タグ: English

Date: April 10th 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 57 slides

Numbers of Students: 26 out of 28

90 minutes attendance: 19 students

Shorter participation: 71, 48, 35, 35, 33, 4minutes, and the shortest was 52 seconds.

completely absence: 2 students

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check: 28. But two students were recorded as “Completely Absent” on the system.

Quiz 1 through 5: Students were asked to submit 5 answers in the form of text right after the class. Only 18 students sent me the answers. 9 students got 5 points and 9students got 4 points.

Teaching:

The same as composition class for 1836 on Tuesday. I wanted to change PPT slides for  part of the feedback because it used class 1836 students’ compositions. For this 1837 class, I might have changed that part from 1836’s  to 1837’s. However, I knew that I could not spend much minutes for the feedback, I just left that part. As I predicted, I couldn’t spend much time for that part in the class.

Homework:

The same as composition class for 1836 on Tuesday. That was to write the second draft of advertisement of home electric appliance and to fill the quiz sheet with appropriate particles. I gave 1837 students a feedback a little for the quiz sheet. Even though I warned about use of Wa-ga in the class, still many of 1836 students filled the blanks with wa and ga in this order.

Issues and Problems:

The issue is how to check students’ participation during the class.

In other classes for listening and conversation, I ask students to write an answer on BBS for quiz during the class. This is to check their participation on the way of class because some students just leave a comment of “attendance” at the beginning and then leave the online class. This way of quiz and answering gives responses from the students to me instantly. However, there is a problem that most of students just type the same answer as first and second answers that are answered by the top level students. So, this can be a check for participation, but doesn’t work for quiz that should make students think of the right answer by themselves.

Last week and this week I took another method for checking in composition class. I asked student to have a sheet of paper with numbering 1 through 5. I gave them five questions during the class. And at the end of the class, I asked them not to write the answers on BBS but to send them to me as an individual message. In this way, students would not refer to other students answers unless they contact each other. But this way also has a defect that I cannot get an immediate responses from students.

Maybe it would be better to combine two methods, but I am afraid that that would be confusing for students which to write an answer on BBS or a sheet of paper. I am just trying to figure out the best way. Perhaps it would be case by case basis.

Date: April 7th 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 84 slides

Numbers of Students: 28

25 students participated for whole 90 minutes.

2 students were recorded for their short attendances: 75, 22 minutes

1 students was completely absent.

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check by reporting his/her-selves: 27.

Five quiz were assigned during class. Students sent the answers to me right after the class. Only 21 of 27 students did so. 5pt by 13 St, 4pt by 5, 3pt by 2, 2pt by 1 student.

Teaching:

1st half:

– Caution about over-generalization of “Wa-ga construction”

– Feedback of proofreading and corrections on the first draft of “Ad for a home electric appliance”

2nd half:

– Review for the last class about inconsistencies between beginning and ending of a sentence.

– Connecting two clauses in order to write a longer sentence.

Homework:

1:Writing the second draft of a new product of electric appliance for family use.

2: Filling the blanks with particles in conjunction with a verb.

Issues and Problems:

The number of PPT slides were too many. It means my wasting time for preparation. I know that I could save my time if I measure the minutes and second for each slide and sum up those times with number of slides. This means that a rehearsal is needed. Even if a rehearsal takes time, it could be shorten total hours for preparation time. I know this, but I feel it difficult to do rehearsal when time is ticking before the class.

Since I give students a homework assignment of second drafting, I have to send the first draft back to students. But I haven’t finished proofreading yet. I apologized for the delay on BBS.

Date: April 3rd 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 57 slides

Numbers of Students: 24 out of 28

90 minutes attendance: 17 students

Shorter participation: 85, 80, 72, 72, 70, 58, 10 minutes

completely absence: 4 students

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check: 26. But of the 26, two students were recorded as “Completely Absent” on the system.

Quiz 1 through 5: Students were asked to submit 5 answers in the form of text right after the class. Only 18 students sent me the answers.

5 point ; 2 students, 4 point; 15 students, and 3 points by one student. Many students made an error by over-generalizing of “Wa-ga construction”. That’s why I wrote the issue of “Wa-ga construction” on post on Tuesday for class 1836.

Teaching:

The same as composition class for 1836 on Tuesday. However, I changed some slides.  I replaced 1836 students composition to 1837’s in the feedback session.

Homework:

The same as composition class for 1836 on Tuesday.

Issues and Problems:

The same problem of over generalizing of “Wa-ga construction” was even worse in this class 1837.

When I prepared for a question for this composition class, I found that auxiliary verb “-souda” could be used in the past tense sentence. Last week I told 1837 students in conversation class, that guessing “-souda” was used for present and future. To be exact, I should have told that guessing “-souda” was for future side from talking point on the time sequence. And talking point could be in past.  This matter necessitated some additional slides for conversation class in the afternoon.

