タグ: English

Fatal Error on Quiz about Transitive- / Intransitive Verbs

Today is the fifteenth day of the spring semester 2024. Yesterday I gave one class of the first-year students a quiz about Japanese verbs. The quiz was to distinguish five verbs if it was a transitive or intransitive verbs. Actually, a transitive verb and an intransitive verb are different for most of the Japanese verbs even if their actions are similar. In the quiz, I showed an example, that was “Taberu (=eat)”. And I put two images; A= a person is moving him/herself to the direction of arrow, B= a person is exerting his/her force onto an object at hand. I didn’t use the terms “transitive- / intransitive verbs” because the students were still the first-year. Five verbs were; Get-up, Go, Drink, Get back, and Speak. All were basic ones.

I marked the quiz last night and found many strange answers. Many answers said “Nomu(=drink)” is an intransitive verb. Several answers even said “Iku (= go, but also with some nuance of come)” is a transitive verb. I started wondering why this could happen.

In the morning today, I brought the same quiz to another first-year student class. There are two classes in one grade. I made my students answer at the beginning of the class. Right after I got all answer sheets, one of students said that the example was incorrect. Looking at the example “Taberu (= eat)”, I found that there was a tick on the image for intransitive verb. The verb “eat” is, of course, a transitive verb. That was my fault that made my students answer a lot of funny selections about transitive- / intransitive verbs. I apologized to my students.

If I find something’s strange, the first thing I need to do is to check if it’s my fault or not, before thinking it as someone’s fault.

In order to stop my students having wrong concept about transitive- / intransitive verbs, I have already made another quiz with twenty verbs today. I will use this new quiz on Thursday and Friday classes.

Rescheduling Retest for Students who failed the Final Examination

Today is the ninth day of the spring semester. I have only one class on Tuesday. The class is of conversation course for first-year students. Actually, I repeat the same teaching as yesterday. There are two classes in one grade, I teach the same course for both classes. Like yesterday’s class, students in this class are neither acquainted to Japanese date numbering system. It is necessary to know how to say each date on calendar. But I just wondered if it’s worth remembering that date numbering system. I mean, it sounds funny if someone call the date with the same way as number, but it can be a burden for students to memorize 10 different words only for reading a date on calendar. Is it important to memorize at this stage of Japanese learning? I couldn’t find my answer.

After the class, I came back to my room. And it was almost noon. I heated miso soup that was leftover of last night. I threw udon noodle into there. That was surely an ugly lunch for a human kind, but I ate it. In order to digest the udon, the blood in my body moved to my stomach. The move reduced blood in my brain. It resulted in an hour of nap.

I went to the administrative building in the afternoon. I needed the chief’s signatures to bind test sheet of the final examination in the last semester. That was for the purpose of document keeping. Then I got back to my room and just spent hours by making Power point slides with listening to Bach’s England Suites.

Never one day finishes without trouble. I found that Friday’s retest of my subject would coincide another teacher’s class. Four students will take the test. It was difficult for me to ask a student one by one for available date and time because such students have other retests at this time of semester. I asked one student to make arrangement for date and time with other three students. He had done it for me. He and I talked in English because he was still not good at communication in Japanese. Anyway, the new schedule of retest is on Saturday. We couldn’t do it on weekday. I’d say, weekend is also working day to me.

I have to grade a lot of answer sheet of retests on coming weekend. These are examinations of Listening, reading, and business writing courses of last semester. Difficulties of a final examinations in the last semester and a retest at the beginning of the following semester are the same. That means that, if an unsuccessful student hasn’t studied hard during the winter/summer breaks, he/she will usually get even lower points in retest than in the final. I hope this won’t happen to my students.

The 3rd day of Spring Semester in 2024

   Although I don’t have any classes on Wednesday, I had to go to the administrative building in the campus. The day before I got a message from teacher (of this country). It asked me to be an interviewer to select good students for exchange international students. This university has a long relationship with a university in Japan, which is in somewhere in Kanto region. Every year a few students go to that university as international exchange students.

  These tasks always come as “short notice”. If you want someone to do something on a particular day, the notice should be given with at least two weeks advance. This is a common practice in Japan, I believe. Telling a task one day before just mean that the telling person thinks he/she is superior to the person who was given that task.

   As soon as I got up from the bed, I started making a list of questions and scoring standard. Once I had become an interviewer for job interview. I had never done an interview to choose a good student for international students. Making a list of questions was not so difficult. I drafted 30 questions quickly. Difficult part was making the scoring standard. Though I wanted five items for the standard, I made four items; 1. Attitude, 2. Proficiency of Japanese, 3. Knowledge, and 4. Response to difficult questions.

   I went to the office 30 minutes before. The teacher (of this country) told me there was no manual or scoring standard for the interview. I said I prepared by myself for the standard. Then he and his colleague just laughed at me.

