his/herself : 26 students input “Shusseki” onto BBS. One of the 26 was actually recorded, by the system, as completely absent.

– 1st Quiz: 24 students responded. The quiz was to find a passive sentence that was correctly converted from an active sentence with four selections. Everyone got the right answer.

– 2nd Quiz: 23 students responded. The question was to find a difference of types of conjunctive particles (c.p.). Four sentences were shown to the students; three were using c.p.s that were contradictory to expectation,  one was using c.p. that was conforming expectation. The students were asked to choose the latter one. But all the students got the wrong answer. That meant the students had not got the concept of two types of conjunctive particles correctly yet; one is used when the main clause is conforming the preceding clause, the other is used when the main clause is contradictory to the preceding clause.

– 3rd Quiz: 23 students responded. The question was to check if the students understand the conversation that was of Section 37 of “Min’nano Nihongo”.

– Attendance check at the end: 21 students responded. Students were asked to compose a passive sentence from their own experience in which he/she was damaged by someone or something.

Teaching: 

– Basic concepts of Japanese passive sentences. Four types were explained.

– Exercise using the textbook.

– Listening activity using script that contained passive sentences. The convesation “Kinkakuji-wa….” in section 37 of “Minnano Nihongo” was used.

– One sentence composition at the end of the class

Homework Assignment:

– Short test of section 13 that is about passive sentences.

– Four students were asked to send a mp3 or m4a sound data by speaking the script of conversation of two part time job workers; Park-san and Chin-san that was in Dekiru Nihongo (yellow).

Issues and Problems:

Many students wrote passive sentences using intransitive verbs. It is fact that intransitive verbs also can be used for passive sentences in Japanese. However, I think that the passive sentence using transitive verbs should be prioritized in order to understand the concept of passive sentences. It seems that Japanese textbooks in this country are just trying dealing with everything about grammar. The textbook writers don’t care about what is basic or detail, what is useful to the students in practical sense, what teaching order helps student understand and so on.

Just only for “Posting Everyday”, Pictures taken on May 28

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I taught two classes today. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t go outside for a walk today. I just pulled weeds in the garden a little while after the afternoon class.

These photos were taken yesterday. I think things around here look beautiful probably because this place is where I was born and raised. When I was young I just thought about get out of my hometown. But things and I myself had changed from those years. I live here now because of corona virus pandemic. I cannot go back to my university right now, so I am doing online teaching on the internet. I will leave here for my job when things get better. I don’t know my future, but if it’s possible, I want to come back here when I retire from the job.

Online Teaching for Class 1837 (Composition) on May 29, 2020

Date: May 29th on Friday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 59 slides

Numbers of Students: 25 out of 28

90 minutes attendance: 22 students

Shorter attendances: 76, 18, and one student was recorded as completely absent by the system.

completely absent: 3 students. The system record says that four students didn’t watch the streaming at all. However, one student sent me 5-questions quiz which means he listened to my class. It is possible that someone helps him, but a guy who is likely to help him was completely absent today. Therefore, I guess this student listened to my class and sent 5-question quiz answer by himself.

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check: 27. Of the 27, three students were recorded that they didn’t watch the streaming. One student sent me the 5-question quiz answer, while two sent nothing. This is why I think there were 25 students in today’s class.

5-question quiz took a place of quiz by answering on BBS. What I call 5-question quiz is  that I ask the students to write their answers onto a sheet of paper during the class and then, right after the class, the students sent 5 answers to me.

Today too, I did this 5-question quiz. However, I wanted to confirm if the students were really connected or not, I asked the students to input A, B, or C onto BBS in the middle of the class once. A meant “I live in a city”, B meant “I live in a countryside”, and C meant “I live in a remote area”.

Teaching:

Teachings were almost identical to the class for 1836 on Tuesday.

Homework:

Homework assignment was also almost identical to what was assigned for class 1836.

Issues and Problems:

I have got a problem with this composition class for sophomore students. Actually I don’t have enough resource to teach under current circumstance. Even I don’t have the designated textbook. I think I can continue the class with writing a paper for tourism. But other than that, how I continue to teach until the end of semester? This is a quite serious issue.

An Isolated Blog has got a lot of Pictures, May 28

I got clear sky near the end of May in Niigata. I don’t have any online Japanese class on Thursday. No class and fine weather mean that I need to take a walk.

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Two mountains behind are Mt. Yahiko and Mt. Kakuda. Roughly Mt.Yahiko is 600 meter  and Mt.Kakuda is 400 meter in height.

 

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Believe me. I am not a railway geek.

 

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Fill the rice field with fresh water! It makes me feel good to see water is splashing and streaming.

 

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By the way, Niigata is a land of paddy rice. So wheat growing is very rare.

 

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Mt.Sugana-dake, a local train, and black bird. The sharp peak is impressive, but it is not the peak of Mt. Sugana-dake. I guess, not-sharp, a gentle peak in right is the real peak of the mountain.

 

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This is a kind of magic by telephoto lens.

 

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White flowers of clover. This time I didn’t forget to bring a face mask. So I could go to a nearby supermarket to buy some food for my supper.

I have other pictures taken on Sunday, May 24

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Today is May 27, Wednesday. I have done a listening class for the first grade in the morning. Actually, I didn’t sleep on a bed yesterday. Since I had been preparing for the class through the night, I slept on the hard tatami mat just for a several hours. If I felt good during the day, I would like to work in the garden to take a care of vegetables that the neighbor planted for me. But I didn’t feel well today. And it started raining in the afternoon. I wanted to take a walk and go shopping, but because of rain, I decided to stay home. The state of emergency has already been lifted here, so it is no problem to go outside now, but still I need to put a face mask when I go to shopping.

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

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

Course: Japanese Listening 2

Used app: Streaming on DingTalk, Presentation by Powerpoint with 68 slides

Numbers of Students: 27

25 student stayed with me from the start to the end. Two students were recorded for their shorter signing-in; 80 and 59 minutes.

Students’ Responses:

– Attendance Check : 26 students typed his/her attendance on BBS. One came late.

– Quiz was done in a different way. As in the composition class for second grade, a student wrote his/her answers on a sheet of paper for five questions.  And then the students sent five answers in Alphabet right after the class. This time I don’t have enough time to write five questions and answers here.

Teaching:

1: Basics of Japanese grammar

– Review of adjectives’ functions as noun modifier, predicates, and adverbials

2: Review of the section 20 of the textbook.

– “-kara” initiates the second action by the finishing of the first action.

3: Listening activities using the textbook

– Task 1 and 2 of the section 21 of the textbook. Particles “-ni” and “-de” were explained to do Mondai-II.

Homework Assignment:

– No homework was assigned.

Issues and Problems:

– 5-question quiz was done in a different way for the first time. Therefore the some minor troubles had happened when we were trying question number one. However, this 5-question quiz gave me some useful information about how much a student understand well. The old way, that was iuput on pop-up message window, was good to know quick reaction of the students, but was not good to know individual student’s performance because most of the student input the same answer as the first and second students input. In the new way, it is likely that some students are talking on a phone each other to share their answers. There is no perfect way, but I should have applied this method more earlier. Now, two thirds of the semester has gone.