Date: March 31th 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 55 slides

Numbers of Students: 28

24 students participated for whole 90 minutes.

3 students exhibited short attendances: 81, 52, 25 minutes

1 students was totally absent.

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check by reporting his/her-selves: 27.

Five quiz were assigned during class. Students sent the answers to me right after the class. Only 18 of 27 students did so.

Teaching:

1st half: Feedback of proofreading and corrections of the second draft of “My Winter Break”

2nd half: Feedback of quiz that was done in the last class. The quiz was mainly focused on Tense/Aspect issue of Japanese sentences. One of ways for draft correction was also taught in the class. That focused on inconsistency between start and ending of a sentence.

Homework:

300 letters advertisement for a new product of electric appliance for family use. A sample as below was shown to the students.

Issues and Problems:

I found a huge issue about “Wa-ga construction”. Students always over-generalize “Wa-ga construction” for the sentences which are actually not suitable for using this particular construction. This is because Japanese textbooks in this country always impress learners as if “Wa-ga construction” were an important basic of Japanese.

There is a simple reason why “Wa-ga construction” is thought to be important. “Wa-ga construction” is, as indicated by the name, structural. It has the structure of word order with the theme, a subject, and predicate. It is simple and easy to understand because there is no need to analyze words functions that are specified by several kinds of particles. There are only two particles in “Wa-ga construction”; “-wa” and “-ga”. Since these two are used for theme and subject, it is not necessary for a learner to think about what function each word has in a sentence. For other sentences that are not “Wa-ga construction”, students need to analyze words’ functions through several particles in conjunction with verb.

It is easy to understand, so students stick to “Wa-ga construction” and then come to think it is important. But I think it is more important for Japanese learner to learn particles and their functions. I think I need to stop students’ over-generalization of “Wa-ga construction” and to teach use of other particles and their functions.

Date: March 27th 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 73 slides

Numbers of Students: 28

19 students signed in whole of the 90 minutes class. 9 students had been signed in shorter than 90 minutes: 75, 74, 66, 50, 32, 7, 3minutes, 37seconds, and amazingly the shortest was 5seconds.

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check: 27. But of the 27, one student signed in late.

Q1: Definitions of the word categories “Nouns”, “Verbs”, and “Adjectives” : 18

Q2: Questions about Tense consistency in Japanese : 18 (they are all wrong answers)

Attendance Check at the End: 19

Teaching:

Feedback of proofreading and corrections

Tense-Aspect of verb predicate sentences of Japanese

Homework:

Rewriting a Composition about how the student was spending this winter break within 300 characters.

Issues and Problems:

Students are just inputting the same answer that the top student has input. If the top student input a wrong answer, all the students will make the same mistake. This was the case for the second quiz. The right  answer was 2 out of 1, 2, and 3. In the class 1836, the first student input “1”, then all the following students input the wrong answer 1″. In this class 1837, the first student input “3”, then all the following students input the wrong answer “3”.  I want each student to think about the answer by his/herself.

Date: March 24th 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 74 slides

Numbers of Students: 28

24 students stayed whole of the class which lasted 90 minutes. Four students indicate their late sign in and/or early leave (57, 65, 77, 78 minutes, respectively).

Responses to my requests like Quiz answers onto BBS:

Attendance check: 23.

Q1: Whether or not they used MS-Mincho: 17

Q2: Definitions of the word categories “Nouns”, “Verbs”, and “Adjectives” : 20

Q3: Questions about Tense consistency in Japanese : 14 (they are all wrong answers)

Attendance Check at the End: 27

Teaching:

Feedback of proofreading and corrections

Tense-Aspect of verb predicate sentences of Japanese

Homework:

Rewriting a Composition about how the student was spending this winter break within 300 characters.

Issues and Problems:

 

Date: March 20th 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 (74 slides)

Numbers of Students: Class 1837 has 28 students

24 at the beginning,  22 at the end. 28 is total. One student was completely absent from the class.Therefore 27 students participated the class. 22 students stayed for whole 90minutes, 5 students were recorded with their shorter duration; 1min!, 12min, 58min,71min, and 79min.

Responses to the “During-the-Class_Quiz”:

Q1: 18 students responded.

Q2: Correction of short sentences: 8 students suggested their corrections.

Q3: 20 responded.

Q4: A series of 5 questions at the end of class in order to check if a student had been with class through the class. 22 submitted. Some got 3 points. Class 1836 performed better than 1837.

Teaching: (it was the same as 1836 class on Tuesday)

Homework:(it was the same as 1836 class on Tuesday)

Issues and Problems:

It was obvious that PPT slides that I prepared were short for 90 minutes. So I introduced a Japanese painter Mr. Ikuo HIRAYAMA in the middle of the class. I spent more minutes for this introduction of him than in the class 1836.