   I was not the only interviewer. Another Japanese teacher came. Since I wanted three examiners, I asked one graduate student to join. Four female students came as interviewee; no male student. I gave my evaluation sheet to two examiners, but another Japanese teacher looked a little bit dissatisfied with four items that I put in the standard. I made them quickly in the morning. I also think the items for evaluation need to be enhanced. I will make them better if there is another chance to be an interviewer in the future.

   After the interview, I came back my room at 3:30 p.m. I scored quizzes that I gave the first-year student. I completed scoring only one class before supper. One class is left. After supper I had been making PPT of listening course for second-year students until the time I went to bed.

I work all the time except eating and sleeping.

The 1st day of Spring Semester in 2024

I am a native Japanese speaker, teaching Japanese in the foreign language department in a university. Today (actually yesterday) March 4th was the first day of the second semester of school year 2023-2024.

   I taught three classes today. Two was listening course for two classes of second year students, and one was conversation course for one class of first year students.

   Since we Japanese teachers had been assigned a lot of documentation tasks during winter break, I couldn’t start teaching with textbook materials for listening class. I was ill-prepared for the class. I just did a feedback thing of the last semester.

For these four years, I had been teaching second- and third-year students only. But this time I have got an opportunity to teach first year students. Actually, I am not good at so-called “teacher talk” that is a speaking style for foreign language learners to understand easily. I need to practice teacher talk rather than relying on my poor English.

In order to know the level of the first-year students, I gave them a small quiz at the beginning of the conversation class. The results show that they could not learn well Japanese characters Hiragana and Katakana during the first semester. I need to think of way so that my students can write Japanese characters well.

Weekly Logs: Sep.21 – 27, 2020

Photographs on the week (Another blog of mine)

Monday, September 21
I taught two classes in the morning and in the evening as usual. In addition to the classes, I had to instruct a nominee of speech contest. I sent her my handwriting that indicate low-high accent of Japanese in red ink.in

Tuesday, September 22
I taught two classes in the morning and in the evening as usual. Both were business manner classes.

Wednesday, September 23
I worked all day except one hour from 2p.m. I went to a dentist. Thanks to national health insurance, Japanese can see a doctor with reasonable cost. I got strange feeling in my mouth because of an aesthesia.

Thursday, September 24
I taught three classes. I worked even in the night. It was almost midnight when I finished working

Friday, September 25
I lost my memory I don’t remember the day. But it was sure that I taught two classes that were conversation course for the second grade.

Saturday, September 26
I went to a morning market in Niitsu. There is one man who comes to the morning market in this time of season. He brings and sells his grapes. Unfortunately his farm couldn’t produce any “Kyoho” grape this year, though I didn’t hear the reason. He was only selling a tiny amount of “Shine Muscat”. One tray was 1,000JPY. He laid only three plastic trays of Shine Muscat on his blue-sheet. They looked clean green fruits. But I saw behind him, there were some grapes whose peel had got some stains. I asked him to sell me that brawn stained Shine Muscat by 1,000 yen. He got happy because he could sell unpopular grapes with stains on the peel surface. He put a lot on a plastic tray and sold it to me.

Sunday, September 27
I worked almost all day. But I took a walk just an hour from 3 to 4p.m. While walking I found a board as below.

I don’t think a dog can read that Japanese sentence.

Weekly Logs: Sep.14 – 20, 2020

Photographs on the week (Another blog of mine)

Monday, September 14
9:05 – 10:25 Reading for Second grade, Class F
16:25 – 17:45 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class A
The business class was about communication between colleagues.

Tuesday, September 15
8:55 – 10:15 Business Manner for Fourth grade, Class A
16:25 – 17:45 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class B
Between the two classes, I went to supermarket to buy food. And then I took a nap before the evening class that was the business class. I talked about team work in business, effectiveness on communication, and business attire.

Wednesday, September 16
I worked all day because I had to make two PPT slide shows for the conversation classes on Thursday and Friday. Since I had to teach three classes on Thursday, there was no time on Thursday to prepare for Friday.

Thursday, September 17
9:05 – 10:25 Conversation for Second grade, Class E
10:50 – 12:10 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class B
14:40 – 16:00 Conversation for Second grade, Class F
The toughest day of the week, but on that day, I was liberated from household, because my mom had gone for a travel, although I cook the meals only as household. Cooking only for me was far easier and less time consuming than cooking for two.

Friday, September 18
8:55 – 10:15 Conversation for Second grade, Class F
14:40 – 16:00 Conversation for Second grade, Class E
I wanted to go to bed earlier because it was the last weekday. But I proofread a draft of speech contest in which one of my students wanted to participate.

Saturday, September 19
I went to a supermarket in the morning hours to buy food and flowers. I wanted to offer new flowers by my father’s photograph, because my aunts and an uncle came to my house to pray. It was the time of the first autumn OHIGAN since my dad died. After they left, I went out for a walk and took some digital photos.

Sunday, September 20
I worked all day. Preparation for the classes on Monday was the only thing that I did on Sunday.

Weekly Logs: Sep.7 – 13, 2020

Photographs on the week (Another blog of mine)

Monday, September 7
9:05 – 10:25 Reading for Second grade, Class F
16:25 – 17:45 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class A

Tuesday, September 8
8:55 – 10:15 Business Manner for Fourth grade, Class A
16:25 – 17:45 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class B
Between the two classes, I went to haircut. It was only just 1,100 JPY. One customer who got haircut before me came back and claimed the finishing of his hair. At the time I had already sat on the chair in front of the mirror, but I had to stand up from the chair for him.

Wednesday, September 9
There was no class on Wednesday. I went to supermarket by walk at 10 a.m. because I wanted to do that before it got too hot. I saw a dentist at 2 p.m. Of course I kept working other than those two things.

Thursday, September 10
9:05 – 10:25 Conversation for Second grade, Class E
10:50 – 12:10 Business manner for Fourth grade, Class B
14:40 – 16:00 Conversation for Second grade, Class F
So Thursday is the toughest day of the week. Even worse was that the supplemental tests were required on this day. The test was for students who failed to pass the final examinations in the last semester. The command said that teachers had to register the scores by 4 p.m. on Monday. As was always, it is a short notice. Since I had to prepare for the PPT slides for Friday class, it was 3 a.m. in the early Friday morning when I went to bed.

Friday, September 11
8:55 – 10:15 Conversation for Second grade, Class F
14:40 – 16:00 Conversation for Second grade, Class E
I made eight students took my supplemental examination for conversation class in the last semester. I started giving test direction at 10 p.m. It was 9 p.m. for them, but it was late at night for me. All the students sent me their audio data by 11p.m.

Saturday, September 12
On Thursday morning, 10 students were absent from my conversation class because they had to take supplemental examination for computer class of the last semester. I’d say it was a bad scheduling. So I made a small session for those ten students on Saturday morning. The rest of the day was spent for making PPT slides for business manner class.

Sunday, September 13
Since the weather forecast said that a heavy rain was coming in the afternoon, I went to a branch library at 10 a.m. to return six books. On the way and way back, I took some photographs to upload onto my blog. I had been scoring the supplemental examination of composition all the afternoon.

Weekly Logs: Aug.24-30, 2020

Photographs on the week (Another blog of mine)

August 24, Monday
No memory, no record. But I am sure that I had been working all day.

August 25, Tuesday
Ditto

August 26, Wednesday
I borrowed six books in the branch library in the town. I bought two portions (?) of herrings for supper in the supermarket. It was 321 JPY. I always buy something that is not necessary when I go to a supermarket. So, on the day, I just made up my mind that I wouldn’t buy anything other than fish meat of herrings.

August 27, Thursday
In a small town in Japan, many old, or out of day, habits still remain. On Thursday, I was in charge of opening and closing the door of Garbage collecting place in the village.This role comes to each home once in two or three months. I got up a little earlier than usual and went to the garbage place at 4:40 a.m. Then I saw that someone had already brought his or her trash to the place and put them in front of the door. I heard that there was such a kind of person who brought the trash very early in the morning. Probably it was fun for him or her to make other people carry the trash to inside. And I also heard that it was almost identified who did that.
Anyway, the day was too hot to go outside. I had been in my house and continued to work for my Japanese classes all day.

August 28, Friday
I brought a document to the agricultural association. But I made a mistake on the document. It was a typo of just a one letter of Chinese character. The letter was the same pronunciation, but totally different meanings. I had to correct the character, to print it again, and to send it again to ask other’s stamps.
In the afternoon I went to dentist.

August 29, Saturday
I needed a photograph of my face. So I went to a town next to my town in the morning. I said hello at the entrance of a camera shop. The shop was open already, but no one came. A funny thing was that one family member walked into the shop by my side, but she didn’t say anything to me nor told someone that I was there. I was disappointed by that camera shop. So I got on a train and headed Niigata. I was not sure but believed that there should be a photo studio in some certain part of the Niigata. Luckily enough I found a photo studio there. I got a digital data of my face photo in my USB thumb drive. While I was waiting for the photo, I went see Shinano River.

August 30, Sunday
It is today. The classes will start tomorrow. Everyone is now in the university and will have in-person classes from tomorrow. But I am the only one who cannot be back in the campus. It is terrible that I cannot teach Japanese in the class but still I have to do online classes. I don’t like this situation.