カテゴリー: 宿題

Date: July 3rd on Friday, 2020 from 8:00 to 9:30 (9:00 – 10:30 in JST)

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Streaming of Dingtalk to show PPT presentation.

Numbers of Students:

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

  – Attendance check by the submission of 60-question quiz at the end of the class: 23 

Class Activities:

 – Almost identical to the composition class on Tuesday for the class 1836. What was learned during the first and the second semesters were reviewed in the form of quiz with each having four selections.

(1) Speech/writing style of Japanese

 Japanese speech/writing style varies from situation to situation. You use honorifics to elderlies and teachers, polite expressions in public,  and casual expressions to your friends. Foreign Japanese learners often speak and write Japanese with mixing those different speech style. Further more, writing Japanese has clear distinction between “desu-masu” style and “Da-dearu” style. “Desu-masu” is also used in spoken Japanese but “Da-dearu” is usually only for writing.         

(2) “Da-Dearu” writing style for composition.

 So the important thing for the students to learn is that they learn to use another type of Japanese language style that is different from what they usually learn in their textbook. This has been continuing to be a quite big issue in the composition classes. Many students were sticking to “Desu-masu” even if I told them to write in “Da-dearu”. It seems that changes in language style to adapt the situation are beyonf imagination to the students. In order to measure how well or bad he/she operates “Da-dearu” style writing, all the parameters were taken into the quiz;

Past/non-past for tense, Positive/negative, and four predicates: Noun, Na-adjective, I-adjective, and Verb predicate sentences. 

And several sentences ending with auxiliary verbs were added. Those were of conjugation type of I-adjectives (ex. -tai) or Na-adjective (ex. -youda)        

(3) Proper uses of conjunctive particles

It is so important to learn many conjunctive particles in order to write a complex sentences. But most students can use only “-kara” and “-te/de”. Several other conjunctive particles were examined if the students could choose them.   

(4) Sentence ending to describe changes in time sequence

Expressions “te-iru”, “te-kita”, and “te-iku+guess” were reviewed.

 

 Homework:

  – No HWA.

Issues and Problems:

 The first class that I had as a Japanese teacher in university was the one for this composition class for 1837 class. Through the first and second semeters, I have learned a lot of things. I know that I haven’t had enough experience to teach Japanese language yet.   

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

<This was a supplementary class on irregular time>

Course: Japanese Basic Composition 2

Used app: Video Conference on DingTalk. BBS was supplementary used to show PNG images that was the instruction for procedures of 1-minute speech and QA session.

Numbers of Students: 28

 – 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: 25

Class Activities:

  Each student made his/her one minute speech about tourism in a particular prefecture in Japan. This was done in the order of student ID number.

  There were question and answer times for each speech when it was ended. A student to ask a question was assigned randomly so that other students would try to listen to the speech. It is important to know how to ask a question in a conference where many people are gathering. So the teacher instructed the students at the beginning of the class about how to make a question in a conference.  

  The teacher controlled the progression of speeches. In order to give every students chances to speak, the time that one student could spend was getting shorter and shorter towards the end.

Homework:

No HWA

Issues and Problems:

 Most of students wouldn’t like to listen to other students’ speech. So I assigned a questioner randomly. All the students just made the same question that I prepared for them as examples. Some questioning students didn’t know what prefecture was talked. I should have recorded such an incident and reduced his/her score for grading.    

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. 

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.

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.     

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:

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Issues and Problems: